Accounting and the examination: A genealogy of disciplinary power

Historical elaboration of Foucault's concept of “power-knowledge” can explain both the late-medieval developments in accounting technology and why the near-universal adoption of a discourse of accountancy is delayed until the nineteenth century. It is the disciplinary techniques of elite medieval educational institutions—the new universities and their examinations—that generate new power-knowledge relations. These techniques embody forms of textual rewriting (including the new “alphanumeric” system) from which the accounting advances are produced and “control” is formalised. “Double-entry” is an aspect of these rewritings, linked also to the new writing and rewritings of money, especially the bill of exchange. By the eighteenth century accounting technologies are feeding back in a general way into educational practice (e.g. in the deployment of “book-keeping” on pupils) and this culminates in the introduction of the written examination and the mathematical mark. A new regime of “objective” evaluation of total populations, made up of individually “calculable” subjects, is thereby engendered and then extended — apparently first in the U.S. railroads — into modern comprehensive management and financial accounting systems (systems of “accountability” embodying Foucault's “reciprocal hierarchical observation” and “normalising judgement”), while written examinations become used to legitimate the newly autonomous profession of accountancy.     

Framing shared services: Accounting,control and overflows

During the last decade there has been an increase in the use of horizontal organizational relationships (HORs) such as strategic alliances, shared services, and outsourcing. Studies accentuate the unstable, fragile nature of HORs and the importance of directing attention to how these arrangements are formed and how and why they change. The aim in this study is to explore control problems of HORs and to discuss how different problems are related to accounting and control initiatives. A theoretical framework with the core concepts of framing and overflow is used as a theoretical point of departure. The empirical study is a longitudinal case study of the organization of a shared service center. In this study, we observe the problems of risk and coordination often discussed in the literature. However, guided by our theoretical framework, we also observe how many problems were formative and related to the forming of actors, relations and products. This study adds to the literature by conceptualizing how accounting and control not only functioned as framing devices, but also became sources of overflows, causing destabilization. Following the conceptual framework, we observe how overflow was caused both through reconnecting what had previously been separated and through cutting off relations in the process of disentangling the HOR.     

Accounting for the control of doctors: Management information systems in hospitals

The paper describes some current and proposed innovations in the activity accounting and cost accounting systems in two Swedish hospitals. Results are reported of interviews with administrators and senior doctors which reveal their attitudes and intensions with respect to the new control information generated by the accounting innovations. The fundamental differences between the professional ethos of the doctor and the managerial ambitions of the administrator are found to remain robust. Nevertheless there is evidence that the new control information may be the focus of some genuine convergence in the outlook of some administrators and some “doctors managers” with some consequent reduction in goal-uncertainty in the organisation. This paper argues that this calls for some revision of existing accounts of the interaction of doctors and administrators in hospital management.     

Accounting control systems and business strategy: An empirical analysis

Accounting theoreticians have argued that control systems should be modified in accordance with the business strategy of a firm. This study tests this hypothesis by examining differences in accounting control system attributes between two groups of firms following distinctly different strategies. Interview data and questionnaire data are used to provide evidence of the ways in which firms align their control systems and strategy. In addition, prelimenary evidence is discussed which suggests a relationship between accounting control systems, business strategy and firm performance.     

Accounting for control and trust building in interfirm transactional relationships

This paper theorises the accounting-control-trust nexus in interfirm transactional relationships. In the context of such relationships, accounting has predominantly been conceptualised as a control technology. However, in our paper we analyse stable and durable relationships as being the results of interaction between control and trust building. Such an analysis calls for an additional conceptualisation of accounting as a trust building technology. Furthermore, we explain the interaction between accounting for control and accounting for trust building in the context of a process of embedded agency.     

文化差异与会计偏好:会计文化价值

2001年,国际会计准则理事会(IASB)取代国际会计准则委员会(IASC),成为国际会计标准的制定和发布者。最终,国际财务报告准则(IFRS)将取代国际会计准则(IAS)。无论是过去的IASC,还是现在的IASB,要解决的核心问题都是如何实现会计准则在全球范围的协调。世界各国在经济发展程度、市场运行机制、法律环境、政治环境、文化传统等方面存在着的差异,使得统一会计标准的制定与实施面临着很大的困难。其中,各国文化差异对会计偏好的巨大影响尤其不容忽视。国外已经有许多会计学者就这一问题进行了研究。Geert Hofstede是最早证实上述文化差…     

