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This study reviews the existing literature on the U.S. peer review system and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection system to assess our knowledge of audit regulation. The traditional self-regulatory system of the accounting profession came to an end, in 2002, when the PCAOB was established to oversee the audit firms of publicly traded companies. This paper contributes to the controversial debate about self-regulation versus independent regulation by analyzing, categorizing, and comparing the research findings on the peer review system and the PCAOB system along three dimensions: the validity of peer reviews and PCAOB inspections, the recognition of reviews and inspections by decision-makers (e.g., investors, bankers, committees), and the effect of reviews and inspections on audit quality. Synthesizing the research on the regulatory regimes suggests that the notion of external quality control, both through peer reviews and government inspections, is positively linked with an improvement of audit quality. At the same time, the analysis indicates that external users do not seem to recognise peer review and PCAOB reports as very useful instruments for decision-making, which is in line with an identified rather skeptical perception of the audit profession on reviews and inspections. Overall, this study reveals that although the academic literature on peer review and PCAOB inspection is extensive it has not produced definitive conclusions concerning various aspects of audit regulation. This paper shows how this blurred picture is due to conflicting research findings, the dominance of the quantitative research paradigm, and unchallenged assumptions within the literature, and concludes by proposing research opportunities for the future.

This paper aims to analyze the process of producing a reported profit number to understand how different actors overcome the tensions arising from the often conflicting value frames that apply in different situations during this process and how the actors can benefit from the ensuing friction.

The tensions found in the profit production process are theorized in terms of dissonance (Stark, 2009), emphasizing how multiple voices, drawing on different value frames, contribute to the search for a profit number. The authors study this by means of a case study of a large listed company in the construction industry, where, because of how judgment pervades the profit production process, the search for profit is particularly exposed.

The authors find three important value frames – caution, control and compliance – which managers, accountants and auditors draw on in the profit production process, depending on the situation they find themselves in. With this finding, the authors contribute to the previous research on financial reporting and management work and the production of profits by demonstrating how the relationships between the involved actors – primarily the auditor–client relationship – can be characterized by principled and constructive rivalry in which competing value frames can coexist alongside each other and how the dissonance created in these situations can produce generative and productive friction.

Previous research has mostly focused on profit measurement, taking the existence of a “true” profit number for granted. The auditor–client negotiation literature typically suggests that actors endeavor to solve situations in a zero-sum game where different value frames are present. This paper, drawing on an incipient theoretical approach to accounting research which emphasizes multivocality and perspective, contributes to the nascent research on financial accounting and management work in general and the profit production process in particular. With empirical illustrations of the dissonance found in this process, this paper suggests that tensions resulting from dissonance (Stark, 2009) may be a resource in situations like the profit production process.

This paper brings insights from accounting scholarship to the measurement and reporting challenges of metagovernance approaches to sustainable development. Where scholarship on metagovernance—the combination of market, hierarchical and network governance—proposes deductive approaches to such challenges, we contend that a historically informed “abductive” approach offers valuable insight into the realpolitik of intergovernmental frameworks.

The paper adopts a Foucauldian “archaeological–genealogical” method to investigate the inclusion of climate change as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). It analyses more than 100 documents and texts, tracking the statement forms that crystallise prevailing truth claims across the development of climate and SDG metagovernance.

We show how the truth claims now enshrined in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change constrained the conceptualisation and operationalisation of SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. The paper thereby reframes recent measurement and reporting challenges as outcomes of conceptual conflicts between the technicist emphasis of divisions within the United Nations and the truth claims enshrined in intergovernmental agreements.

This paper demonstrates how an archaeological–genealogical approach may start to address the measurement and reporting challenges facing climate and SDG metagovernance. It also highlights that the two degrees target on climate change has a manifest variability of interpretation and shows how this characteristic has become pivotal to operationalising climate metagovernance in a manner that respects the sovereignty of developing nations.

This paper aims to better understand why neoliberal governance is so resilient to the crises that frequently affect all or part of the economy.

The argument of this paper relies on a macroanalysis of discourses surrounding the Global Financial Crisis.

Drawing on Girard and Foucault’s work, this paper argues that the resilience of neoliberalism partly ensues from the proclivity of this mode of governing to foster, for reasons that this paper seeks to highlight, spontaneous and widespread processes of scapegoating in times of turmoil. As a consequence of these processes, crises often are collectively construed as resulting from frauds: the blame is focused on specific actors whose lack of morality is denounced, and this individualizing line of interpretation protects the regime from systemic questioning.

Particular actors, rather than the system itself, are made accountable when things go wrong. Consequences are paramount. Today’s political economy is characterized with a proclivity toward social reproduction. While substantive change is possible in theory, considerable challenges are involved in practice in overcoming the dominance of neoliberalism in society.

Although Girard’s work has exerted significant influence over a number of disciplines in the social sciences, his ideas have not yet been widely used in governance and accountability-related research. Anthropological theorizations – such as those proposed by Girard – are valuable in providing us with a sense of how power develops in the economy.

