A dialogical framing of AIS–SEA design

•Stakeholder engagement and AIS-SEA design related to Inclusivity in design process•Who is included, What is legitimate•Who determines who is included and what is legitimate•Frames AIS design using dialogical accounting principles•Provides an illustration of a dialogical design

Previous literature has proposed dialogical accounting as a means wherein accounting information systems can support competing, and potentially incompatible, information needs of various interested constituencies (Dillard and Yuthas, 2013). Here we extend that work by focusing on the design of social and environmental accounting (SEA) information systems that take pluralism seriously. We theorize the challenges of designing such systems wherein they are expected to address the needs of multiple users with different interests that may emerge from different economic, social, political and/or cultural perspectives, as they relate, for example, to sustainability reporting, ethical investment, participatory development studies and indigenous resource management. Using dialogic engagement, we attempt to move beyond traditional, and often highly constrained, conceptualizations of “stakeholder engagement” and propose a framework for undertaking systems design that can facilitate high quality and relevant SEA information systems that meet the needs of a wide range of actual and/or potential users. We provide an example of how the framework might be enacted using a framing methodology.