Leanne Morrison

Dr Leanne Morrison

Lecturer

Outside of SAB building. Building is decorated with angled panels reflecting shadows on the wall. Wall colours vary between black, blue, white and light red colours.

Contact details

COBL | School of Accounting, Info Sys & Supply Chain


BHRIGHT (Business & Human Rights Centre)

CVIN (Cultural Value Impact Network)

CCARN (Climate Change Action & Research Network)

WRN (Women Researchers Network)


Email: leanne.morrison@rmit.edu.au


Phone: +613 9925 5925


Campus: Melbourne City


Programs

More information

Contact details

COBL | School of Accounting, Info Sys & Supply Chain


BHRIGHT (Business & Human Rights Centre)

CVIN (Cultural Value Impact Network)

CCARN (Climate Change Action & Research Network)

WRN (Women Researchers Network)


Email: leanne.morrison@rmit.edu.au


Phone: +613 9925 5925


Campus: Melbourne City


Programs

More information

Dr Morrison loves to explore the connections between business, nature and people. Her work is informed by a strong sense of social and environmental justice.

Overview

Dr Leanne J Morrison loves to explore the connections between business, nature and people. She uses philosophy, storytelling and art to help understand and problematise these relationships. Her work is informed by a strong sense of social and environmental justice. Current projects include the development of a fairytale methodology to analyse corporate communications; arts-based research to explore community responses to corporate environmental impact, and; projects which aim to improve corporate climate change strategies. In research, her goal is to contribute to the betterment of the corporate relationship with the environment and community.

Dr Morrison is the Climate Change & Environment Lead in the RMIT Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRIGHT). BHRIGHT addresses the human rights impact of business through research, education, innovation and collaboration, and is an interdisciplinary centre located in RMIT’s College of Business and Law. In this role, she leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers to advocate for the abatement of climate change through scholarly publications, public engagement, policy recommendations. Under her leadership, the group has published a number of research papers, blogs, online articles and reports. She has been interviewed by the media (including SBS) and requested to contribute to government-led committees about her expertise in the impact of business on climate change and environmental issues.

Prior to joining RMIT University in 2017, Dr Morrison was at the University of Tasmania, where she undertook her PhD in Corporate Environmental Reporting. Her industry experience includes roles in taxation, and various board positions in the environmental and community not-for-profit sectors. She has governance experience as treasurer for Environment Tasmania (Tasmania’s peak NGO environmental body), and in her various management roles at RMIT (including Co-Deputy Dean for Research & Innovation for the former School of Accounting).

Dr Morrison is a passionate teacher, who has inspired business and accounting students to better understand the impacts of business on society and nature. She has taught and coordinated a number of courses at RMIT including Accounting for Sustainable Management; Financial Accounting Theory and Business in Society. Her teaching is research-informed and draws from her expertise and experience in governance, sustainability management, climate change policy and environmental reporting.

Ed Talk: Understanding the Societal Impact of Accounting

Leanne Morrison is a lecturer of financial accounting theory and in this Ed Talk, speaks about how her students extend their foundations of numbers and equations.

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Industry experience

  • Tax Consultant, QTax
  • Board Member, Environment Tasmania
  • Lecturer, University of Tasmania
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Research

Dr Morrison's research focuses on the impacts business has on society and the environment, and how these might be improved. As a scholar of Accounting, much of this inquiry examines corporate reporting, and the communication between business and stakeholders. Dr Morrison is currently involved in a number of projects which examine the relationships between business and climate change. Dr Morrison uses a range of innovative methodologies including arts-based research, audio art works, storytelling and narrative lenses.

Research keywords

Environment, Climate Change, Communities, Mining, Climate Policy, Nature, Stakeholders, Sustainability, Reporting, Corporate

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Supervisor interest areas

  • Sustainability Reporting
  • Environmental Reporting
  • Social Reporting
  • Corporate Discourse
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Feminist Accounting
  • Environmental Philosophies
  • Dialogic Accounting
  • Counter Accounts
  • Climate Change Policy for Business
  • Accounting and Social Justice

Supervisor projects

  • The Role of Blockchain Technology in Promoting Stakeholder Trust for Australian Charities (Andrea Christie)
  • Gross National Happiness (GNH) in Business: Invoking Social Accounting (Kinley Wangchuk)
  • The implications of dialogue between supplier-countries’ civil society institutions and corporations on adherence to corporate codes of conduct: a comparative case study of China and Brazil (Rao Fu)

Feature publications

Into the woods of corporate fairytales and environmental reporting

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

Morrison, L & Lowe, A (2021).

Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Western Approach to Nature

New York, Routledge

Morrison, L. (2020)..

Environmental Reporting Through an Ethical Looking Glass

Journal of Business Ethics 150(4): 903-918

Morrison, L., Wilmshurst, T & Shimeld, S. (2018).

