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This paper aims to trace the process of setting up and developing the higher accounting education curriculum in Tunisian public institutions, stressing the period 1956–1981. Further, this study intends to highlight specificities of the Tunisian context during this period, focusing on the main roles of the Tunisian State and some key actors.

This study is based on a historical approach. Two complementary methodologies were used, mainly, documentary study and semi-directive interviews with key actors heavily involved in higher education. The critical accounting framework and Foucault’s power-knowledge relationship were mobilized to this end.

The paper provides a general overview of higher accounting education in the Tunisian context, focusing on three specific periods. First, in the post-independence period (1956–1960), higher accounting education was a very underdeveloped French heritage. Second, during the 1960s, the Tunisian State focused on institutional and structural measures to set up the initial foundation. Those measures were impacted by the Tunisian socialist economic system, the development of capital human and the cultural French influence, at once. Third, the 1970s were essentially marked by the role of university-scholars and professional-accountants to set up a higher accounting curriculum. The market-oriented economy and the higher social equity are assumed to influence the above-mentioned setting-up. The culmination of this extending process was the unification and publication of the first official program of accounting studies, at the start of 1981.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to trace the process of setting up and developing of higher accounting education curriculum in Tunisia. This study contributes to a better understanding of this process, shedding some light on the specificities of the Tunisian context during the period 1956 to 1981.

Drawing from an interest in the changing Indonesian political and regulatory history, the purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the role that accounting reform can play in nurturing, or failing to nurture, a more dialogic form of accounting in a local Indonesian municipality.

To collect the data, the authors undertook a case study of a local municipality and drew from patterns found in Indonesia’s long colonial history. Data were acquired from official and publicly available documents and interviews with 29 key figures, including those involved in formulating and disseminating laws and also those affected by the accounting reforms from 1998 to 2009. Document collection and interviews were conducted at national and local levels.

This study shows that Indonesia has undertaken significant economic and political reforms for the intended purposes of fostering democracy, strengthening accountability, and creating transparency in relation to public sector practices. As part of these reforms, accrual accounting is now mandatory, independent audit is conducted, and disclosure is required by Government offices at central and local levels. Nonetheless, drawing from dialogic accounting principles, this study demonstrates the limitations of legislation and regulation in countering patterns that have long been laid down in history. Essentially, there is limited opportunity to question the elements of these reforms, and the study has also found that centralizing forces remain to serve vested interests. The root of the problem may lie in traditions of central control which have played out in how a dialogic form of accounting has failed to emerge from these important accounting reforms.

The findings of this study should be understood from historical, political, and cultural backgrounds of the site of the study.

The implications of the findings should be taken into account by public sector policy makers, particularly in emerging economies – where political realities, economic, social, political, and cultural backgrounds set different historical patterns and result in unique circumstances that may tend to retain traditions of the past even under rules and regulations of the present.

A key contribution of this study is to show how the political traditions of a nation can permeate and divert the intent of, in this case, engaging a broader public in discourse about accounting reform in the public sector. In addition, this study also provides an understanding of public sector reform in the context of a diverse and unsettled nation which has been long subject to colonial, top-led, and military leadership. The findings demonstrate complexities and unintended outcomes that can emerge in public sector accounting reform and how, in this case, they appear to be influenced by historical traditions of centralized control.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks to trace the origins of the various strands of postmodernism within German philosophic idealism; traditions of thought which placed emphasis – like postmodernism – on a subjective understanding of evidence and a supposed capacity of human consciousness to continually move beyond the bounds imposed by social convention and being; second, this paper states that postmodernism, rooted as it is in philosophic idealism, is methodologically and conceptually constrained. Its emphasis on consciousness and will marginalize its capacity to make meaningful contributions in areas such as economics, and the wider trends in human history.

This paper is theoretical. It seeks to locate conflicting methodologies – most particularly those relating to postmodernism, positivism and philosophical realism – within the traditions of thought that have emerged since the enlightenment.

Postmodernism is rooted in philosophical idealism. As such, it places emphasis on consciousness, identity and being. The essential problem with postmodernism, this paper argues, is not this emphasis. These are legitimate areas of inquiry. Rather, the central problem with postmodernist-informed research is found in the limited range of methodological and conceptual tools in its kitbag.

Despite the growing influence of postmodernism in its various shades within academia, few of its proponents and critics trace its philosophic origins. In doing so this paper highlights the strengths and limitations of not only postmodernism but also its polar opposite, positivism.

This study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The assessment is grounded in the empirical material of a three-year research project on integrated reporting (IR).

Alvesson and Deetz’s (2021) critical management framework structures the arguments in this paper. By investigating local phenomena and the extant literature, the authors glean insights that they later critique, drawing on the empirical evidence collected during the research project. Transformative redefinitions are then proposed that point to future opportunities for research on voluntary organisational disclosures.

The authors argue that the mainstream approaches to VRD, namely, incremental information and legitimacy theories, present shortcomings in addressing why and how organisations voluntarily disclose information. First, the authors find that companies adopting the International IR Council’s (IIRC, 2021) IR framework tend to comply with the framework only in an informal, rather than a substantial way. Second, the authors find that, at times, organisations serendipitously chance upon VRD practices such as IR instead of rationally recognising the potential ability of such practices to provide useful information for decision-making by investors. Also, powerful groups in organisations may use VRD practices to establish, maintain or restore power balances in their favour.

