Joni J. Young

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.

Constructing, persuading and silencing: the rhetoric of accounting standards

Abstract Members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and its staff are continuously engaged in a variety of efforts to persuade individuals that the work of this entity is valuable, appropriate, useful and correct. In this paper, I focus upon the persuasive efforts that are employed in “official” accounting standards. These documents do more than simply detail new technical accounting requirements. The texts have been shaped to express a particular point of view about the significance of events and activities that occurred during the standard-setting process and contain numerous efforts to persuade readers to accept this perspective. In particular, I argue that the FASB employs rhetorical strategies in its accounting standards that construct (and attempt to persuade us) that a specific standard is “good”, that silence alternatives and possible criticisms of the standard and that construct the FASB as a “good” standard-setter. These strategies help to construct standards as technical products and thereby also work to maintain the myth of accounting objectivity.

Outlining regulatory space: Agenda issues and the FASB

Abstract Research examining the process of accounting change has focussed upon dramatic changes such as the rise of discounted cash flow analysis. However, much of accounting change centers around recognition issues and serves to expand and enhance the domain of accrual accounting. This paper employs three studies (accounting for loan fees, leases and nonprofit organizations) to examine the process of enacting change in accounting recognition practices. The paper follows the construction of accounting issues as accounting problems within a regulatory space, and the subsequent construction of these problems as appropriate for standard-setting action. The study employs a regulatory space metaphor and a “logic of appropriateness” to examine the complex processes through which accounting change occurs.

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. ©

SILENCES IN ANNUAL REPORTS

Abstract In this paper, we show how annual reports rely upon the silencing of injustices in order to make profit appear to be an unproblematic measure of success. In particular, we examine the ways in which corporations silence the negative impact of their activities upon the earth, the hell of war and the beauty of peace, the spiritual, human and social impoverishment arising from excessive consumption, and the dehumanization of workers. Only by breaking silence and counter-posing corporate values with alternatives can we hope to free humankind from the limitations of profit maximization and promote a world in which peace, happiness, respect for diversity, etc. take precedence to capital accumulation.

Institutional thinking: The case of financial instruments

Abstract Although financial accounting practices and disclosures are frequently altered, such changes appear to be constrained by “institutional thinking”. In this paper, I explore an instance of institutional thinking — the emergence and development of an FASB project on financial instruments. This study illustrates the programmed ways in which accounting problems are constructed and resolved, a process that shadows certain questions while emphasizing the traditional accounting concerns with disclosure, recognition and measurement.

Getting the accounting “right”: Accounting and the savings and loan crisis

Abstract In contrast to previous examinations, this paper considers the ways in which accounting was deployed in and altered by the savings and loan crisis. Several theoretical concepts (accounting as an element of governmentality and discipline produced within a particular regulatory space) are used to illumine the role of accounting in the savings and loan crisis. The story unfolds as a prologue and three acts. During the prologue, accounting was supposed to “reveal” the financial condition of individual savings and loan organizations and the industry and to provide “facts” useful in regulatory decision making. In Act 1, a “right” accounting becomes one that justifies regulatory inaction and “conceals” the financial condition of these organizations. During Act 2, a “right” accounting shifts again and is now to reveal organizational insolvency. Finally, in Act 3, a “right” accounting continues as one that should “reveal” the organization but also begins to assume a role in disciplining the regulator. In each act, various actors in regulatory space exhibit a concern for getting the accounting “right”. Different sets of accounting practices are promoted as these conceptions of a “right” accounting change. Despite shifts in these conceptions, the actors in regulatory space do not question whether accounting can be made “right”. Accounting emerges from the savings and loan crisis with its status as a regulatory tool intact and with the potential for an expansion of its domain to include disciplining the regulator.

Separating the Political and Technical: Accounting Standard‐Setting and Purification

The U.S.-based Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) emphasizes that accounting standard-setting is not and should not be regarded as a �political process.� Employing the case of accounting for stock compensation, I examine a recent debate in which FASB appears to have successfully established and maintained a boundary between a technical accounting process and politics. This case is interesting because an earlier, failed effort to expense stock compensation was described as highly politicized. However, the boundary between technical and political processes was maintained in the more recent episode. I find that a focus on due process, characterizations of existing accounting requirements as anomalous and available measurement methods as reliable, and warnings about the dangers of injecting �politics� into standard-setting were important to this boundary work. I also find that the boundary work required considerable interpretive flexibility in selecting (or ignoring) the evidence to be used in justifying the standard-setting project and its conclusions. I conclude by suggesting that a different understanding of what it means to be involved in a �political process� might help all parties understand more fully what is taking place during the accounting standard-setting process. Attention could be turned to developing processes to facilitate debates over which values should guide decisions occurring throughout the standard-setting process. To this end, an enhanced standard-setting process might allow for increased participation in agenda setting, in framing and scoping standard-setting projects, and in providing opportunities for nonexperts to participate.

Accountability re‐examined: evidence from Hull House

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to re-examine accountability in a concrete historical context from the perspective of pragmatism and feminist theory. Design/methodology/approach - An archival case study of Hull House. Findings - Both pragmatism and feminist theory of Benhabib provide new insight into alternative conceptions of accountability, conceptions at odds with the prevailing and dominant emphasis on quantitative measures of performance. Further, this paper suggests that this limited view severely narrows the understanding of organizational “success.” Research limitations/implications - While this research serves to problematize notions of accountability further, it leaves the task of developing alternative practices to future researchers. Originality/value - This paper contributes in two ways: first, there is a paucity of research linking pragmatism to the actual workings of concrete organizations. This paper begins to fill that gap. Second, this work draws the attention of accounting and other organizational researchers to the important role played by the settlement movement, and particularly Hull House, in the development of contemporary organizations.

From contract to speech: the courts and CPA licensing laws 1921-1996

Abstract This paper explores the ways in which accounting, licensing legislation and the courts have intersected over time, shaping and reshaping the contours of the CPAs economic jurisdiction and thereby restricting and/or enhancing competition between CPAs and the uncertified. While much attention has focused on the use of legislation and favorable interpretations of these statutes as a means of obtaining and expanding exclusive areas of work, little work has considered the role of the courts as a forum in which to contest and thereby limit the expansion activities of CPAs. The courts have played an important role in deciding issues such as who can be called a CPA, who can be called an accountant and when can a CPA be called a CPA. In deciding these issues, the courts have relied upon shifting constitutional arguments to advance and curb the jurisdiction building activities of CPAs. Early arguments called upon notions of the freedom of contract to challenge legislatively imposed limits on who might perform accounting work. Such arguments were later supplemented and eventually supplanted by those based upon freedom of speech, a freedom only recently held to extend to commercial speech. These shifting arguments are traced in the paper which concludes with some observations about the changing significance of the CPA designation.