Cameron Graham

Editorial: Accounting research and the public interest

Purpose – This essay sets out to introduce the special issue. Design/methodology/approach – The essay discusses a variety of approaches to exploring the relationship between accounting and the public interest, and briefly reviews the contribution of the articles in the issue. Findings – Not applicable. Originality/value – The essay argues that accounting research can be opened up by problematizing the notion of the public interest, and by considering not only how accounting constitutes the public interest, but how various public interests constitute accounting.

Accounting and the holocausts of modernity

The current study explores the ambiguity of accounting technique in the context of a historical study of the Canadian Indian Department under the direction of Deputy Superintendent D.C. Scott at the beginning of the 20th century. Starting from the work of Bauman and his commentators, we argue that modernity viewed as a set of practices and thought patterns, facilitates bureaucratic constructions of the “Indian problem” In turn, this cultural milieu and bureaucratic construction operated as an ideological circle, encouraging the use of accounting techniques of governance that permitted both the distancing of bureaucrats from indigenous peoples and the downplaying of other vantage points. However, as our analysis highlights, numerical re‐presentations also provided the tools and rhetorical spaces for challenges to government policy.

Accounting and subalternity: enlarging a research space

Purpose - The paper aims to describe the construction of this Design/methodology/approach - A review of prior literature and the events leading to this Findings - The paper suggests that accounting research is implicated in subalternity in complex ways, both through its construction of the subject of research and in its attempts to reproduce accounting researchers habituated to Western academic norms and practices. Research limitations/implications - The paper sets out some conditions for innovative accounting research on less developed countries and indigenous peoples. Originality/value - This journal issue is an attempt to expand research space by bringing together authors from different areas of accounting research, as well as a consolidation of vibrant existing streams of research. The paper introduces the special issue.

The Role of Transnational Institutions in Framing Accounting in the Global South

The perspectives of the expert contributors reflect the strong growth of research on the topic, as accounting is increasingly recognised as an important factor in development. The book draws commentary and analyses together to inform future research, practice and policy and raises awareness of the actual and potential role of accounting in formulating and executing development policy.

The Calculation of Age

This article explores the role of calculative technologies, such as taxation, accounting and actuarial practices, in constructing ‘age’ in contemporary society. It argues that retirement income programs built on these technologies attempt to construct specific relations not just between the individual and other generations, but between the individual and herself at other stages of life. Retracing the series of Canadian attempts to secure income for the elderly over the course of the 20th century, the paper shows how calculative technologies have been used to connect responsibility for the elderly to the political rationalities of the day. This genealogy allows us to recognize how the present Canadian retirement income system, with its public and private programs addressing different subsets of the population, is contingent on neoliberal rationalities of governance. These demand the alignment of the individual with the goals of the capital markets, and seek to achieve this through a distributed agency that encourages the investment of individual savings in retirement income products. The paper argues that this distributed agency is perpetually incomplete, and that uncertainty is necessary in order that the individual be constantly remade as an investor.

The winding road to fair value accounting in China: a social movement analysis

The purpose of this paper is to examine China’s stop-start adoption of fair value accounting (FVA) into its national accounting standards. The paper analyzes how FVA standards promoted by transnational organizations were eventually adopted in China despite its conservative accounting traditions.,The study uses archival records and an analytic framework adapted from the studies of social movements to identify the institutional factors that differ between China’ first unsuccessful attempt to adopt FVA and its second successful attempt.,Shared interests of elite national and international groups, creation of social infrastructure, marshaling of key resources, and specific actions to frame FVA standards are found to be crucial factors supporting FVA reform in China.,The study helps advance our understanding of dissemination of international accounting regulations in non-Western societies. The findings can help accounting standard setters to avoid costly failures.,The study provides a structured analysis of the propagation of global accounting regulations. It exposes the factors in the failure and success of FVA adoption in China.