Mary A Kaidonis

Powerful players: How constituents captured the setting of IFRS 6, an accounting standard for the extractive industries

Abstract This paper illustrates the influence of powerful players in the setting of IFRS 6, a new International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) for the extractive industries. A critical investigative inquiry of the international accounting standard setting process, using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), reveals some of the key players, analyses the surrounding discourse and its implications, and assesses the outcomes. An analysis of small cross-section of comment letters submitted to the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) by one international accounting firm, one global mining corporation and one industry group reveal the hidden coalitions between powerful players. These coalitions indicate that the regulatory process of setting IFRS 6 has been captured by powerful extractive industries constituents so that it merely codifies existing industry practice.

Extractive industries accounting and economic consequences: past, present and future

Abstract Accounting for the extractive industries has been a contested issue for decades as a result of a choice of different methods of costing available and the economic impacts of these methods on companies’ financial results. When the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) embarked on its extractive industries project in 1998, it attempted to create uniform accounting practices. An archival study of constituent responses to the IASBs Issues Paper revealed that the economic consequences argument was relied upon again to argue for retaining choice. The IASBs international accounting standard, IFRS 6, issued in 2004, once again permitted choice between methods, illustrating the effectiveness of the economic consequences argument in perpetuating past practice.

Accounting information systems and learning theory: an integrated approach to teaching

A background to the adoption of computing in accounting education is discussed. There has been considerable pressure by the accounting profession for information technology to be taught in tertiary accounting courses. While accommodating these expectations, accounting academics have been concerned that such teaching should focus on conceptual understanding, rather than training. Research on effectiveness of computers and the learning of accounting concepts has been considered and found to be inconclusive and conflicting. It has been argued that an understanding of learning theory is necessary to enhance the effectiveness of teaching computerized accounting. An approach to teaching computerized accounting information systems and integrating learning theories is presented via a practical example: the objectives of teaching computerized accounting and reasons for adopting the SYBIZ Rev L software package are presented. The chosen approach in developing the teaching and learning material is outlined and linke...

Teaching and learning critical accounting using media texts as reflexive devices: conditions for transformative action or reinforcing the status quo?

Abstract This paper considers the possibilities of accounting education being used in its transformative capacity. The use of “real world events” as presented by the media is used as an educational resource to bridge theory and practice. It is argued that the use of media texts as a practicum to enable praxis, must be reflexive. Whilst the opportunities for emancipation are presented, the possibility to be impositional was considered. This reflexive stance is carried through to examine whether transformative action is indeed possible or whether there is a danger of reinforcing the status quo.

Reflexivity in Learning Critical Accounting : Implications for Teaching and its Research Nexus

Abstract We explore our responses to our students’ use of self-reflective journals in an accounting theory subject. Being reflexive during our writing process gave us insights into our students’ learning, our teaching and the role these have in research. In restructuring our conversations and putting them into an accessible and publishable form, we created and exposed a number of paradoxes. In particular, the presentation of a cohesive narrative text, masked the ideologies and conflicts imbedded in the text we were synthesizing which was the antithesis of what we were trying to achieve in teaching critical accounting. Recognition of such paradoxes made us reflexive of our relationship to students and how this impinges on our roles as researchers. The negotiations and compromises of our power which students may have experienced in the student/teacher relationship can be echoed in the researcher/editor relationship. Whilst we acknowledge these relationships as confronting and oppressive we also argue that these processes can be emancipatory for the students, as well as for us. As teachers and researchers, reflexivity about our students’ engagement in their learning of critical accounting can inform the nexus between teaching and research. Ultimately, the purpose of learning and teaching critical accounting is to expose the conflicts, ideologies and complexities imbedded in accounting practice and not replicate them in the education process.

Rehabilitation of mining sites: do taxation and accounting systems legitimise the privileged or serve the community?

