The New Wave of CSR-Related Mainstream Accounting Research: On the Performative Effects of Literature Reviews

This commentary/reflection offers a critical analysis of four articles presenting literature reviews concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research in accounting published in North American-based or inspired accounting research journals and of the research on which they focus. This analysis is presented against the backdrop of [Gond, J.P., S. Mena, and S. Mosonyi. 2023. The performativity of literature reviewing: Constituting the corporate social responsibility literature through re-presentation and intervention. Organizational Research Methods 26, no. 2: 195–228] conceptualisation of the performative effects of literature reviews, examinations of the recent resurgence of CSR research in top-tier North American-based accounting journals offered by well-established social and environmental accounting (SEA) researchers, as well as in light of some of the many reviews on the same or similar lines of research. Whilst previous examinations of such resurgence focused on regular articles, this reflection focuses on literature reviews, which I consider a negative development in view of what they represent in terms of the self-referencing behaviour already present in the literature they review. This commentary serves the purpose of cautioning those interested in becoming acquainted with accounting research on CSR-related topics that the reviews examined should not be used as an entry point, given that they offer a rather incomplete picture of such research. Rather, they should only be used after having acquired a global view of CSR-related literature.