The paper’s limitations stem directly from its aim to be a critical reflection. Even when grounded on empirics, a reflection is mainly a subjective effort. Therefore, different researchers could come to different conclusions and offer different lessons from the two case studies.

The different rationales the authors found for VRD should make a case for reporting institutions to tone down any investor-centric rhetoric in favour of more substantial disclosures. The findings imply that reporting organisations should approach the different frameworks with a critical eye and read between the lines of these frameworks to determine whether the purported normative arguments are achievable practice.

The authors reflect on timely and relevant issues linked to recent developments in the VRD landscape. Further, the authors offer possible ways forward for critical research that may rely on different methodological choices, such as interventionist and post-structuralist research.

To present an analytical framework for conducting critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research to further democratisation, social change and empowering marginalised groups, and to reflect on its application in a Bangladeshi nongovernmental organisation's microfinance program.

The framework, synthesising prior CDAA theorising and agonistic-inspired action research, is described, followed by a discussion of the methodological challenges when applying this during a ten-year, ongoing intervention seeking greater voice for poor, female borrowers.

Six methodological issues emerged: investigating contested issues rather than organisation-centric research; identifying and engaging divergent discourses; engaging marginalised groups, activists and/or dominant powerholders; addressing power and power relations; building alliances for change; and evaluating and disseminating results. The authors discuss these issues and how the participatory action research methods and analytical tools used evolved in response to emergent challenges, and key lessons learned in a study of microfinance and women's empowerment.

The paper addresses calls within and beyond accounting to develop critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship adopting an agonistic research methodology. It uses a novel critical dialogic accounting and accountability-based participatory action research approach. The reflexive examination of its application engaging NGOs, social activists, and poor women to challenge dominant discourses and practices, and build alliances for change, explores issues encountered. The paper concludes with reflective questions to aid researchers interested in undertaking similar studies in other contentious, power-laden areas concerning marginalised groups.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how critical realism can be mobilised as a meta-theory, or philosophical under-labourer, for research on space accounting and how this may further inquiries into the known as well as the unknown implications of space exploration and commercialisation.

This is a conceptual paper that applies critical realism to the field of space accounting using cost management in space contracts as an illustrative example.

Adopting a naturalised version of critical realism that recognises the complex interplay between natural and social realities, the author nuances the distinction between intransitive and transitive objects of knowledge and advances a framework that may be used as a starting point for a transfactual mode of reasoning. The author then applies this mode of reasoning to the topic of cost management in the space sector and illustrates how it may enhance our insights into what causes cost overruns in space contracts.

By adopting a naturalised version of critical realism, the author establishes a philosophical framework that can support the broadly based, inter-disciplinary research agenda that has been envisaged for research on space accounting and possibly inform policy development.

This paper is the first to apply a critical realist perspective to space accounting and lays a philosophical foundation for future research on the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine formal participation in the early phase of the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC’s) standard-setting. The objective of the paper is to shed light on the characteristics of lobbying parties and the determinants of their lobbying behavior toward the IIRC. Additionally, the most important points of contestation regarding the IIRC’s initial proposal for integrated reporting are identified and discussed.

The authors analyze comment letters issued toward the IIRC’s 2011 discussion paper on the basis of a content analysis. The analysis is guided mainly by Sutton’s (1984) rational-choice model of lobbying and by findings from extant financial accounting lobbying research. The analysis of the data is both quantitative and qualitative.

The paper improves the understanding of the political nature of standard-setting in the context of integrated reporting. Among other things, the authors find that comment letters toward the IIRC’s discussion paper are mainly written by large multinational firms (as opposed to small- and medium-sized ones) and by preparers (as opposed to users). The authors also observe active lobbying by sustainability service firms and professional bodies which tend to take a critical position vis-à-vis the discussion paper’s emphasis on investor needs and shareholder value creation. Moreover, the qualitative analysis reveals that respondents voice different concerns regarding, for instance, the scope of audience of integrated reporting, issues of materiality and the relationship between integrated reporting and other existing reporting frameworks.

The analysis is limited to a consideration of the 2011 discussion paper of the IIRC. The IIRC’s more recent and forthcoming proposals will likely provide a basis to extend the paper’s findings and allow investigation of the role of lobbying for the further development of the framework.

The paper is, to the best of the knowledge, the first one to explore lobbying behavior by means of comment letters in the context of integrated reporting.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

In 2001, the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) published a special issue entitled “Managing, measuring and reporting intellectual capital for the new millennium”. After 20 years, we revisit the eight articles in this special issue to trace early developments in interdisciplinary intellectual capital (IC) accounting research, link these developments to the current state of play, and set out an agenda for future research. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper, written reflectively, includes an impact assessment of the articles using citation analysis and a thematic framing of the prominent issues they discussed. We critically reflect on the status of these eight foundational papers after 20 years, before presenting propositions for a multidisciplinary IC research future.

We find that IC research needs to extend beyond organisational boundaries to help improve human rights, human dignity and the human condition as part of the wider interdisciplinary accounting project. We argue that fifth stage IC research can assist because it explores beyond organisational boundaries and helps address the wicked problems of the world.

This paper only investigates the themes found in the AAAJ special issue. However, the implications for researchers are intended to be transformational because, to go forward and help resolve the material issues facing society and the planet, researchers need to move from being observers to participants.

We argue that IC researchers must embrace both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary IC research. This requires IC researchers to reflect on what they are trying to achieve and which issues facing the planet are material.