Key publications by year

  • Morrison, L. & A. Lowe (2021). "Into the woods of corporate fairytales and environmental reporting." Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
  • Morrison, L (2021), “Changing the Climate on Corporate Reporting” CPA Australia
  • Morrison, L. J (2021), “On the giving and receiving of accounts”, In D-L Arjalies, Y Gendron, C Lehman et al. (eds), Breaking Boundaries: (Counter) accounts during the pandemic (pp. 80-83). Creative Commons, London, Canada: Western University
  • Morrison, L (2021), "Supporting Australian Businesses to Address Climate Change: Four Key Federal Policy Recommendations", RMIT Business & Human Rights Centre

  • Morrison, L. (2020). Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Western Approach to Nature. New York, Routledge

  • Morrison, L., Wilmshurst, T & Shimeld, S. (2018). "Environmental Reporting Through an Ethical Looking Glass." Journal of Business Ethics 150(4): 903-918

  • Morrison, L. (2017). "Heading South." PAN Philosophy Activism Nature 13: 101-104
Web

Feature projects

Changing the Climate on Corporate Emissions

CPA Australia (Global Research Perspectives Program), $14,000

Leanne Morrison (CI)

2020 - 2021

Navigating climate change risk: the role of management accountants in implementing the TCFD framework

CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK), £7,500

Jayanthi Kumarasiri (CI), Leanne Morrison & Laura Maran

2021 - 2022

Innovating Stakeholder Engagement with the Mining Industry

College of Business & Law

Leanne Morrison (CI)

2020 - 2021

Key projects by year

  • Navigating climate change risk: the role of management accountants in implementing the TCFD framework (2021-2022), CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, UK)
    Jayanthi Kumarasiri (CI), Leanne Morrison & Laura Maran, $13,358
    The TCFD requires companies to demonstrate the resilience of their strategy and operations in different scenarios of future global warming. This project examines how management accountants can contribute to the development of appropriate climate-related scenarios and better integrate TCFD recommendations into organisational strategy.

  • Changing the Climate on Corporate Emissions (2020-2021), CPA Australia 2020-2021 (Global Research Perspectives Program)
    Leanne Morrison, CI, $14,000
    The aim of this project is to better understand the role of corporate climate change targets in the wider context of global warming, and ultimately to contribute to better corporate approaches to climate change obligations.
  • Innovating Stakeholder Engagement with the Mining Industry (2020-2021), College of Business & Law
    Leanne Morrison (CI)
    This project addresses significant problems with the current stakeholder engagement practices of mining companies.

  • Corporate Storytelling
    Leanne Morrison, Alan Lowe, Jan Breuggemeier
    This research project investigates how multiple perspectives construct the corporate identity in terms of social and environmental impact of the Tasmanian salmon farming industry. The voices of multiple stakeholders are highlighted in this project, which has resulted in two scholarly papers using creative methodologies and innovative theoretical frameworks, and an artistic soundscape.
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Awards

College of Business & Law Research Excellence Award 

Award date: 2020

Recipients: Leanne Morrison

RMIT School of Accounting Teaching Award 

Award date: 2018

Recipients: Leanne Morrison

Key awards by year

  • RMIT College of Business & Law Research Excellence Award (2020)
  • Nominated for Early Career Researcher Award, RMIT School of AISSC (2020)
  • Nominated for Early Career Teaching Award, RMIT School of AISSC (2020)

  • School of Accounting Certificate of Recognition (2019)

  • RMIT School of Accounting Teaching Award (2018)
  • School of Accounting Certificate of Recognition (2018)

  • School of Accounting Certificate of Recognition (2017)
  • Recipient of Teaching Commendation from DPVC, Students & Education, UTas (2017)

  • Dean’s Roll of Excellence, Faculty of Business, University of Tasmania (2013)

  • The CPA Australia Prize (2011)
  • Chartered Accountants’ Achievers Programme (2011)

  • Scholarship from Taxpayers Australia for academic achievement (2010)
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Grants

  • CIMA Seedcorn Funding (2021)
    £7,500
    Navigating climate change risk: the role of management accountants in implementing the TCFD framework.
    Collaborators: Dr Jayanthi Kumarasiri (CI), and A/Prof Laura Maran
  • RMIT College of Business & Law (2021)
    $4,000 Research Leave
  • CPA Global Research Perspectives Program (2020)
    $14,977 Changing the Climate on Corporate Emissions
    Collaborators: Prof Alan Lowe (Mentor) & Dr Akshay Jadhav (RA)
  • RMIT College of Business & Law (2020)
    $9,877 Measuring Performance through Images in the Annual Report: The Value of Art (rescinded due to Covid19 budgetary constraints).
    Collaborator: Dr Alena Golyagina
  • Ian Potter Foundation (2018)
    $1,250 for conference travel
  • Australian Postgraduate Award (2014-2017)
    $76,176
  • University of Tasmania Elite Research Scholarship (2014-2017)
    $22,500
  • The Governor’s Environment Scholarship (2013)
    $5,000
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Public and media engagements

  • Salmon Farming Stories (forthcoming 2022) - with Prof Alan Lowe

2021

 

2020

2019

  • Ed Talks: Understanding the Societal Impacts of Accounting (2019)
  • Business Research Showcase Book Launch (2019)
    Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Western Approach to Nature (Routledge)
    Keynote address by Professor Freya Mathews, La Trobe University
  • University of Bath’s #thinklist (2019)
    Dr Leanne Morrison is named on the #thinklist, which “celebrates the activities of those who are truly shaping our field. These are the movers and shakers in the academic world who are breaking out of the ivory towers and leading key debates in social media”
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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.