The Future Study of Human Rights Accounting: A Scenario Analysis Approach

 

Introduction

Human rights, as a change in social layers, has changed society's thinking beyond what is imagined today, and respect for equality between all people and races; Religious beliefs and gender minorities have become one of the most important functions of the development of societies (Chatterjee, 2022). One of the fields that can develop the field of human rights is the market and the economic activities of people with racial and national differences, to which the laws of countries must adhere to for the development of equality and justice. (Ciravegna & Nieri, 2022). Therefore, the development of knowledge of the market and its legal and social subcategories are considered levers for the development of the future prospects of human rights, which can provide public trust and confidence for integrated investment (Astone, 2019). Therefore, in line with this approach that services as a part of meeting the needs of human rights are considered a part of social necessity (Mashirzadeh and Sabouri, 1400), it is possible to expand this concept in functions such as accounting knowledge, which inherently includes the task of providing information to the beneficiaries (Heidari et al., 1401). Also, accounting as one of the levers of capital market knowledge, today is considered as a part of promotion processes in the standardization and development of financial transparency at the international level, and focusing on changing the classical fields of accounting from purely objective approaches to ethical approaches has led to human beings also being able to enter this field and change the possibility of altering the traditional beliefs in this profession, which has been solely responsible for revealing the companies' performance, and give accounting a new soul and identity (Elkelish, 2022).
 

Research Questions

According to the explanation of the theoretical foundations in this field, the research questions are formulated in the following:

The first research question what are the drivers of the development of human rights accounting at the level of the Iranian capital market?
The second research question what are the future scenarios of the development of human rights accounting at the level of the Iranian capital market?

Considering that there is no specific reference regarding the existence of the dimensions of human rights accounting as a theoretical framework, in this study, in order to identify the causes of the development of human rights accounting, first through the data analysis of the foundation, the dimensions of this phenomenon are identified in the present study and then, through the future research process, possible scenarios are identified in the development of human rights accounting.
 

Methods

Since the concept of human rights accounting does not have the necessary theoretical coherence at the level of capital market companies according to the topics raised in the theoretical foundations and introduction, therefore, this research is placed in the category of developmental research in terms of results. The research approach of the current study, in terms of the logic of data collection, is of a hybrid type; because it investigates a phenomenon about which there is no comprehensive framework in the theoretical fields of accounting at the level of capital market functions, or it is not a consensus. Therefore,  through the analysis of the qualitative part and relying on the data theory method of the foundation, it is tried to present the dimensions of the human rights accounting model in the form of a multi-dimensional model. For this purpose, Glaser’s (1992) emergent approach is used to compile the human rights accounting model through three stages of coding by using interviews with experts. In this approach, the theory emerges from within the data, and researchers do not have presuppositions about the relationship between the data from the beginning. Also, based on the emergent foundation data theorizing strategy, data analysis begins simultaneously with the interviews (Kelalian-Moghadam et al., 2019). In this way, in the process of conducting each interview, open coding was done so that, while improving the validity of the research, it is possible to assign similar codes in a specific category. In other words, in order to collect data in the qualitative analysis section, deep and unstructured interviews (open-ended interview plan) with an average time of one hour were used.
 

Results

This research, by going through three main steps in the theoretical analysis of foundation data including open coding, selective coding and focal coding try to examine the concept of human rights accounting development based on a theoretical framework. Therefore, based on the lack of specific dimensions regarding the development of human rights accounting, in this section, efforts are made to create more transparent areas of the concept of research. In this study, due to the lack of a coherent theoretical framework regarding human rights accounting, first, during 14 interviews with academic experts during three stages of open coding, central and selective, a total of three categories, six components and thirty-two conceptual themes were identified, which were determined after Delphi analysis, the identified dimensions have reliability. Then, with the aim of formulating future scenarios in the field of human rights accounting development at the level of the Iranian capital market,  through the linkage matrix, an effort was made to determine the most effective components of the development of human rights accounting by determining the inputs and outputs of the matrix model through the Micmac matrix. Therefore, the result of this section indicated the confirmation of the effectiveness of corporate governance and social trust as the two axes that determine possible scenarios for the development of human rights accounting at the level of the Iranian capital market, in order to determine through the reciprocal matrix, which of the scenarios can describe the underlying conditions of the development of human rights, through accounting at the level of capital market companies. Therefore, 4 matrices were created for the development of human rights accounting at the level of the Iranian capital market.
 

Discussion and Conclusion

The purpose of this study is The Future Study of Human Rights Accounting by Scenario Analysis Approach. Based on the results, it was determined that there are 4 possible scenarios for the development of human rights accounting at the level of Iranian capital market companies, which are explained separately. The most complete scenario in the development of human rights accounting in Iran is the star matrix or immortality, which is known as an idealistic approach due to the intersection of the strength of corporate governance with the social trust of stakeholders, which, both in terms of norms and in terms of capital market rules, corporate governance by creating a diverse combination of religious beliefs, gender and ethnicity, to be the leader in improving social trust. Based on the matrix of question mark or protectionism presented in Table (11) and Figure (3), there are human rights development capacities in capital market platforms in such a way that corporate governance by monitoring the performance of managers in order to develop positive interaction with stakeholders, especially shareholders and respecting their material and moral rights, and by creating information symmetry, sufficient guarantees can be made to create trust in the capital market complex in the future. Therefore, this scenario in the conditions of Iran's capital market can play a more effective role in the development of human rights accounting at the level of Iranian capital market companies.
 
Keywords: Human Rights Accounting, Future Study, Micmac Matrix.