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This paper analyses the establishment and evolution of a public oversight body (POB) – the Egyptian Audit Oversight Unit (AOU) – and its implications for local auditing firms and practices.

Primary data were gathered from 34 semi-structured interviews (including follow-up ones) between 2014 and 2020. Secondary data was obtained through publicly available documents and internal memos. Drawing on Debord's (1967) Society of the Spectacle, the insights focus on the POB's conception, materialisation and evolution in a context characterised by weak regulatory structures.

Through a series of acts, the findings reveal how the AOU first accepted the image of “international best practice” oversight (the “metaphorical”), followed by the construction of the local structure and décor replicating a United States (US) style POB archetype (the “transformational”) by primarily relying on visible processes/procedures. Yet, these mechanisms emphasised the spectacular nature of oversight, with little improvement for practice and limiting itself to “cracking down” on smaller local firms. A final stage (the “performative”) reveals how the AOU seeks to expand its activities beyond its original mandate without challenging the image-driven nature of its oversight.

The paper offers two key contributions. First, it reveals how actors, through a combination of symbolic and tangible measures, create a new performative reality of public oversight. Second, it advocates Debord's “spectacle” to complement other theoretical lenses, with a view to illuminating the materialisation stages that bridge the gap between proclaimed oversight policies and actual practices (including conscious and unconscious omissions) within a given political economy context.

In this paper, we concentrate on the use of research assessment (RA) systems in universities in New Zealand (NZ) and the United Kingdom (UK). Primarily we focus on PBRF and REF, and explore differences between these systems on individual and systemic levels. We ask, these days, in what way(s) the systemic differences between PBRF and REF actually make a difference on how the two RA systems are experienced by academic staff.

This research is exploratory and draws on 19 interviews in which accounting researchers from both countries offer reflections on their careers and how RA (systems) have influenced these careers. The stories they tell are classified by regarding RA in universities as a manifestation of the spectacle society, following Debord (1992) and Flyverbom and Reinecke (2017).

Both UK and New Zealand academics concur that their research activities and views on research are very much shaped by journal rankings and citations. Among UK academics, there seems to be a greater critical attitude towards the benefits and drawbacks of REF, which may be related to the history of REF in their country. Relatively speaking, in New Zealand, individualism seems to have grown after the introduction of the PBRF, with little active pushback against the system. Cultural aspects may partially explain this outcome. Academics in both countries lament the lack of focus on practitioner issues that the increased significance of RA seems to have evoked.

This research is context-specific and may have limited applicability to other situations, academics or countries.

RA and RA systems seem to be here to stay. However, as academics we can, and ought to, take responsibility to try to ensure that these systems reflect the future of accounting (research) we wish to create. It is certainly not mainly or solely up to upper management officials to set this in motion, as has occasionally been claimed in previous literature. Some of the academics who participated in this research actively sought to bring about a different future.

This research provides a unique contextual analysis of accounting academics' perspectives and reactions to RA and RA systems and the impact these have had on their careers across two countries. In addition, the paper offers valuable critical reflections on the application of Debord's (1992) notion of the spectacle society in future accounting studies. We find more mixed and nuanced views on RA in academia than many previous studies have shown.

This paper aims to focus on building an interpretive framework for understanding accounting practices and changes, drawing on the situationist concept of the “spectacle”.

The paper reviews the existing accounting and management literature in light of the concept of the spectacle. The paper presents empirical illustrations of participatory budgeting as a form of the spectacle and the role of donor agencies in local government reforms in Uganda, based on interviews and observations.

It is argued that the transformational – rather than just metaphoric – dimension of the spectacle has the potential to provide a better understanding of accounting practices and their transformations in the context of ever‐changing capitalism, and to further contribute to the critical accounting literature. Drawing on Debord's work, the paper also extends one's understanding of why donor agencies export ideas, including accounting practices and technologies.

The paper further enriches the possibility of critical consciousness and praxis in transforming and shaping the spectacle. By understanding the construction of the spectacle and its transformations, as Boje et al. argued, avenues for resistance are opened up.

The paper provides a perspective for the understanding of accounting changes, and it should open up avenues for further research regarding various forms of the spectacle that involve accounting techniques and practices.

This study examines the controversial success of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) accrual implementation, using the case of Tanzania.

Interviews, documentary reviews and observations were used for data collection. This study draws on the spectacle theory for data analysis.

The findings demonstrate that IPSAS accrual was a spectacle during its production and consumption. The features and forms of the spectacle were revealed in IPSAS accrual during its production and affirmed by actors during its consumption. Further affirmation of IPSAS accrual as the spectacle was revealed through communication of good news and the hiding of bad news. The outcome was the alleged roles of IPSAS accrual.

The study is limited as it was conducted in only one country. The controversial success is global and calls for further research in other parts of the world.

The International Monetary Fund should stop recommending implementation of IPSAS accrual along with cash basis as the two systems are incompatible. Moreover, government officials should have alternative thinking presenting a different view of the world, so as to avoid being passive, and focus on reality rather than appearance.

This study is the first to explain the controversial success of IPSAS accrual implementation. It demonstrates the usefulness of spectacle theory in the field of accounting research, especially in the context of reform implementation. Moreover, this study confirms that IPSAS accrual is a spectacle (Uddin et al., 2011).

