Alistair Preston

IMag[in]ing annual reports

Abstract Visual images are integral elements within corporate annual reports. Yet, these visual images have been largely ignored in accounting research. We begin to explore the significance of selected visual images appearing in U.S. annual reports during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Our intent is not to produce a general survey of images, but rather to offer different “ways of seeing” images and through these “ways of seeing” to encourage a critical dialogue that focuses upon the representational, ideological and constitutive role of images in annual reports. Our first way of seeing views the image as transparently conveying an intended corporate message. The second way of seeing draws upon neo-Marxist aesthetic literature and considers the ways in which images in annual reports may be mined for their ideological content and may also reveal societys deep structures of social classification, institutional forms and relationships. Finally, we employ critical postmodernist art theory to see images in terms of their constitutive role in creating different types of human subjectivities and realities. We argue that this way of seeing creates the potential for new voices to be heard and the possibility to subvert the dualisms typical of the totalizing theories of modernity.

Changes in the Code of Ethics of the U.S. Accounting Profession, 1917 and 1988: The Continual Quest for Legitimation

While the accounting profession in the U.S. has claimed to be a moral or ethical body throughout the twentieth century, its moral schema and code of ethics have in fact undergone a number of changes. This paper argues that the codes of ethics (or professional conduct), and the discourses surrounding them, appeal to meta narratives of legitimation and that through this appeal the profession seeks to legitimize itself within the social realm. The paper explores two distinct periods: the turn of the century, during which time the first code was formulated, and the 1980s when the current code was constructed. We seek to demonstrate that the changes in the code and discourses are translations of both the political challenges to the legitimacy of accountants and a wider transformation in the culture of American society.

The Diagnosis-Related Group-Prospective Payment System and the problem of the government of rationing health care to the elderly

Abstract In this study, we seek to explore further accountings role in the indirect government of socio-economic life. The introduction of Medicare in 1965 was an important component of President Lyndon B. Johnsons “Great Society Program”; whereas the introduction of the Diagnosis Related Group-Prospective Payment System (DRG-PPS) was part of President Ronald Reagans “Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act,” which revised the relationships among the federal government, health care providers and the elderly population at large. DRG-PPS simultaneously redefined the relations of health care while effacing the rationing decisions inherent in these redefinitions. As our analysis suggests, accounting-based data and calculations contributed to “government at a distance” and helped to alleviate the difficulties inherent in overtly rationing health care to the elderly. By examining the location of accounting in this process we conceptualize and detail how accounting operated as form of distributive government within the domain of health care.

Constructing the global corporation and corporate constructions of the global: a picture essay

Abstract The constructive potential of text and numbers is now fairly well established in the accounting literature. In this paper we explore further the constructive potential of images as part of the mediascape of annual reports. We seek to do this in and through pictures and by establishing a tension between image and text by placing quotes from other sources throughout the picture essay. To frame the picture essay we re-present how corporations construct themselves as global entities and in doing so how they construct the global. ©

Worrying about Accounting in Health Care

Aims to promote concern and debate about the penetration of accounting and financial management in the health care sectors of several Anglo‐Saxon countries – the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand. Questions may be raised in several ways. For example, by highlighting how accounting concepts such as “costs” are not neutral notions but rather are sites for struggles of divergent interests or by commenting on how accounting may change or be changed by different organizational and societal rationalities. Concern may also be raised by questioning the effects of accounting change in terms wider than the purely instrumental and thereby arguing that its global spread is grounded more in faith than “factual” evidence regarding its efficacy.

Capital budgeting, technological innovation and the emerging competitive environment of the electric power industry

Abstract For most of this century the electric utility industry has operated as a regulated natural monopoly which produced a commodity product in an environment of low technological progress and sold it to a homogeneous captive market. Given these conditions, the primary capital budgeting issues involved the timing of capacity additions and the mix of base load and peaking capacity. This relatively simple and stable situation, however, has been eroded by market, regulatory and technological changes. As a consequence, old embedded capital budgeting approaches are hindering the pursuit of efficiency with respect to the production and distribution of electric energy. Our purpose in this paper is to assess traditional utility capital budgeting procedures and to explore possibilities for improvement. We begin with a review of traditional capital budgeting decision processes. Next, we overview the changes that have emerged over the last two decades and explore capital budgeting processes more appropriate to this ‘early competitive environment’. Finally, we project the changes a bit further and explore the capital budgeting techniques that may be useful in an ‘advanced competitive environment’.

Culture, gender and corporate control: Japan as “other”☆

Abstract Several diverse strands of accounting research have recently exhibited fascination with issues of power, gender, race, and Japanese culture. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace, by Dorinne Kondo (1990), explores each of these topics and thus provides a rare opportunity to reflect upon the direction of accounting research in these areas. While Kondo does not specifically refer to accounting, this paper utilizes her exploration of the “company as family” idiom and her experience working in a small Japanese factory to challenge the ethnocentric views of Japanese culture and business practice prevalent in many management and accounting texts. In addition, her analysis of power differentials and modes of exclusion according to class, race and gender have significant implications for accounting research, which typically does not recognize the complexity and importance of these issues. Finally, the paper examines Kondos unusual ethnographic style, in which she immerses herself in her study and emphasizes the complexity, ambiguity, and specificity of anthropological research.

Commentaries: Are accounting researchers under the tyranny of single theory perspectives?

Raises several points of contention with Humphrey and Scapens’ paper. Questions their chronology of the accounting research scene in the 1980s, points out the possible dangers of pursuing the eclecticism advocated by the authors, and finds a proper definition of accounting theory to be lacking. However, commends the authors for raising interesting questions which will benefit from further debate and lead to a greater understanding of accounting research and practice.

The Virtual Utility: Some Introductory Thoughts on Accounting, Learning and the Valuation of Radical Innovation

This paper examines the problems associated with the application of traditional capital budgeting practices to the valuation of radically new processes and technologies in an environment of rapid technological change. It focuses on a restructured utility industry, and the possible emergence of the Virtual Utility.