Jane Andrew

Accounting for climate change and the self-regulation of carbon disclosures

Abstract Adopting a form of “critical dialogic engagement” (Bebbington et al., 2007), this paper explores how dominant environmental discourses can influence and shape carbon disclosure regulation. Carbon-related disclosures have increased significantly in the last five years, and many of these disclosures remain voluntary. This paper considers both the construction of self-regulated carbon disclosure practices and the role that this kind of carbon information may have in climate change-related decision making. Our preliminary findings indicate that the methodological diversity underpinning carbon disclosures may inhibit the usefulness of climate change-related data. To explore these issues, this paper focuses on the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the use of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol as a reporting model within it.

Accounting as an instrument of Neoliberalisation? Exploring the adoption of fair value accounting in China

Purpose - This paper aims to explore the implementation of fair value accounting (FVA) in China as part of a global process of neoliberalisation and financialisation of political and economic systems. It establishes that FVA forms part of the technical architecture of neoliberalism. Design/methodology/approach - In considering the processes of neoliberalisation in China, this paper uses a qualitative approach to explore some of the impacts the adoption of FVA has had on Chinese capital markets. Findings - It is shown that the practice of FVA is imbued with assumptions about the state and the market that have little bearing on the realities of Chinese capital markets. Rather than advancing the public interest, as neoliberal theories claim, this accounting change has failed to transform political and economic power. Instead, it has provided another opportunity to reposition powerful political and economic elites both inside and outside China. This paper argues that the process has reconfigured capital markets in the image of those in advanced capitalist economies, but is devoid of the regulatory and socio-political apparatus to rationalise its relevance and reliability in the Chinese context. Originality/value - By positioning the research in broader literature of neoliberalism, this paper offers an alternative framing of the purpose of adopting FVA and, more broadly, the globalisation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The accounting craft and the environmental crisis: reconsidering environmental ethics

If the purpose of environmental accounting research is to develop, suggest and analyse ways out of the environmental crisis, then it is fundamental that the ethical positions informing our research are developed and explored fully before we make choices about the path and direction of our own work. This paper reviews two alternative approaches to environmental ethics, namely, radical ecology (of which deep ecology, social ecology and eco-feminism are regarded as subdivisions) and the emerging area of post-modern environmentalism. The aim is to encourage environmental accounting researchers to consider and explicitly state the ethical position adopted within their work.

Weaving a web of control : “The Promise of Opportunity” and work-life balance in multinational accounting firms

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between management controls and the work-life balance (WLB) of junior accountants working in four multinational accounting firms using semi-structured interviews. Design/methodology/approach - – The authors interviewed junior accountants, asking them about their firms’ time budgeting process, their views on organisational culture and their experience of WLB. Findings - – Time budgeting controls and the dominant discourses of “efficiency” and “career” form a web of control within these firms that sustain the long-hours culture. Drawing on the work of Foucault, the authors argue that the web of control is particularly strong because it is not imposed externally by a clearly identifiable source of power. Instead, the interviews revealed how junior accountants actively produce the web of control in order to secure their identity. This is particularly apparent when they speak of their career. Research limitations/implications - – This research sheds light on the relationship between management controls and WLB. Management controls are effective in large multinational accounting firms because they work through the emergent identity of young professionals. Originality/value - – The link between management control systems and WLB has received little attention from accounting academics. This research offers important insights into the way management control systems and organisational culture may impact the lived experience of WLB within multinational accounting firms.

Environmental accounting and accountability: can the opaque become transparent?

Accounting and the environment can no longer be considered mutually exclusive. Accountability forms part of the philosophical justifications for current accounting practice, and as such, it is a concept that may provide a pivotal grounding upon which environmental issues may be recognised within its practice. This paper examines the radical possibilities of environmental accountability, the contribution that this could make to a new practice of accounting and ultimately, a pathway out of the environmental crisis that could be forged by such changes. Central to the development of the ideas within this work is a critique of the relationship between accountability and transparency.

Tools of accountability: protecting microfinance clients in South Africa?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which accountability is operationalised within the context of a South African microfinance institution (MFI). In particular, the authors consider the introduction of a tool to enhance consumer protection, the Client Protection Card (CPC), to deliver accountability within the case organisation. In contrast to prior research, the authors focus on accountability from the perspective of clients and fieldworkers. Design/methodology/approach - A single in-depth case study of the introduction and implementation of a CPC in an MFI operating within South Africa was conducted. The case study and timing afforded an opportunity to gather unique data, given the MFI’s client-centred philosophy and the recent introduction of the CPC. The qualitative approach adopted for this research allowed collection of data through direct observations, interviews, a fieldwork diary and documentation. The theoretical framing for this paper views accountability as involving social practices, allowing us to foreground the existence of interdependencies among people interacting within the same organisation or system (Roberts, 1996). Findings - The case study demonstrates that three aspects are critical to the success of the card: the design, which requires sensitivity to the local culture; the distribution, which demands for significant “sensemaking” work to be undertaken by fieldworkers; and the drivers for introducing the card, which need to be responsive to the clients’ perspective. The paper illustrates how well-intended tools of accountability can fail to deliver effectively, both for the organisation and the users, if they are not tailored appropriately to the needs of clients. Originality/value - This paper differs from prior research as it explores the ways in which fieldworkers and MFI clients make sense of a tool of accountability, the CPC. Given that the CPC was designed to meet guidelines produced by international policymakers and domestic legislators, the paper provides a grassroots analysis of the effectiveness of the implementation of such tools from the perspective of clients and fieldworkers. This local focus allows the authors to examine the ways in which mounting global expectations for increased accountability of MFIs are being operationalised in practice.