The central contribution of the paper aims to provide a new way of thinking and reflecting about using a more critical public policy approach as opposed to the heretofore dysfunctional dichotomist approach common to the immigration policy debate.

Using critical theoretical approaches primarily based on Debord and Agamben, the author compares and contrasts the approaches made by immigration reform policy advocates and opponents to obtain a better understanding of these complex issues and the motivations behind them.

Viewing the policy immigration and border policy discourse from the market spectacle lens allows the author to see the seemingly never-ending conflict to be fully disclosed. Corporate profit-seekers have used effectively the politics of fear surrounding the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the ongoing fear generated against undocumented border crossers along with the property takings of US citizens through the use of the complexities of the dominant market language in the name of the 9-11 and the subsequent War on Terror. The author's primary intention was to expose the motivations of public policy makers and place their policy decisions into a critical context.

In this original paper, the author analyzes events such as the border fence construction – and the corporatist influence behind its development, the push to politically disenfranchise Latinos in Arizona, and the inability of the US Congress to pass legislation for meaningful immigration reform and border security – that have all been subject to the limitations of language, symbols and images portrayed by protagonists and antagonists of market-driven immigration policy. The value of the paper is that the author demonstrates the problems and limitations on public policy.

The purpose of this paper is to use a hybrid account of oil spills in Nigeria to explore the recursive relationship between a multinational company, specific shareholders and the public. A response to Mr and Mrs Shareholders’ concerns is considered an exercise in corporate discursive hegemony and enacts rhetorical accountability.

The authors adopt Debord’s (1967, 1988) concept of the spectacle with Boje’s (2001) antenarrative approach as a critical postmodern framing of Shell’s narrative of oil spills in both local and global contexts. An antenarrative approach considers how stories are woven to produce a unified and omnipotent narrative or image.

MNCs face considerable uncertainties arising from the operational conditions in developing countries and produce a range of accounts for spectators. As theatrical events, they contribute to the spectacle of power that rationalises controversy and suppresses resistance.

To overcome the limitations of using a single document as empirical material the authors consider the response letter as an example of an institutional framing of oil spill phenomena in general.

By understanding the construction of the spectacle the authors open avenues for resistance to corporate discursive hegemony in the form of carnivalesque.

The paper adds to the understanding of hybrid forms of resistance in an era of increasing MNC power and reach. It demonstrates how the actual production and distribution has persuasive power as a form of rhetorical accountability.

Public management is moving towards more control by executives in the name of the people. Executive knowledge is privileged by initiatives such as new public management and collaborative public management that promote the market spectacle. The purpose of this paper is to employ a “radical,” or critical, interpretation based primarily on concepts and social critiques developed by Marx, by Weber and by Debord, to offer a position, polemic, and perspective regarding the nature and effects of public management on the American polis.

The authors develop a social critique of bureaucracy and government towards domination governance of the polis primarily by developing and using the theoretical work of scholars such as Marx, Weber, and Debord for this analysis.

These developments towards more control by executives are corrosive to the last vestiges of representative democracy in the USA.

The question remains as to whether it is too late to reform, or turn back, the onset of the new public managerialism and whether the current condition of public administration is a symptom of the overall market spectacle trend.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize how Miley Cyrus’ brand values are projected through the multimodal semiotic structure of the live performance of the song Do my thang (from the Bangerz album (2013)).

Sociosemiotic conceptual framework in conjunction with an interpretive videographic method of analysis, facilitated by the multimodal qualitative discourse analytic software ATLAS.ti.

Four major territories were identified as regards the spectacle’s latent axiology, namely, freeplay, polymorphous sexuality, neo-burlesque, and hyperdifferentiation.

Attending to structural couplings between signs and modes in the context of bespoke artists’ brand languages constitutes a priority for managing an artist as brand, and, concomitantly, for safeguarding relevance for a fandom. A multimodal reading grid is offered to this end.

From a branding point of view, this study constitutes the first one that theorizes the live show spectacle as the manifest discourse whereupon brand image and brand values are edified, with an emphasis on the dance mode, over and above the verbal/visual modes that dominate the advertising/branding literatures.

Despite the increased interest in video methods and the role of visuality in organizations and management, the use of video in organizations has received scant attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore organizational videoblogs as a phenomenon, and discuss avenues that open up for qualitative research. The paper examines the affordances of organizational videoblogs in a strategy context by contrasting them with more conventional corporate videos, in order to discuss how spectacularization and social media style communication is influencing social practices in organizations.

First, this paper introduces the phenomenon of organizational videoblogging and its implications for research. Second, it engages in a theoretical discussion on videoblogs as a strategizing activity, through three different analytical lenses: strategic sensegiving, strategic self-branding and strategy as spectacle. Illustrative empirical examples are used to support the theoretical discussion.

The paper argues that organizational videoblogging is a phenomenon that changes social practices in organizations by injecting a visual, social media type communication. Organizational videoblogs emphasize authenticity and provide new affordances for sensegiving and self-branding in strategizing, but ultimately lead us to ask whether they risk turning strategizing into an infotainment-like spectacle.

The value of this paper lies in conceptualizing how and why organizational videoblogs can be studied in organizations. The paper provides future research with vocabulary and characteristics to distinguish different types of video in organizations.