Critical Perspectives on Accounting最新文献

This article analyses the role played by accounting in the social order, drawing inspiration from the works of Ezzamel and the literature related to accounting inscriptions and discourse. To that end, our research examines four Spanish charitable organisations with which the Catholic Church collaborated closely in the final years of the eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth, a period during which enlightened ideas about how to deal with poverty threatened the traditional role of the Church.

Based on this study, we argue that accounting, as a relevant part of the discursive practices of the dominant actors in charitable activity, (i) structures society, creating social spaces in which it inscribes people, and establishes links and distances between these spaces, (ii) constructs the truth about the achievements of charitable organisations and the charitable work of donors/collaborators, and (iii) collaborates in strengthening power relations and promotes both social equilibrium and the social mobility of individuals and groups.

In many countries, relational field dynamics between tax administrators and corporate taxpayers have undergone significant changes in recent years. We conceive of cooperative compliance models implemented in the Netherlands and the UK between large corporate taxpayers and the respective tax administrations as dynamic strategic action fields, nested within the wider tax field and influenced by shifts in the external environment. Drawing on a series of interviews with skilled actors we identify similarities between the two countries in terms of the initial motivation for introducing cooperative compliance. We also identify differences in the subsequent trajectories. We find that within the respective strategic action fields, an imaginary of cooperation built around mutual trust contributes to the sustainability of the field. Vulnerability to developments in proximate fields on the other hand undermines field sustainability. Together these concepts help to explain the different trajectories and demonstrate the value in exploring shared understandings in strategic actions fields as imaginaries and paying more attention to the influence of proximate fields. The findings have implications for regulatory policy design in other settings.

This research draws from decolonial, and feminist Science and Technologies Studies approaches to explore the power dynamics of accounting knowledge systems in African contexts. It investigates traditional African indigenous accounting systems, then focuses on the current accounting systems used on the continent and future accounting possibilities presented by AI. We argue that while current accounting systems used in Africa are dominantly Western-centric, AI may reproduce and amplify this structural and systemic power dominance, which has further socio-material consequences on the continent. In trying to mitigate these effects, we propose response-ability in the conceptualization, design, and adoption of AI accounting systems. Fundamentally, we aim to open a discussion for rethinking how these systems can address social issues in alternative worlds and consider alternative and indigenous knowledge systems in African contexts. Toward this end, we seek to open conversations on how accounting AI applications can be designed and adopted in ways that reflect and promote the fundamental principles of objectivity, transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness as embedded locally in African community life and values.

How do the media represent the complex, opaque and controversial phenomenon of corporate tax avoidance? Based on media’s articles pertaining to the international “LuxLeaks” news leak, we identify a contest over tax avoidance representation which reveals a peculiar normative dynamic. We find that the field of tax avoidance is characterized by a vague and highly ambiguous normative framework, as the media rely on very different norms to elaborate distinct normative standpoints to represent LuxLeaks. How can the problem of tax avoidance (and consequently its solution) be delimited if there is disagreement over which norm should be used to assess it? Our study then highlights the need to step back and (re)consider broader assumptions of normativity in relation to tax avoidance, to advance the debate. We propose to import Baier’s (2013) socio-legal perspective on normativity into the tax realm, to better understand not just the legal and social norms as distinct normative systems but also their interdependence. Based on discursive insights from the press, we map out the normative structure specific to LuxLeaks, as conceptualized using Baier’s platform. To exemplify how this kind of conceptualization can nurture future research, we initiate a reflection on how normativity could evolve in the tax avoidance field, considering possible implications of the press representations analyzed.

This paper introduces silence as a form of resistance. Critical accounting studies portrayed resistance in terms of visibility and voice, and silence as a passive reaction from marginalized groups unable to speak, deprived of ‘voice’. Instead, we draw on an ethnographic study to follow various resisting strategies drawing on silence to actively undermine accounting technologies and practices. We draw on Scott’s infrapolitics and introduce silence as a strategic act, constitutive of power relations yet with multiple and situated meanings. We argue that silence acts both to forge a form of contestation that dares not speak its name and to constitute a space for the development of an alternative conduct to reclaim independence. Specifically, we identify four tactics using silence as a form of resistance – silence to escape accountability and control; silence to negotiate an alternative; silence to reclaim independence; and silence to retain power and authority. We then discuss the potential and limits of such silent resistance to support the emergence of alternative conducts.

