Danture Wickramasinghe

Introduction to management accounting in less developed countries

Purpose – This paper seeks to introduce, summarise, and reflect on the key themes and findings raised by the seven papers selected for this special issue devoted to management accounting in less developed countries (LDCs).Design/methodology/approach – The conclusions are drawn from desk research generally and the articles contained in this collection.Findings – This paper finds that accounting research in LDCs needs to address issues of poverty reduction, corruption, community involvement, history, culture, and politics, and examine a wider spectrum of organisations ranging from households to non‐governmental organisations.Practical implications – Effective management accounting in LDCs may require broader, simpler, open and transparent, sometimes informal systems developed locally.Originality/value – This paper presents a collection of mainly empirical papers on an important but neglected topic, namely how management accounting might aid economic development in poor countries.

Calculative practices in a total institution

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence on how and why a poor rural community is engaged in certain calculative practices, and how these are embedded in a “total institution” defined in terms of “relations of production” and “relations in production”. Design/methodology/approach - Focusing on the traditional fishing industry in the Sri Lankan village of Kalamatiya, this study employs a qualitative, ethnographic methodology to collect and analyse data. Findings - The underlying calculative practices are shown to resemble an articulated mode of production fabricated with some heterogeneous complexities, especially patronage relations, village cultures, and local capital and political power, rather than mere economic rationalities. Originality/value - The paper argues that the notions of the “total institution” and the “articulated MOP” can inform accounting researchers to conceptualise research sites beyond the organisation as a novel “field” for empirical studies.

Interest Lost: The Rise and Fall of a Balanced Scorecard Project in Sri Lanka

This paper illustrates a story of “rise and fall” of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) project in a Sri Lankan firm. The “rise” was due to a series of attempts made by CIMA (SL) for popularising BSC practice among business leaders and local consultants, and the “fall” was due to professional rivalry between engineering managers and accounting personnel and the decline of interest on the part of the owner-manager. In relation to these two opposing phenomena, the paper shows how and why the firm first receives the BSC project as a useful management system device, and later, how and why the management tends to undermine the use of BSC. The argument advanced is that the popularisation of BSC is part of a project of accounting knowledge diffusion which comes through the broader globalisation process, but the failure in sustaining BSC is due to the upsurge of professional rivalry and the rise of alternative management fads and the owner-managers inclination to look at financial matters, rather than a BSC, as a basis for the appropriation of surplus. The underlying public interest implication is that even though globalisation project seems to be functional and positive, it provokes contradictions and resistance when new accounting knowledge is diffused from the centre to the periphery.

Improving efficiency and accountability: a case study on outsourcing strategies in higher education in Sri Lanka

Less developed countries (LDCs) have given increasing emphasis to reduce the role of the government and to reform public sector management by adopting business-like management practices. Public sector reforms in Sri Lanka have been an interesting strategic initiative in the attempt to achieve enhanced efficiency, effectiveness and accountability. Privatisation is one major form of such reforms. This research reports the findings of a case study on outsourcing at a university. Motivations for outsourcing include cost reductions and budgetary constraints, expected improvement in service quality, lack of skilled staff and government regulations. Some limitations of outsourcing are lack of mutual understanding between the user and contractor, lack of awareness of users on the level of service, monopoly of the service, increased costs and reduced employee motivation. The research concludes that through careful management and partnership with outsourcing companies, universities can achieve improved levels of service and cost savings from outsourcing.

Changing regimes of governance in a less developed country

Purpose – This paper examines the changing regimes of governance and the roles of accounting therein in a less developed country (LDC) by using Sri Lanka tea plantations as a case. It captures the changes in a chronological analysis, which identifies four regimes of governance: (a) pre-colonial, (b) colonial, (c) post-colonial and (d) neo-liberal. It shows how dialectics between political state, civil state and the economy affected changes in regimes of governance and accounting through evolving structures, processes and contents of governance. Methodology – It draws on the works of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi to articulate a political economy framework. It provides contextual accounts from the Sri Lankan political history and case data from its tea plantations for the above chronological analysis. Findings – The above four regimes of governance had produced four modes of accounting: (a) a system of rituals in the despotic kingship, (b) a system of monitoring and reporting to absentee Sterling capital in the despotic imperialism, (c) a system of ceremonial reporting to state capital in a politicised hegemony and (d) good governance attempts in a politicised hegemony conditioned by global capital. We argue that political processes and historical legacies rather than the assumed superiority of accounting measures gave shape to governance regimes. Governance did not operate in its ideal forms, but ‘good governance’ initiatives revitalised accounting roles across managerial agency to strengthening stewardship rather than penetrating it into the domain of labour controls. Managerial issues emerged from contradictions between political state, civil state and the economy (enterprise) constructed themselves a distinct political domain within which accounting had little role to play, despite the ambitious aims of good governance. Originality – Most accounting and governance research has used economic theories and provided ahistorical analysis. This paper provides a historically informed chronological analysis using a political economy framework relevant to LDC contexts, and empirically demonstrates how actual governance structures and processes lay in broader socio-political structures, and how the success of good governance depends on the social and political behaviour of these structural properties.

Getting management accounting off the ground: : post-colonial neoliberalism in healthcare budgets

Taking Modells [(2014) The societal relevance of management accounting: an introduction to the special issue. Accounting and Business Research, 44 (2), 83–103] ‘societal relevance of management accounting’ agenda forward, and based on a cost accounting initiative in a Sri Lankan hospital, this paper examines how management accounting is implicated in societal relevance. It reports on a post-colonial neoliberal states use of cost-saving experiments and the resultant emancipation of the individuals involved. It conducts a bottom-up analysis, from micro events in the hospital to policymaking at the level of the Provincial Council. This analysis suggests that cost accounting acts as a mediating instrument: it begins to loosen the old Keynesian post-colonial bureaucratic budget confinements, creates a social space for individuals to consider cost-saving experiments, and addresses wider policy concerns about hospital resource management. The story is illuminated by Gilles Deleuzes and Zigmund Baumans ideas on post-panoptic societies: old confinements are being problematised and new flexible, ‘liquid’ spaces created, in which individuals are emancipated in terms of their ability to influence resource management within and beyond the organisational constituency.

Introduction: Accounting and Development

This innovative and informative Handbook brings together leading international researchers on accounting and development to review empirical evidence, issues, policies and practices both past and present. 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. With theoretical and empirically focused chapters, this Handbook will appeal to academics and postgraduate students in accounting and development studies, practitioners, policymakers and development partners.

The BRAC Independence Movement: Accountability to Whom?

This paper examines accounting and accountability in a large Bangladesh NGO, BRAC. Emphasising civil society-state relations, we recount BRAC’s chronology of expansion to trace the emergence of its functional and social accountability and whether they incorporated associational perspectives on development to strengthen civil society and aid political reform, or neo-liberal economic and political development agendas based on strengthening private economic interests. Evidence from interviews with BRAC employees from 2002 to 2012; follow up visits to secure feedback and clarification; supplementary validation from civil society representatives, government officials and private sector agencies; and secondary sources illustrate that BRAC’s accountability incorporates traditional forms of patrimonial governance and help grant it sufficient leeway and space to become independent, ultimately accountable to itself, and diminished its associational obligations.

Management Control after Privatization: Illustrations from Less Developed Countries

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.