LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE

KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

A wiki-Webquest

Carmen-Pilar Martí-Ballester, Soledad Moya-Gutiérrez

Business Economics Department, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

Diego Prior-Jiménez

Business Economics Department, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

Keywords: WebQuest, Wiki, Social Accounting, European Credits Transfer System, Financial reports.

Abstract: This paper examines how new communication and collaboration technologies can influence university

students learning process for the area of accounting and specifically for social accounting. Students should

be able to know and understand that companies’ reports must provide not only financial but also social

information as a necessary complement to the first. Analysts are taking into consideration social issues

when valuing companies and corporate governance, human rights or environmental behaviours have

become key factors for investment decisions. In a general way, social accounting may be defined as the

framework which allows businesses to account for their impact on society. For the Institute of Social and

Ethical Accountability (1999), the terms social and ethical are taken together to refer to the organisational

and behavioural systems within the organisation, and their direct and indirect impact on organisational

activities with the stakeholders.

1 INTRODUCTION

Dodge (1997) defines a WebQuest as being a guided

research activity, in which all or a large amount of

the information that students use is obtained from

the Internet. WebQuests are designed in order for

students to make the most of the time by focusing on

using information more than looking for it, and

generating new knowledge through critical

reasoning on different levels of analysis, synthesis

and evaluation, as Dodge (2001) and Richards

(2005) suggest. The possibilities offered by the

WebQuest model in the development of student

skills and abilities has raised interest among

professors, who have implanted the method on

different educational levels and in different areas

(Donovan (2005), Sautter et al (2000) and Long and

Stevens (2004) among others) and also among

academics, who have analysed the pedagogical

advantages of using said model and the development

of its implantation process (Kanuka et al (2007),

Zheng et al (2007), Allan and Street (2007) and Lim

(2004)).

A large number of these studies coincide in

affirming that the WebQuest model can (1) promote

critical reasoning in students, as the WebQuest

activity incorporates elements of reflection to be

learned from, making it possible to compare,

contrast and synthesise knowledge to construct new

understandings; (2) facilitate the application of

knowledge, as the proposed activity is developed in

a setting that interests the students and is related

with the problems that could arise in the real world;

and (3) develop collaborative skills during the

learning process as they require students to work in

groups.

In this sense, different authors such as Johnson and

Johnson (1990), Slavin (1992) and Biggs (2003),

indicate that collaborative work generates positive

effects on the students forming a group. According

to Allan and Street (2007) collaborative work

promotes student autonomy, making them

responsible for carrying out one part of the project,

as a contribution to the proposed discussion of the

subject once the ideas and results have been pooled

together. This, in turn, provides students with greater

187

Martí-Ballester C., Moya-Gutiérrez S. and Prior-Jiménez D. (2009).

LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL ACCOUNTING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY - A wiki-Webquest.

In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Supported Education, pages 186-191

DOI: 10.5220/0001857301860191

 SciTePress

fluency in the use of economic language and gets

them used to working as a team, a work method that

has been adopted by a large number of companies to

deal with the complex problems that can arise in the

kind of dynamic but uncertain environment that is so

typical of a globalised economy.

However, according to Harrer et al (2006), a

professor that wishes to implant a methodology

based on collaborative work is faced by two

challenges: controlling the time available to prepare

the material and dealing with students’ doubts, as

well as examining and evaluating students’

behaviour within the work group. To cope with this

latter difficulty, we propose the use of Wiki

technology. Dobrockey (2006) defines the Wiki as a

web application that enables the user to create pages

and/or edit the content of those that already exist,

which favours the exchange and generation of ideas,

and therefore, collaborative/cooperative work. The

flexibility and ease of use offered by this tool has led

to its incorporation in the business world, as shown

by Dobrockey (2006) and Rahman (2006), as well as

its application to education, as can be inferred from

Parslow (2005). In this latter case, its implantation

enables the professor to observe and revise the

changes made and improvements incorporated by

each of the students, and also to refine the content of

the same by correcting any detected errors. So, Wiki

technology is configured as a tool that enables the

teacher (1) to follow the evolution of the acquisition

and generation of the knowledge of the group and of

each of its members and (2) to efficiently evaluate

each student in terms of group and individual work

done. Also, from the student’s point of view, the use

of this application leads to the development of

teamwork skills, favouring adaptation to the

business environment.

