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21 – 30 of over 18000Dessalegn Getie Mihret and Bligh Grant
The purpose of this paper is to articulate the conceptual foundations of the role of internal auditing in corporate governance by drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to articulate the conceptual foundations of the role of internal auditing in corporate governance by drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a literature-based analysis of the role of internal auditing from a Foucauldian perspective.
Findings
It is argued that Foucault’s notion of governmentality provides conceptual tools for researching internal auditing as a disciplinary mechanism in the corporate governance setting of contemporary organizations. The paper develops an initial conceptual formulation of internal auditing as: ex post assurance about the execution of economic activities within management’s preconceived frameworks and ex ante advisory services to enhance the rationality of economic activities and accompanying controls.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is expected to initiate debate on the choice of theory and method in internal auditing research. The propositions and research agenda discussed can be used to address research questions of an interpretive nature that could enrich the current understanding of internal auditing.
Originality/value
This paper extends the Foucauldian analysis of accounting to incorporate internal auditing. It offers original propositions as a research agenda and discusses ontological and epistemic considerations associated with adopting the Foucauldian framework for internal auditing research.
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Over the last decade, international accounting harmonization and convergence and the increasing adoption of IFRS as national standards have become dominant topics in international…
Abstract
Over the last decade, international accounting harmonization and convergence and the increasing adoption of IFRS as national standards have become dominant topics in international accounting research (Alp & Ustundag, 2009; Ashbaugh & Pincus, 2001; Cairns, Massoudi, Taplin, & Tarca, 2011; Christensen et al., 2007; Daske, 2006; Daske & Gebhardt, 2006; Daske et al., 2008; Ding et al., 2007; Gastón, García, Jarne, & Laínez Gadea, 2010; Haverals, 2007; Hellmann, Perera, & Patel, 2010; Lantto & Sahlström, 2008; Othman & Zeghal, 2006; Peng & van der Laan Smith, 2010; Schleicher, Tahoun, & Walker, 2010; Tyrrall et al., 2007). In this move toward convergence, the politics associated with IAS setting by the IASB has become an important and controversial topic in international accounting research. Although previous studies have aimed to examine political issues and stakeholder's perception toward the standard-setting process of the IASB (Alali & Cao, 2010; Chiapello & Medjad, 2009; de Lange & Howieson, 2006), no study has critically examined the complexity of factors influencing attitudes and public opinion toward this standard-setting process. Given that attitudes are likely to guide behavior and lead stakeholders to either advance the work of the IASB or create obstacles, it is timely and relevant to analyze attitudes toward this issue. A recent study has provided evidence that stakeholders’ acceptance of IFRS and preparers’ overall perception of IFRS may influence compliance and the quality of financial reports (Navarro-García & Bastida, 2010). As such, it is the objective of this chapter to provide insights into determinants of attitudes toward the IASB's standard setting and critically examine the influence of power structures and perceived legitimacy on individual attitudes and public opinion.1 Specifically, this study examines German attitudes toward the promotion of professional judgment by the IASB since the adoption of IFRS in the EU in 2005.
The authors review the powers of SIB and the SROs, particularly in relation to compliance and investigations, and attempt to assess their effectiveness.
The literature on managing inter‐organisational relationships typically suggests managing these relationships based on the formalised exchange of information across the…
Abstract
Purpose
The literature on managing inter‐organisational relationships typically suggests managing these relationships based on the formalised exchange of information across the organisational boundary with due respect to trust build‐up through successive interactions. The purpose of this paper is to argue that a focus on trust reduces the flexibility and accessibility of resources and hence ruins the advantages of inter‐organisational relationships. The paper focuses on power as a means for absorbing uncertainty when managing inter‐organisational relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on findings from a case study of inter‐organisational relationships. Governmentality is used as a framework for analysing the practise of managing inter‐organisational relationships.
Findings
A number of representations are employed along the boundary between the case study parties and thereby the boundary is emphasised. These representations are used to set the discourse for negotiating the terms of the cooperation. During negotiations a common understanding of cooperation is constructed and thereby fine‐grained information is assembled. In this specific case, the contract plays a central role as a representation of the project in focus. In the construction of the price for the product, open book and benchmark data are used. Information does not cross‐organisational boundaries at face value. Information is applied to the representations and brought into play during negotiations. Thereby managing and management accounting become significant components of the boundary between the parties.
