Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyse the nature of accountability for human rights, as enacted by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), in this time of globalization and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors focus on one case of alleged union-busting and unfair dismissal carried out under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tracing the action of that case, the authors show how the BHRRC provides a digital platform for dialogues of accountability. The authors use a Latourian theoretical perspective to guide the progress of the study’s analysis.

Findings

The authors find that the dialogues of accountability enacted on the BHRRC platform cannot be satisfactorily characterized in terms of an old politics of hegemony, counterhegemony and counter accounts. The authors find that the accountability enacted on the platform operates in three modes: in a political mode to support the formation of issues and publics and the embedding of norms; in an organizational mode to support the (re)organizing business corporations around scripts of respect for human rights; in a moral mode to keep scruples concerning means and ends and the pursuit of better outcomes, open.

Originality/value

The paper is novel, in that it engages with the part that accounting can play in politics conceived in Latourian terms; in its introduction, a notion of modes of accountability on the foundations of Latour’s exploration of modes of existence; in its challenge to the value of critical accounting conceived in terms of hegemony and counterhegemony.

中文翻译：

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扭转问责制

目的

本文的目的是描述和分析商业与人权资源中心（BHRRC）在全球化和2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）时代颁布的人权问责制的性质。

设计/方法/方法

作者关注的是在COVID-19大流行的掩护下进行的一桩涉嫌破坏工会和不公正解雇的案件。通过追踪该案的行动，作者展示了BHRRC如何为问责制对话提供数字平台。作者使用拉图尔理论的观点来指导研究分析的进展。

发现

作者发现，在BHRRC平台上进行的问责制对话不能以霸权主义，反霸权主义和对口交易的旧政治来令人满意地描述。作者发现，在平台上制定的问责制以三种模式运行：以政治模式支持问题和公众的形成以及规范的嵌入；以组织方式支持围绕尊重人权的脚本来（重新）组织商业公司；以道德的方式公开关注手段和目的以及对更好结果的追求。

创意/价值

本文是新颖的，因为它涉及会计可以在拉图尔式的概念中发挥作用的部分。在其介绍中，以拉图尔（Latour）对生存方式的探索为基础的问责模式概念；在对霸权和反霸权构想的关键会计价值提出挑战的过程中。