While exploiting the advantages offered by each

model for the way students acquire skills and are

evaluated, we shall now design and implement a

WebQuest and a Wiki for the financial accountancy

course taught in the first year of the Company

Management and Administration Degree at the

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Its aim

will for the students (1) to become aware of the

importance of financial accountancy and annual

accounts as elements of information on the

transactions the company makes with its

environment, within the context of corporate social

responsibility, (2) to know how to interpret and

evaluate the information that is provided and (3) to

learn to use it to make decisions.

To optimise the aforementioned development of

skills and abilities, as shown by Lim (2004), the

WebQuest needs to be well designed. In this sense,

Dodge (1997) and Zheng et al (2007) indicate that

the WebQuest should be structured into at least six

parts: (1) introduction, (2) task, (3) sources of

information, (4) description of the process, (5)

evaluation of the result and (6) conclusion.

However, Young and Wilson (2002) and Allan and

Street (2007) propose an adaptation of the traditional

WebQuest structure in which an extra level is added.

In said level, each group of students presents its

other colleagues with the results it obtained,

generating knowledge feedback and the exchange of

ideas, which will help the professor to analyse the

class as a group, and also each student’s attitude

within the class, and to make comparisons between

groups. Additionally, in our proposal we added

another level that consists of incorporating a Wiki

application to the WebQuest to enable us to monitor

each student’s individual work.

2 DESIGNING THE WEBQUEST

The aim of the WebQuest we are proposing is to

generate generic skills among first year students on

the Company Management and Administration

degree course, which will enable them to analyse

and synthesise accountancy and ethical information,

put the theoretical knowledge they have acquired

throughout the course into practice, acquire

computer skills that will familiarise themselves with

the information technologies used in the business

environment, acquire skills for working

autonomously and develop the social skills needed

to work as a part of a team.

In order to achieve said objectives, we propose the

following WebQuest titled “Do we invest in

destruction or in sustainable companies?” which we

structure into five parts.

2.1 Introduction

In the introduction section we present the initial

problem that students have to solve. To do this, we

show the context in which the students are going to

work, ensuring that we present a scenario that is in

keeping with the realities of the business world in

order to motivate the students. So, we propose a

practical exercise to the students that simulates the

kind of professional work they would encounter if

they were employed by a real-life consultancy

office, a pension fund management company or an

investment management company.

To do so, we propose the following scenario:

The manager of an investment management

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company decides to increase the range of products it

offers and to provide its clients with a new product

that is in increasingly greater demand: a socially

responsible investment fund. However, in order to

manage the fund efficiently, the solicitor needs to

select a combination of titles that optimise the

portfolio’s trinomial of profitability-risk-social

responsibility.

To do so, an Ethics Commission is constituted for

the fund, mainly made up of independent people that

are related due to experience or proximity to the

fund’s principles, which include professors from the

UAB’s Department of Company Economy. This

commission is responsible for determining the

values or instruments, whose companies are adjusted

to the criteria established in the aforementioned

principles. From among these values, the Managing

Company will select those that optimise the

profitability-risk binomial of its portfolio.

Given that there is such a high number of Spanish

companies that need to be evaluated, the Ethics

Commission has asked the students studying

Financial Accountancy as part of the Company

Management and Administration and Law and the

Company Management and Administration degree

courses to help them make a report recommending

the Spanish companies in which they could invest

the monies in the fund in consideration of their

business behaviour.

Are Spanish companies socially responsible?

2.2 Task

In this section, we comment on the work that the

students have to present following the research

proposed in our WebQuest. In this case, the idea is

to make a report on corporate responsibility and an

oral PowerPoint presentation to be given to their

classmates. We believe it is important for the

students to have prior knowledge of the final product

of the WebQuest, whose content is described as

follows:

“The Financial Accountancy students, in

commitment to society, the environment and ethical

behaviour of companies, will provide their

assistance to the Ethics Commission, and will make

a report that evaluates whether Spanish companies

carry out their activity in an ethical manner on the

basis of the criteria of social, environmental and

legal responsibility, and in respect of the social

rights established in the ethical principles of the

funds to be provided by the managing company

itself.

So, the Ethics Commission will supply us with a

directory of Spanish companies compiled by

ESADE that groups companies into sectors,

providing legal information in relation to their

annual accounts, i.e. Balance Statement, Profits and

Losses Account and Annual Report, as well as

voluntary information relating to social

responsibility, environmental reports and

sustainability reports supplied by a large number of

companies in the sector.

The students will make a group report, and will

provide it in writing and present it in public before

their colleagues, who will be able to ask questions

and discuss the comments made. To do this, they

should consult the Web, use the Wiki application to

make the report, and make a PowerPoint

presentation of the report.”

