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Accountability and the metaverse: unaccounted digital worlds between techwashing mechanisms and new emerging meanings

Maurizio Massaro (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy)
Rosanna Spanò (Dipartimento di Economia, Management, Istituzioni Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy)
Sanjaya Chinthana Kuruppu (University of South Australia, UniSA Business, Adelaide, Australia)

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 28 November 2023

424

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to understand the main challenges connected with accountability issues across multiple layers of the metaverse, to identify whether and how any techwashing is taking place and to discuss implications for accounting research.

Design/methodology/approach

To develop the research, the authors refer to a critical dialogic accountability framework, operationalized in the current paper by leveraging the perspectives of accountability as virtues and as mechanisms (Bovens, 2010). The authors discuss who is accountable to whom, for what and in what manner in a relatively unregulated and unaccountable world, through the layers of virtual reality introduced by MacKenzie et al. (2013) and Llewellyn (2007). Methodologically, the study concentrates on 32 start-ups working in the metaverse selected from the Crunchbase database and relies on interviews, direct observation in the field and white paper reports analyzed by means of NVivo coding.

Findings

The findings show how metaverse creators deal with accountability as a virtue and accountability as a mechanism. Companies who operate metaverses primarily consider accountability in the virtual-physical domain, which focuses on developing the necessary internal and external architecture to enable a particular metaverse to function. Metaverse companies also emphasize the virtual-agential dimension that concentrates on onboarding, engaging with and incentivizing individuals in virtual worlds. There is an emphasis on outlining the virtues or standards that metaverse companies aspire to, but there is very little detail provided. Similarly, there are uneven and limited discussions of the mechanisms that can support accountability in most layers of a virtual world.

Research limitations/implications

The analysis raises significant questions about the purpose, scope and use of metaverses, which are still a relatively unregulated and unaccountable world. The paper advances the idea that the current creators of metaverses are “techwashing” their projects, providing a utopian ideal of what their universes will look like but obfuscating the realities of their ventures in tech jargon that few people are likely to understand. Therefore, meaning and truth at all levels of the real and virtual worlds remain unaddressed, with implications to be explored in terms of legitimacy and trust of metaverses and the interests that shape them.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first to address the issue of accountability in metaverses. It advances an analytical framework to guide future accounting and accountability research into virtual worlds.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thanks the Guest Editors and the anonymous referees for their invaluable support in improving this study.

Citation

Massaro, M., Spanò, R. and Kuruppu, S.C. (2023), "Accountability and the metaverse: unaccounted digital worlds between techwashing mechanisms and new emerging meanings", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-11-2022-6118

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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