Purpose The study focusses on explaining why advocates for reform to state audit in the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1980s, focussed on improving the links between the new National Audit Office (NAO) and Parliament, rather than on traditional notions of audit independence. The study shows how this focus on the auditor's link to Parliament depends on a particular concept of liberty and relates this

Purpose This study aims to understand whether and how the use of performance measures in the context of healthcare organizations facilitates the dynamics of compromise or whether it creates moral struggles among a wide variety of actors. It offers novel insights into the concept of hybridity by investigating its underlying moral dimension. Drawing upon the sociology of worth theory (Boltanski and Thévenot

Purpose This paper examines the contested value of healthy life and wellbeing in a context of severe austerity, exploring how the value of “Public Health” is constructed through and with material-discursive practices and accounting representations. It seeks to explore the political and ethical implications of constructing the valuable through a shared consensus over the “facts” when addressing complex

Purpose This paper aims to assess the disclosure of the materiality process in the preparation of sustainability reports of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper also explores the effects of regulation mandating that SOEs prepare sustainability reports. In the specific case of port authorities, the study analyses the influence of a sector guideline that determines what should be included and the

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the themes emerging from the first studies exploring accounting, accountability and management practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and coming from a diversity of experiences, across countries, organizations and individuals. In so doing, the paper gives an overview of the most recent findings about the role of accounting and accountability in times

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the importance of (public) value(s) and publicness in accounting and accountability research. It pinpoints a range of issues that scholars need to contemplate when reconsidering publicness in accounting research and practice. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts an interdisciplinary literature review associated with a conceptual discussion of the actual

Purpose Grounded in the legitimacy theory and framed within the context of European Union’s (EU's) endorsement process, this paper analyses the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB's) response to the COVID-19 crisis and the impact of its practical expedient COVID-19-Related Rent Concession on the IASB's output legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative process-tracing

Purpose This paper aims to explore the role of performance measurement systems as technologies of government for the assessment and management of the effects of COVID-19 in the context of six cities involved in a large European project. Design/methodology/approach Based on the field study of a large European project, this paper relies on a comparative case study research approach (Yin, 2003). This

Purpose This paper aims to generate new research directions at the intersection of accounting, whistleblowing and publicness: defined as the attainment of public goals, interests and values. Design/methodology/approach A problematising review is used to challenge and rethink the existing accounting and whistleblowing literature by incorporating readings from the public interest and public value literature

Purpose The paper examines how accounting and accounting experts provided important contributions to the Italian government's strategy to address the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, especially in terms of implementing new rules of conduct and providing justification for penetrating interventions in the life of individuals. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by drawing

Purpose Contemporary organisational landscapes offer opportunities for hybrids to thrive. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are one thriving hybrid form incorporating the use of resources and/or structures from both public and private sectors. The study examines the impact of such a hybrid structure on governance and accountability mechanisms in a context of institutional complexity. Design/methodology/approach

Purpose This paper investigates how different and sometimes conflicting approaches to performance evaluations are hybridized in the day-to-day activities of a disciplined hybrid organization–i.e. a public child protection agency at the intersection between the market and the public sector. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a one-year ethnography of how employees achieve to qualify their

Purpose During choir rehearsals, a conductor continuously holds choir members accountable for what they do and how they sing. Hence, members are held accountable through action. This allows a conductor to emphasize his/her expertise and underline his/her authority. Choir members typically respond in certain ways when this is done, for instance by commenting on the feedback they receive or by trying

Purpose The authors unpack the critical role of rhetoric in developing and justifying the New Zealand (NZ) government's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown strategy. Design/methodology/approach Using Green's (2004) theory of rhetorical diffusion, the authors analysed government documents and media releases before, during and after the lockdown to reconstruct the government's rationale. Findings

Purpose The paper offers insights on the response of a Big4 firm to the COVID-19 crisis vis-à-vis moral considerations. More specifically, the authors draw on Bauman's (1990) “moral impulse” to explore how the interrelated tactics of distancing, effacement of the face and reduction of people to traits tend to weaken moral considerations and negatively influences decisions and actions. Design/methodology/approach