2.3 Process

This section provides a detailed description of the

preliminary steps to be followed by the students

when preparing the report, and others related to the

creation of the report on corporate responsibility and

the presentation of the results. So, first, the work

groups will be formed. In this sense, the number of

students in each group needs to be determined, as

well as the criteria for forming these groups.

With respect to the first issue, many academics,

including Rue (2004) and Quinquer (1995) agree in

saying that the perfect size of a group should be

between two and four students, as this will promote

discussion and the exchange of ideas without any of

the members of the group taking a passive role.

Given that the group to which the work is being

proposed has a large number of enrolled students,

groups of four will be used, which will help the

professor to supervise the process.

As for the criteria for forming groups, Alfonseca et

al (2006) comment that the mechanism for forming

groups could influence their learning process. So,

there are two possibilities: (1) let the students form

their own groups, which as suggested by Johnson

and Johnson (1975) would lead to the formation of

homogeneous groups and (2) for the professor(s) to

decide on the people who will go into each group

and randomly form homogenous and/or

heterogeneous groups.

Alfonseca et al (2006) go for the first option because

the literature supports the hypothesis that students

tend to form groups in accordance with similar

characteristics and skills, which could favour the

learning process. However, when students obtain

their degrees and are incorporated into private

companies, the chances are that the company’s

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189

employees will form a heterogeneous group in terms

of skills and characteristics, which would imply the

student having to integrate and adapt to the new

situation if he or she wants to stay on in the job. So,

to determine which work environment is most

adequate, we apply each of the options to a large-

group. In large-group A, the students voluntarily

form groups in order to test the hypothesis made by

Johnson and Johnson (1975) and Alfonseca et al

(2006). In large-group B, the professors make the

group classification by applying such criteria as

town of origin, entrance mark, sex and age

differences. The result of this experiment could be of

major relevance for human resources departments

when selecting employees.

After that, the details of the calendar for carrying out

the project and holding meetings with the professor

are drafted. Then the structure of the corporate

responsibility report is specified, showing the

content of each section where reference should also

be made to the sources from which the data was

obtained.

In this sense, the report is made up of five parts: (1)

Introduction, which specifies the aim of the report

and critically comments on the operative principles

around which the fund’s ethical principles are

constructed, a link to which will be provided on the

website; (2) Indicators, for which guiding values are

given to make it possible to determine whether a

company complies with what is established by the

fund’s ethical principles by taking as a reference the

social, environmental and economic indicators

contained in the Guide for the Creation of

Sustainability Reports (GRI) to which a link is

provided in the WebQuest; Also in this section and

for each indicator, participants must comment on

whether said information is obligatory or not and, if

it is, where these regulations are given (3) Strategic

map of the stakeholders, where the students should

examine the information given by the company

regarding its socially responsible activity and the

options of the different stakeholders regarding the

operative actions carried out by the company in

order to determine whether it uses social corporate

responsibility as a marketing strategy or whether it is

a company value that is integrated in the company’s

mission; (4) Excluding criteria, where it is

determined whether the company invests in other

companies whose activity is injurious to human life,

fails to respect human rights, promotes the

destruction of peoples, deteriorates the environment,

is damaging to public health, or does not act in

accordance with ethical principles; (5) Evaluative

criteria, where the student must examine whether the

company being analysed invests in companies that

show socially responsible behaviour in accordance

with the established ethical principles; (6)

Conclusion, where the students must recommend

investment or not in the analysed company and

justify this verdict.

To produce the aforementioned report, the students

should consult legal information, i.e. Balance

Statement, Profits and Losses Account and Annual

Report, along with voluntary information provided

by the companies in the form of social,

environmental and sustainability reports. However,

companies might manipulate their reports of results

and voluntary reports on corporate social

responsibility in order to cover up irresponsible or

illegal behaviour. To deal with this, in addition to

the information provided either voluntarily or under

obligation by the company, the students should also

use other sources of information. In this case, we

propose making a search of a base of magazines in

which the students must seek out journalistic articles

providing information about the company.

So, each step implies exploratory work whose

objective is to construct knowledge through critical

reasoning regarding the questions being asked

regarding the structure of the company’s accounts,

economy, finance and corporate responsibility. To

do this, comments are established that are designed

to act as “conceptual scaffolding”, which help guide

the students through the execution of the project.

This section also details the way in which the report

should be presented. In this sense, students are told

that the report should contain no more than 20

pages, using 1.5 spacing, size 12 fonts in Times New

Roman, margins of 2.5 cm and numbered pages. The

first page must show the name of the company being

analysed, the details of the students in the group

(surnames, names and enrolment group), and the

dates when the work was completed and handed in.