The purpose of this paper is to distinguish two roles of theories, domain theory and method theory, and examine their relationships in management accounting research. Are these two roles explicitly distinguished in management accounting studies? Can this be achieved in an unambiguous manner? Where do ambitions for theoretical contribution lie in management accounting studies that employ method theories?

The authors develop a conceptual framework for analysing possible relationships between domain theories and method theories in studies and illustrate the theoretical arguments with examples from management accounting studies employing Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as their method theory.

There can be various types of relationships between domain theories and method theories, and the theoretical ambition of the analysed studies typically focused on domain theories. However, ambiguity can exist with regard to the location of a study's theoretical ambition. Both domain theories and method theories tend to be moving fields, and their interaction can add to this feature.

The suggested conceptual clarification assists in the reconciliation of extreme perspectives that relate to management accounting and theory. It will also help researchers to systematically design their own work and evaluate that of others. An increased understanding of how a field develops as a result of interaction with method theories might perhaps alleviate concerns regarding the value of mobilizing the latter.

The analysis contributes to the on-going debate on the value and effects of employing method theories, or theoretical lenses, in management accounting research.

This paper aims to examine the design and use of scenarios in planning and management control processes.

The study is based on an exploratory case-study approach. Qualitative data have been collected between 2008 and 2011 from three energy companies operating in Italy.

The paper sheds light on three styles of designing and using scenarios. In the first (called “reactive”), scenarios provide a means for corporate actors to analyse past performance in the light of future expected performance. In the second (“proactive”), scenarios contribute to envision different future states of the world. In the third (“disciplined”), scenarios contribute to develop plausible, if not accurate, narratives about future outcomes.

The study is comparative and exploratory. Possible areas for further work based on in-depth studies of scenarios within planning and control processes are identified.

The comparative analysis of the case-study material has implications for the ways in which flexible forms of management control can be mobilised by managers as a resource of action. It is shown that choices around the design and use of scenarios can mitigate some concerns with traditional planning and management control processes focused on the achievement of a single set of targets, but also raise new ones.

The paper sheds light on a scenario-based approach – called “disciplined flexibility” – that avoids the restrictive nature of budgetary controls without losing the benefits of setting a plan and a target for the future. The paper outlines elements that may support the use of “disciplined flexibility”, but also its potential limitations.

This article seeks to unravel the mechanisms through which financial actors agreed upon a sustainability accounting standard without financializing social and environmental issues, i.e. assigning a monetary value to sustainability.

The article examines the Reporting and Assessment Framework created by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN-PRI), the leading reporting sustainability framework in the asset management industry. It relies on a longitudinal case study that draws upon interviews, participant observation, and archival data.

The article demonstrates that the conception of the framework was a funnelling process of sustainability valuation comprising two co-constituted mechanisms: a process of valorization – judging what is deemed of value – and a process of evaluation – agreeing on how to assess value. This valuation process was unfolded by creating the framework, thanks to two enabling conditions: the creation of non-prescriptive evaluative criteria that avoided financialization and the valuation support of an enabling organization.

The article helps understand how an industry can encompass the diversity of motives and practices associated with the adoption of sustainability by its economic actors while suggesting a common framework to report on and assess those practices. It uncovers alternatives to the financialization process of sustainability accounting standards. The article also offers insights into the advantages and inconveniences of such a framework. The article enriches the literature in the sociology of valuation, financialization, and sustainability accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of blockchain technology in contested markets. The authors specifically consider the development and utilization of this accounting system as a device that might democratize contested markets for vulnerable populations, supporting contested entrepreneurs while “cooling” the moral contestation to the market.

This study analyzes the relationship between vulnerable populations and contested market activities, the inclusive development and potential trust created by a blockchain accounting information system and how this interaction potentially creates support for economic and social systems.

This paper demonstrates that, in an era of decreased trust especially as it relates to a digital, globalized marketplace, blockchain has the potential to create democracies of access, trust and agency. This system overcomes many of the deficiencies associated with transparency and accountability and connects market participants with society, strengthening its potential to bridge two opposing vulnerable population viewpoints necessary for possible contested market development.

The authors contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of emerging technologies in the interconnectedness between vulnerable populations in a contested market. Recognizing that blockchain is an imperfect version of its ideal intention, the authors also discuss the limitations of the system with respect to corruption, collusion and potential issues of adoption, and how this reduces the influence of blockchain as a “cooling” device within contested markets.

The authors provide an illustrative example whereby an entire industry might be persuaded from avoidance to promotion of new traceability devices and supported in the development of an accessible market.

Global government's economic support for social systems continues to experience significant declines. With ever-degrading healthcare, infrastructure, public education, childcare, etc., new sources of economic influx are often desired. One potential source of additional funds is from the tax revenues derived from contested market transactions, those stigmatized industries often operating illegally. With substantial public distrust, blockchain potentially provides such industries with democratization and the trust necessary to transition the industry into a legal environment, with tax revenues benefiting various social systems.

This study goes beyond the preliminary discussions of the benefits and consequences of blockchain. Instead, the authors focus on the use of blockchain within contested markets and its ability to influence vulnerable populations. The authors also consider the use of blockchain-based accounting information systems to provide a holistic and more democratic platform from a regulatory, market participant and societal standpoint.