Abstract This paper explores both accounting standards and the taxation provisions with respect to the treatment of rehabilitation costs of mining entities in Australia. A special tax deduction is allowed only for expenditure actually incurred, yet the accounting standard provides a different calculative practice for the representation of the same event. With this example we demonstrate inconsistencies that exist between accounting and tax and although the accounting for income taxes standard accounts for the differences, we argue this merely legitimatises them. We challenge this false consciousness that assumes these inconsistencies are merely incidental and point out that these two systems, of tax and accounting, implicitly sustain and reinforce each other. These institutional practices perpetuate the privileges, powers and impact of the mining industry, whilst claiming to serve the community as a whole.

Opportunities and challenges for mangrove carbon sequestration in the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam

Increasing value is attributed to mangroves due to their considerable capacity to sequester carbon, known as ‘blue carbon’. Assessments of opportunities and challenges associated with estimating the significance of carbon sequestered by mangroves need to consider a range of disciplinary perspectives, including the bio-physical science mangroves, social and economic issues of land use, local and international law, and the role of public and private finance. We undertook an interdisciplinary review based on available literature and fieldwork focused on parts of the Mekong River Delta (MRD). Preliminary estimates indicate mangrove biomass may be 70–150 t ha−1, but considerably larger storage of carbon occurs in sediments beneath mangroves. These natural stores of carbon are compromised when mangroves are removed to accommodate anthropogenic activities. Mangroves are an important resource in the MRD that supplies multiple goods and services, and conservation or re-establishment of mangroves provides many benefits. International law and within-country environmental frameworks offer increasing scope to recognize the role that mangrove forests play through carbon sequestration, in order that these might lead to funding opportunities, both in public and private sectors. Such schemes need to have positive rather than negative impacts on the livelihoods of the many people living within and adjacent to these wetlands. Nevertheless, many challenges remain and it will require further targeted and coordinated scientific research, development of economic and social incentives to protect and restore mangroves, supportive law and policy mechanisms at global and national levels, and establishment of long-term financing for such endeavours.

Critical accounting as an epistemic community: Hegemony, resistance and identity

Abstract In this paper I discuss the School of Accounting and Finance’s epistemic community, which has been a result of the vision of Professor Michael Gaffikin. The distinguishing feature of this epistemic community is the critique of accounting which rejects positivist ideologies and its claims to objective knowledge. As a member of this epistemic community, I present a critical reflexive ethnography and question the role of identity of the self and of the epistemic community. I consider the importance of resistance, particularly in the light of national research evaluation ‘initiatives’. I conclude that hegemony, or the potential of hegemony, is a necessary condition for the epistemic community to sustain its identity.

Research in accounting and finance: paradigm, paralysis, paradox

In July 2008, the School of Accounting and Finance at the University of Wollongong organised its 20th Annual Doctorial Consortium. The aim of the Doctoral Consortia has been to inspire doctoral students and academic staff, and to stimulate a concentrated research focus through exposure to highly experienced scholars. Uniquely the event is a beacon to both higher degree research students as well as academics who seek collegiality and examples of rigorous research engagement beyond instrumental mainstream approaches. Past consortia have always been successful in motivating a concentration on alternative research, lifting both research energy and interest. Recognising the event now also as a cultural one, and to commemorate the milestone of 20 years of the consortium, this special edition of Accounting Forum presents invited papers from the presenters, Joni Young, Paul Williams and Michael Gaffikin and staff from School of Accounting and Finance on the theme Research in Accounting and Finance: Paradigm, Paradox and Paralysis.

Paradigm, paradox, paralysis: an epistemic process

Abstract The potential of the transformative capacity of education requires critique of a dominant paradigm, in order to apprehend the unconscious acceptance of capital markets as solutions to societies’ woes. We engaged with media texts as practicum which advocated carbon markets to mitigate carbon pollution: a contemporary issues in society. We found that although we critique the dominant paradigms upheld by the media texts which we chose, our engagement had the potential to reinforce the status quo. Once this paradox is evident, it precipitates a paralysis of the educative process. However, this is not an end state but the struggle to overcome the paralysis mobilises a reconsideration of the paradigm and opens new possibilities. We argue that the collision of the concepts of paradigm, paradox and paralysis demonstrates an epistemic process which has emancipatory possibilities.