Originality/value
The paper shows that power, as a means for absorbing uncertainty in inter‐organisational relationships, can solve the dilemmas regarding flexibility and access to resources that trust can cause.
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This paper aims to examine the recommendation system of the video-sharing website YouTube to study how control of users is effected on online platforms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the recommendation system of the video-sharing website YouTube to study how control of users is effected on online platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper conceptualises algorithmic systems as protocols – technological and social infrastructures that both facilitate and govern interactions between autonomous actors (Galloway and Thacker, 2004, 2007). It adopts a netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2002) to study not only the formal, technological systems of the platform but also the systems as they were made sense of, understood and enacted upon by actors. It relies both on information as revealed by the organisation itself, as well as discussions between lay users in online forums and press coverage.
Findings
The results of this study indicate that the ways in which platforms selectively facilitate interactions between users constitute a form of control. While maintaining the appearance of an open and neutral marketplace, interactions on the platform are in fact highly structured. The system relies on the surveillance of user interactions to rapidly identify and propagate marketable contents, so as to maximise user “engagement” and ad revenue. The systems place few demands or restrictions on individual users, instead control is effected in a probabilistic fashion, over the population of users as a whole, so as to, in aggregate, accomplish organisational goal.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on accounting and control practices in online spaces, by extending the notion of control beyond overt rankings and evaluations, to the underlying technical and social infrastructures that facilitate and shape interactions.
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Three distinctive domains of inquiry in comparative and international education (CIE) point to epistemic fault lines that simultaneously enable and disable the possibilities for…
Abstract
Three distinctive domains of inquiry in comparative and international education (CIE) point to epistemic fault lines that simultaneously enable and disable the possibilities for social transformation in the cultural ecologies that demarcate, but also entangle, the so-called Global South and the North. Historically, these domains of inquiry – language/multilingualism, education, and development – engage arenas in which ideas about wellbeing, social arrangements, and the politics of knowledge (and of power) are constantly constructed, contested, and renegotiated. This analysis pinpoints some of the discursive technologies, which guarantee that active scholarly innovations and differentiation proceed in ways that ultimately leave intact the territorialized regionalizations of development differences. It reflects on ongoing fieldwork from the South to highlight three spheres of social control, and struggle, illustrative of the coloniality of difference and the expanding institutionalization of learning (as schooling) in an era of global interventionism. These loci – the sources of knowledge traditions, the sites of its enactment, and the power of knowledge transactions – represent overlapping activation points through which education interventions both stimulate and stultify social transformations. Specifically, the sources, sites, and power of knowledge offer empirical and discursive tools for historiographic reconsideration of the role of linguistic diversity and education in social change processes, and, crucially, for shifting critical focus from merely the occidentality of contemporary education traditions to the universalism of its social imaginaries. In this critical reading of new understandings of language(s) as invention, therefore, lies analytic opportunities for rethinking epistemic dilemmas in linking education and “development” in CIE scholarship.
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This chapter posits that we underestimate the way in which our immersion in the ‘social logic’ of capitalist consumption constrains our attempts to understand and respond to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter posits that we underestimate the way in which our immersion in the ‘social logic’ of capitalist consumption constrains our attempts to understand and respond to the ecological crises at both a personal and political level – and that both dimensions of our response are bound together.
Methodology/approach
Survey of literature on psychology, well-being and mindfulness.
Findings
How has the culture of capitalism – its psychic investment in colonizing our attention – compromised our ability to respond meaningfully to the challenges of sustainable development? In an acknowledgement of a certain closure around such themes within Western thought, I look to a point of exteriority in Peter Hershock’s work, drawing on China’s Chan Buddhist philosophy, for intimations of a worldview that challenges the West’s over-commitment to forms of ‘control’ in favour of a cultivation of mindful and careful awareness – and an offering of unconditional attention.
Social implications
Draws attention to a new phase of ‘enclosure’ in the cultural processes of capitalism.
Originality/value of paper
Original introduction of a critical approach to mindfulness in the debate on well-being.
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