Incorporating Human Rights into the Sustainability Agenda

It seems a simple premise. Corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights and business schools have a responsibility to include human rights in their curriculum. Although most academics working in business schools would acknowledge that a wellrounded business education requires students and teachers to engage with ethics, few address human rights directly within their programmes. McPhail (2013) argues that human rights education should be included in business education to ensure business graduates have an intellectual awareness of human rights, an ability to debate and critique human rights-related issues, and the capacity to think about the impact of business practice on human rights. Given the growing interest in sustainability issues within business schools, the absence of human rights-related education could undermine capacity to educate for a sustainable future with a broad awareness of both the environmental and social responsibilities that are attached to this. McPhail’s (2013) article makes a case for human rights education as an important part of sustainability education. Despite obvious connections, this is not easy. The paper points out the tensions that exist between well-established corporate goals (such as profit maximization, cost minimization, and market expansion), the contested sustainability agenda and human rights. In order to overcome the obvious challenges of ‘teaching human rights’, McPhail (2013) argues that students should be given the opportunity to evaluate dominant and emergent discourses on human rights. Ideally, they should be able to engage in debates about the nature of human rights; whether or not corporations should be accountable for their human rights practices; how human rights outcomes should be reported and to whom; whether or not the public and private sectors have different responsibilities in terms of human rights; and so on. Given this, it is not surprising that McPhail (2013) advocates a type of education that does not preach human rights but rather encourages students to

Offshoring and outsourcing the ‘unauthorised’: The annual reports of an anxious state

Abstract Since the inception of Australias mandatory immigration detention policy for ‘unauthorised’ arrivals, border issues have generated significant public discussion. The policy is controversial and has been made more complicated by the outsourcing and offshoring of detention centre management and processing. Despite the diversity of actors involved in the governments mandatory detention policy (such as private security firms and intergovernmental organisations), we argue that the management of ‘unauthorised’ migration has been framed as a matter controlled by the state that is beholden to no other interests except its own. In order to explore the role of state and non-state actors in Australias detention policy, this paper offers a reading of departmental annual reports over a 14-year period from 1996 to 2010. Using the theoretical work of Wendy Brown, we explore the representation of non-state actors in border management and the impact this has on the identity of the state as revealed in the annual reporting process. In line with Brown, we argue that the departments annual reports demonstrate the tension that exist between the apparent “opening and barricading”, the “fusion and partition” that underpins globalisation (2010, p. 7). In addition, we argue that emergent forms of border fortification provide an opportunity for the nation-state to reassert its sovereignty whilst at the same time these reflect deep anxieties over the role of the state in a globalised and privatised future. We contend that the annual reporting process provides a performative opportunity for the nation-state to demonstrate its strength and relevance. At the same time it is dependent on multinational security firms and inter-governmental authorities to execute the policy.

Uncertainty Markets and Carbon Markets: Variations on Polanyian Themes

Lohmann (2010) knows more than most about the relationship between financial markets and the broader political economy in which they operate. His work provides a detailed interrogation of contemporary finance and its implications for the environment – in particular, the impact carbon markets will have on climate change abatement. This paper examines the dynamics of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) with a uniquely detailed and compelling discussion of the growth in ‘uncertainty markets’ over the last 40 years. In particular, Lohmann shows us how these markets boomed with the help of economic actors interested in ever expanding opportunities for speculative gains; regulators keen to encourage market growth; and ‘quants’ (quantitative experts) who turned uncertainty into simple, discrete and easily ‘read’ (not so easily understood) numbers. And whilst this expanded profit opportunities temporarily, according to him it made the credit crisis inevitable. The ‘derivatives revolution’ described by Lohmann has had catastrophic consequences (p. 228) and whilst his paper looks back at the dynamics of the GFC, he also looks forward to explore the parallels between speculative finance and emerging carbon markets. Like finance, the ‘climate problem’ has been stripped of its complex ‘reality’ and has been reframed as a purely economic problem awaiting an appropriate market response. Carbon markets require us to create a commodity out of the climate crisis; the commodity can then be traded offering a new source of opportunistic speculation. The idea that carbon markets can produce financial gains whilst simultaneously averting the climate crisis does not sit well with Lohmann and his detailed examination of the financial crisis provides the reader with strong grounds to be suspicious and critical of market-based carbon solutions. Given that markets require the earth’s carbon cycling capacity to be commodified, the ‘uncertainty markets’ described by Lohmann in this paper offer a strong rationale for alternative climate policies: ones that might actually encourage what he describes as a ‘fair transition away from fossil fuel dependence’ (p. 248).