Accounting practices and professional power dynamics during a crisis

This paper examines how changes in accounting practices during a crisis can affect organisational dynamics between hospital managers and clinicians. Our theoretical framework applies a multi-dimensional concept of power (Hardy, 1996) – which distinguishes power over resources, processes and meaning – to a longitudinal case study of a public university hospital during a budgetary crisis. Based on interviews with managers and clinicians, three successive time intervals with distinct power constellations are identified. Initially, we identify a pre-crisis phase where management formally controls resources, which seems to have limited effects on clinician dominance because managers lack ‘processual power’ and ‘power of meaning’. Next, an implantation phase emerges whereby the introduction of mandated budget cuts triggers shifts in the distribution of power, such that managers acquire power by securing the collaboration of clinicians – a phenomenon which has tangible benefits in terms of enabling budget compliance and increased service provision. Finally, the third phase may be conceptualized as a fiscal pressure regimen whereby, when budgetary pressures intensify further, management's newly gained ‘power of meaning’ is eroded because management are now seen to pursue unrealistic demands. Drawing on research insights gleaned during each phase, our analysis contributes to extant literature in at least three ways. First, we present novel findings regarding the impact of crises-related applications of accounting practices on intra-organisational power constellations. Second, our work highlights how accounting practices help shape the understanding of crisis, which, in turn, impacts the distribution of organizational power and influences intra-organizational patterns of collaboration. Third, we find that awareness of the meaning power of accounting practices can help shape strategic action in crisis situations.     

会计实务问题(一)——资产核算

为促进注册会计师业务知识与技术的学习,我刊新设“业务讲座”栏目。本期开始,先约请浙江天健会计师事务所主任会计师胡少先根据现行会计制度、会计准则规定的基本精神,参照国际惯例,对若干会计实务问题的处理进行了分析,并提出处理建议,供行业同人参考。     

The Case for Cameral Accounting

Cameral accounting was developed as early as the 16th century onwards in order to contribute to increased control of public money. Such a control demand does not seem to be of minor importance at the threshold of a new millennium as it was several centuries ago, and therefore Ludwig Mülhaupt in the excerpt above states that 'Unfortunately there are very few researchers and practitioners who are interested in developing the cameral bookkeeping method, which is strongly to be regretted with a view to the importance of these questions.' Most of the literature dealing with cameral accounting is published in German, and it seems to be known only to a small extent beyond the German speaking countries. The purpose of this article is therefore to present this historically important accounting model to a larger audience, allowing us to draw upon the experiences of cameral accounting in our continuous attempts to control public money, including the current international debate about the introduction of commercial (accrual) accounting in the public sector.     

资源环境核算方法与问题研究

国际上现行的以国民收入核算为基础的国民核算体系是一种有缺陷并缺乏可持续发展调控能力的经济核算体系,应建立并推行包括自然资源与环境核算在内的新型国民核算体系,资源环境方法是在现有国民经济核算体系的基本框架上进行扩展和调整,具有非常积极的意义和优点,但实施起来还存在一定问题.     

The price of power: The valuation of power and weather derivatives

Pricing contingent claims on power presents numerous challenges due to (1) the unique behavior of power prices, and (2) time-dependent variations in prices. We propose and implement a model in which the spot price of power is a function of two state variables: demand (load) and fuel price. In this model, any power derivative price must satisfy a PDE with boundary conditions that reflect capacity limits and the non-linear relation between load and the spot price of power. Moreover, since power is non-storable and demand is not a traded asset, the power derivative price embeds a market price of risk. Using inverse problem techniques and power forward prices from the PJM market, we solve for this market price of risk function. During 1999–2001, the upward bias in the forward price was as large as $50/MWh for some days in July. By 2005, the largest estimated upward bias had fallen to $19/MWh. These large biases are plausibly due to the extreme right skewness of power prices; this induces left skewness in the payoff to short forward positions, and a large risk premium is required to induce traders to sell power forwards. This risk premium suggests that the power market is not fully integrated with the broader financial markets.     

Accounting, post-productivism and corporate power in UK food and agriculture

‘In modern capitalism purchase and sale of manufactured foods is as fundamental to social existence as the exchange of a whole gamut of other commodities’ [Giddens, A. The constitution of society. US: University of California Press; 1984, p. 259]. Behind the production of food are networks of people, transactions and accounting that have rarely been examined by accounting researchers. The ‘agri-food’ sector is conflict-ridden and affects all but a very few of the world's population. This paper examines one segment of the industry – the UK – and explores certain elements that impact on the accounting environment of that industry. These are the move towards so-called post-productivist approaches by agricultural businesses and the considerable, yet not always obvious, influence of large agri-food corporations. The shifting asymmetries of power in the sector, which covers farmers, Government and an extensive service sector as well as corporations, are explored using aspects of domination in structuration theory, to elucidate the difficulties faced by farmers that force them to engage with accounting.     

The CF and Accounting Standards: The Persistence of Discrepancies

The conceptual framework (CF) has introduced a set of ideals and broad criteria for financial reporting focusing on servicing users' information needs. In this article, each concepts statement is considered, in turn, and its consistency with selected accounting standards examined. Particular attention is paid to accounting standards issued for the first time, or in a revised form, subsequent to the release of the concepts statements. It is found that many standards have provisions that are at odds with the CF. These inconsistencies come as no surprise. The CF is incomplete; the issue of measurement remains unresolved, leaving ambiguity in the definitions of concepts such as revenue. The CF project has remained unfinished while standard setters have given priority to other tasks, such as international harmonization, in resolving contemporary financial reporting issues.