2.4 Evaluation

This section contains the items that are evaluated

and the scores that are given to each. The idea is to

evaluate the skills acquired by the student in the

proposed learning process. To do this, we

distinguish between skills of a transversal nature that

could be applied to many other subjects but which

are no less important because of that, and specific

skills related to the knowledge being worked upon

here.

Among transversal skills we could cite:

a) critical reasoning,

b) good communication,

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c) autonomy

d) creativity.

As specific skills involving the proposed subject we

have:

a) basic knowledge of the field of study

b) capacity for analysis and synthesis,

c) capacity to put knowledge into practice,

d) teamwork

e) decision making

To evaluate how students acquire skills, Baker

(2008) compares different instruments showing that

they are all reliable. However, said author focuses

only on the joint evaluation of the group without

taking into consideration the individual work done

by each student within the same. Therefore, in the

present work we evaluate the skills acquired by the

students, assessing:

(1) the individual work done by each member of the

group, which we observe by analysing the Wiki

page. This enables us to evaluate the knowledge

acquired by the students, their capacity for analysis

and synthesis, their autonomy, their capacity to put

knowledge into practice and their critical reasoning.

(2) the work done by the group, where we take into

account punctuality when respecting hand-in dates,

and the quality and originality of the work. This also

enables us to evaluate the aforementioned skills,

teamwork and decision making.

(3) the oral presentation both to the tutor and to the

other participants. On the basis of the oral

presentation we will evaluate the participants’

communication skills both individually and as a

group, as well as their capacity to adjust their

presentation to a certain time and structure.

The evaluation will be marked from 1 to 4 for each

of the three proposed sections.

2.5 Conclusion

After doing the task that we proposed, the students

will be able to analyse and synthesize a company’s

the financial-economic-accountant information. The

students will also be familiar with the accounting

terminology, will know some databases which

contain companies accounting information, will be

able to put their knowledge into practice through

critical thinking and will be able to coordinate

themselves to work as a team and will have to skills

for explaining their work in public. Besides, the

students will be able to make decisions on where

they could invest on the basis of companies’ the

corporate and social behaviour, will be able to

skilfully handle the tools pertaining to the

knowledge society to elaborate reports, will solve

moral dilemmas that could arise in the business

environment and will get into research skills.

Finally, they will have abilities to do research on

corporate social responsibility. That’s the reason

why we challenge them to think about important

questions in accounting area: Do you think that the

companies should include corporate social

responsibility’s information in their annual reports?

How could the companies include this information?

3 PRODUCTION OF REPORT

USING WIKI APPLICATION

The production of the report on corporate

responsibility is made using the Wiki application, as

this offers advantages through being easy to make

and use, and enables the professor to control and

modify the content of the same. Access to said

application is made via the WebQuest, via a link in

the “Process” section.

So, each work group will have one Wiki consisting

of four parts: (1) project page, where the corporate

responsibility report will be made following the

criteria established in the fund’s ethical principles,

(2) discussion, a space to be used by students to

introduce their comments in relation to compliance

or non-compliance with the excluding and

evaluative criteria, as well as what they have found

in journalistic articles and judicial sentences; (3)

source or edition code, which makes it possible to

make modifications to the project and discussion

pages and (4) history, which enables the professor to

monitor the individual work done by each member

of the group and observe the development of the

members of the same.

Said report will then be presented in writing in

accordance with the aforementioned rules for

delivery.

4 CONCLUSIONS

In this study, we propose the use of two tools

pertaining to the knowledge society, namely a

WebQuest and Wikis, to promote innovation and

progress in the knowledge university students have

of the financial and social accounting of companies

and their responsibility towards society. Raising

student awareness of issues of corporate social

responsibility seems to us to be a fundamental part

of their human and ethical training, and for

preparing them for their future careers. Furthermore,

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191

the use of the WebQuest enables students to become

actively involved in the learning process, acquiring

skills, competences and abilities that will be of use

when they complete their studies and go into

employment. When the proposed activity is

completed, the students will have become familiar

with ways of handling the accountancy reports

provided by companies, developing a sophisticated

level of knowledge in the area of accountancy,

generating ideas and knowledge as a result of the

experience, and developing social skills and

capacities as a consequence of the interaction

between the members of the work group. They will

also be familiarised with information technologies,

which are fully integrated in the business

environment they will be joining in the immediate

future. This methodology also combines a web

environment with other sources of knowledge

beyond the traditional ones that students can use and

which are also detailed in the WebQuest, which

enables them to broaden their horizons and come

into early contact with tools that will be of great use

to them in the future.

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