There are fewer women in the upper echelons of accounting academia in Italy than in other European countries, and fewer female full professors than in other disciplines at Italian universities. The purpose of this research is to investigate the barriers experienced by Italian women in accounting academia and contributes with suggestions to alleviate these. The paper adopts a phenomenographic approach to identify the ways in which a group of 24 Italian women, at different hierarchical levels, experienced barriers to their academic careers. The study identifies different categories of barriers that combine to prevent female perspectives and progression within accounting academia. Underpinning these barriers is a patriarchal culture that has a significant influence on women’s careers in academia. The patriarchal structure in both the workplace and society, engenders difficulties in maintaining work-life balance, and shapes male and female roles in the academic workplace.

The paper contributes to the literature on gender in the academic accounting discipline, exploring women’s experiences of accounting academia, linking findings of a persistence of patriarchy, and arguing for a more feminist academic organisation. This is the first research in this area to use a phenomenographic method to investigate the barriers to career progression for Italian female academics in accounting and in examining the experience of women at different career levels, including those who have left accounting academia. The paper contributes to research on women’s barriers to career advancement, bringing new insights to the understanding of the gender gap in accounting academia and in making suggestions for structural change.

This paper offers a critical analysis of the politics of accounting standard setting. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) hold an increasingly monopolistic role in accounting regulation across the globe, and make claims to transparency, neutrality and superior expertise to legitimize their hegemonic position. In 2009 the IASB extended their standard setting beyond listed entities to the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs). This paper explores the political antagonisms surrounding this extension, finding that the IASB undertook this project to block counter articulations from several bodies. To unpack the politics of the IASB’s extension this paper draws on Laclau and Mouffe’s hegemony and Glynos and Howarth’s political logics, to argue that the IASB maintain and extend hegemony by dismissing and blocking alternatives through the rhetoric of superior expertise, which ultimately enables them to extend ideologies of advanced financial capital and capital markets to new spaces.

The emergence of double-entry bookkeeping has been traced back to roughly the same period as the emergence of practices which are today broadly understood as capitalist. This has led some to suggest that capitalism and accounting are interdependent. This thesis, however, neglects an important set of similarly-paired developments that occurred much earlier: around the same time as the first traces of accounting appeared in ancient Mesopotamia, patriarchal forms of social organization were also spreading across that region. In this paper, we propose that accounting practices are less a function of the rise of capitalism and more a function of the expansion of patriarchy, which itself fuelled the widespread adoption of capitalism. Drawing on anthropological insights and the work of feminist scholars, the paper offers an alternative perspective, one that we hope will help fuel resistance against the current, damaging hegemony: a ‘herstory’ of accounting. In addition, this study has implications for how we understand a number of topics of importance to critical accountants, including accountability, violence and subjugation, women’s rights and working and living conditions, capitalism (and neoliberalism), environmental degradation, spirituality, and the rise of political states.

Although wealth inequality is increasingly considered a massive societal problem, only a few jurisdictions charge wealth taxes on a wide range of assets on annual due days.

Against this backdrop, the present paper asks whether there are reasons to tax wealth from a tax equity perspective. It interprets tax equity as a procedural rule, which means taxing people with equal ability to pay equally and people with unequal ability to pay unequally. Since ability to pay refers to ‘economic capacity’, which is often understood as economic power, which in turn depends on the interpretation of market theories, answering the research question requires reference to market theories.

The paper shows, firstly, that economists who argue that a wealth tax in addition to an income tax leads to double taxation refer to neoclassical market theory and its power interpretation. However, neoclassical market theory is not adequate to justify that wealth should not be taxed.

Secondly, the paper provides an alternative ability to pay interpretation and a different understanding of wealth. It refers to political-cultural market theory that explicitly deals with power and power distribution. From this perspective, there are reasons to ascribe an ability to pay to wealth that is independent of the ability to pay of income. For that reason, taxing individuals’ wealth supports tax equity.

Thirdly, the present paper asks whether wealth taxation is feasible. It finds that, from the perspective of the political-cultural market theory, the main obstacle preventing the introduction of wealth taxation lies in the prevailing neoclassical market culture.

This paper discusses the significance of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Machine Learning (ML) and Large Language Processing (LLP), in the context of management control. The key concern is the epistemological shift from traditional deductive approaches to an inductive approach brought about by AI technologies. The paper elaborates on shifts related to the forms, practices, and infrastructures of management control, discussing new avenues for research in social studies of accounting. The discussion outlines how the integration of AI in accounting not only changes accounting practice but also fuels the relevance of some of the prior insights about social aspects of calculative practices. On a final note, the paper also suggests that, given the speed and scope at which new calculative technology is being introduced in virtually all parts of society, accounting scholars may draw upon prior insights and contribute to wider debates about the social impact of AI in society.