Dean Neu

Managing public impressions: environmental disclosures in annual reports

Abstract Through the juxtaposition of theory and a meso-level empirical illustration of the environmental disclosures included in the annual reports of Canadian public companies operating in the mineral extraction, forestry, oil and gas, and chemical industries over the 1982 to 1991 period, the current study attempts to increase our understanding of the role and functioning of environmental disclosures. Our analyses focus on three concerns: the influence of external pressure on environmental disclosures in annual reports, including the amount and types of strategies used in disclosure; the characteristics of environmental disclosure vis-a-vis other “social” disclosures; and the association between environmental disclosures and actual performance. We question whether such disclosures highlight positive environmental actions, obfuscate negative environmental effects or both.

Accounting and accountability relations: colonization, genocide and Canada’s first nations

The current study starts from the premise that accounting techniques and calculations have been, and continue to be, implicated in the colonization and genocide of Canada’s first nations. Relying upon previous literature concerned with governmentality, colonialism and genocide, it is proposed that accounting techniques helped to translate (neo)‐colonial policies into practice with (un)intended genocidal outcomes. Through an examination of historical examples, the analyses highlight how accounting techniques helped to translate policies of conquest, annihilation, containment and assimilation into practice, with the resultant outcomes of reproductive genocide, cultural genocide and ecocide.

Ecological Modernization And The Limits Of Environmental Accounting

In the marketplace of ideas the discourse of ecological modernization— with its emphasis on win-win solutions, the need for universal regulation and appeals to science—has been popular of late. Environmental accounting (EA) literatures have not been immune to the attractions of ecological modernization ideas. The strategic positioning of EA research within the discourse of ecological modernization has undoubtedly provided EA with much needed visibility and legitimacy within the academic community, and has likely encouraged corporations to ‘support’ (both in financial and ideological terms) the work of EA. Yet this discourse may ultimately be limiting. In this critical commentary we propose that the ‘ideological effect’ of ecological modernization is such that the intersection of ecological and social realms is ignored and issues of social justice are effectively erased, despite this discourse’s ‘radical’ or ‘critical’ aspirations. In other words, ecological modernization is a discourse of the status quo. Overall, EA’s harmonization with this discourse has the (un)intended effect of convincing us that the system is working, that ‘progress is being made.’ This distracts us from asking difficult questions regarding the role of environmental accounting in perpetuating unequal and exploitative social relations.

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.

Trust, contracting and the prospectus process

Abstract This study explores the role of trust and the ways in which trust is created within the prospectus process. It is argued that trust is a necessary condition for economic exchange and that trust must exist prior to contracting. The theoretical analysis provided deconstructs the contract as the original event and points to the limitations of traditional accounting analyses in understanding economic exchange. In addition, examples from the prospectus process are used to illustrate how some of the capital market institutions and institutional practices that we observe create and recreate the trust necessary for exchange.

Trust, impression management and the public accounting profession

Abstract Professional and academic explanations of why society trusts the public accounting profession have emphasized either the self-regulating nature of the profession or the disciplining nature of financial markets. The current paper provides an alternative discourse that emphasizes the circular and self-sustaining nature of professional practices. These practices create and maintaing a situation where the general public has no choice but to trust the auditing profession even though auditors are more likely to breach the trust of the general public than the trust of insiders when conflicts arise. A case study of the Canadian public accounting profession is used to illustrate these institutional practices. The provided interpretation gives voice to an alternative discourse that resists the traditional economic interpretation and contributes to the possibility of change.

Doing missionary work: The World Bank and the diffusion of financial practices

Abstract This study uses the metaphor of a financial mission to explore how World Bank lending practices contribute to the globalization of financial practice. Through the use of interviews with key participants and archival documents pertaining to a World Bank education project in Latin America, we analyze how financial/accounting practices came to be diffused to this particular site. The study highlights not only how Bank lending practices attempt to implant accounting practices and discourses into distant fields but also the slippage, accommodation and resistance that is inherent in these attempts to change the habitus of such fields.

Discovering Indigenous Peoples: Accounting and the Machinery of Empire

This study examines the historical usage of accounting as a technology of government within the domain of government-indigenous peoples relations in Canada. Our thesis is that accounting was salien...

BANK FAILURES, STIGMA MANAGEMENT AND THE ACCOUNTING ESTABLISHMENT.

Abstract This study considers the responses of individuals and institutions to discreting situations. We suggest that professional privilege and legitimacy depend on the public accounting professions ability to neutralize and displace the stigma associated with discrediting situations. A case study of the Canadian Commercial Bank failure is used to illustrate the complex interplay of individual and institutional actions, both on the part of individual auditors and the accounting profession, as well as the other involved institutions.

Accounting and the move to privatize water services in Africa

Purpose - Using the recent attempts by the Ghanaian Government to privatize its urban water services, this paper seeks to understand the role and functioning of accounting within the global move to “reinvent government.” Design/methodology/approach - Unlike the attempts made in other African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, the case of Ghana is interesting because of the vociferousness and length of the debate that has been going on. Using Bourdieus notion of field and capital and Foucaults idea of governmentality, and relying on a variety of archival documents and interviews with 27 key participants, the study examines the positioning of accounting practices, vocabulary and experts in this debate. Findings - The study shows how accounting is enlisted at an almost sub-conscious level, how its use can engender significant resistance and how accounting can be used to position the debate in various terms, including “profitability” “affordability” and “accountability.” Research limitations/implications - The paper shows that within new democracies such as Ghana policy-making requires the enlistment of technologies of government – including accounting – to articulate and justify divergent policy options. Practical implications - The findings of the paper have implications for regional policy-makers and their various development partners. Originality/value - Researchers and practitioners working in the area of public sector management and reforms should find significant value in the paper.