Purpose This study aims to investigate how stakeholders perceive the company's nonfinancial disclosure after a scandal has occurred. More specifically, the authors examine whether and how sustainability reporting practices in the aftermath of a scandal can influence the perceptions of stakeholders in terms of hypocrisy and legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach The present research represents a companion

Purpose Drawing on paradox theory, this study explores how ambidextrous sustainability relates to organisational performance in hybrid organisations represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations, and how this relationship is contingent on the organisational structure of these organisations. Design/methodology/approach The study relies on the data collected from Swedish municipal housing corporations

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the struggle for entry and career success of the early pioneer women accountants in Great Britain and its former colonies the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach A career crafting matrix guides the analysis of historical information available on five pioneer women accountants in order to understand their success in gaining

Purpose The authors argue that the mainstream scholarly discourse on hybridity and accounting is thus far primarily interested in the use and effects of accounting “in” hybrid organizations. Consequently, the literature has to a lesser extent explored how accounting mediates hybrid settings (while also being mediated), and the role of disentanglements in such processes. In hybrid settings, objects

Purpose This paper explores the stereotype of the accountant in Florentine medieval popular culture based on literary works and from a historical perspective. It aims to highlight how stereotypes change with time and represent the cultural and historical evolution of a society. This research challenges Miley and Read (2012), who stated that the foundation of the stereotype was in Commedia dell'arte

Purpose This article lays out some conceptual considerations of how dynamic accountability and risk reporting practices could be tailored during and after a global pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper seeks to foster the debate on the crucial role of risk reporting considering the impact and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and stakeholder

Purpose This paper chronicles Jill McKinnon's theoretical and methodological contributions to international accounting research generally and socio-cultural research specifically over a 25-year period, 1981–2006. The purposes are: (1) to apprise contemporary and future researchers in international accounting, working with a socio-cultural lens, of a major contributor and contribution to the historical

Purpose The aim of this paper is to examine the changed nature of public accountability during a supreme emergency and explore how legal and auditing mechanisms have come to the fore, concluding that misappropriation of public monies is not an inevitable outcome. Design/methodology/approach The paper explores an illustrative example, the UK government's procurement of personal protective equipment

Purpose This paper explores how ethnicity is implicated in an etic–emic understanding through day-to-day practices and how such practices meet external accountability demands. Addressing the broader question of how ethnicity presents in an accounting situation, it examines the mundane level responses to those accountability demands manifesting an operationalisation of the ethnicity of the people who

Purpose This research examines the impact of organisational culture on the ethical judgement and ethical intention of corporate accountants in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The study relies on survey data collected from 283 practising accountants in Vietnam. Organisational culture was measured using the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument, developed by Cameron and Quinn (2011). The

Purpose This paper presents paradox theory as a useful theoretical lens for researchers exploring crises such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The authors argue that paradox theory, which emphasizes a “both/and” as opposed to an “either/or” approach, is ideally suited for management control systems (MCS) research on crises. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a revelatory case approach

Purpose The first purpose of this study is to respond to Matthews’ (2017) criticisms of Larson's (1977) professional project and accounting historians' past use of Larson (1977) when researching public accountancy professionalization. The second purpose is to use the response to Matthews (2017) as the foundation to construct a model of socio-economic closures of potential use for research and study

Purpose The aim of this paper is to provide an account of the period prior to the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): a body that was critical to the institutionalization of sustainability reporting (SR). By examining this “pre-history,” we bring to light the actors, activities and ways of thinking that made SR more likely to be institutionalized once the GRI entrepreneurship came to

Purpose The fund management sector plays an important role in society. The sector exists in close proximity to the accounting profession and the concerns of the paper reflect themes discussed by accounting scholars, particularly financialization, inequality and life within elite professional service organizations. Design/methodology/approach This is an interpretive study of the fund management field

Purpose We discuss the beneficiary accountability implications that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic (and resultant social distancing restrictions) for a branch of a religious non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in mainland Spain, whose main beneficiaries are homeless individuals. Design/methodology/approach We utilise a singular case method to observe accountability implications in the case