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Drawing on Bourdieu's political economy of symbolic forms and symbolic power, and on an ethnography of gem mining rituals in Sri Lanka, this paper aims to provide an empirical illustration of the connection between calculative practices and the social structure of capital. It shows how capital is socially structured around particular fields of reproduction, how the field-specific organisation of capital is implicated in the presence and absence of calculative and control practices, and how calculative templates and procedures, as symbolic systems, simultaneously perform interrelated but distinct functions of cognition, communication and domination. The paper advances the argument that calculative templates and procedures constitute a field-specific logic and they are the symbolic means through which structural properties of the social systems are cognised, communicated, reproduced and transformed into a set of practical dispositions that orient day-today work practices, domination and resistance.

Accountability has become integral to many African development reform initiatives and permeated the World Bank' s (WB) policy discourses, with "social accountability" as a major plank in its development orthodoxy. Since the 2004 Word Development Report (WDR), the WB' s leadership has been declaring its commitment to social accountability. This paper excavates what lies behind the ringing declarations of commitment to social accountability in the context of Ghana' s Public Financial Management Reform Programme. Empirically, it draws on four months' fieldwork into the accountability practices this programme brought about and an extensive analysis of WB discourses on public sector reforms and social accountability. Theoretically, the paper draws on Foucault' s governmentality and the notion of agonistic democracy central to the recent democratic accountability debate in critical accounting circles. The paper argues that the WB' s social accountability crusade hinges on the neoliberal concerns of efficiency and fiscal discipline rather than creating a democratic social order, which then questions the very notion of social accountability that the WB is propagating, especially its discursive and ideological "short-circuiting" of democratic processes. The paper finds that the dominant and dominating accountability forms that facilitate the WB' s financial hegemony are privileged over potentially emancipatory ones. The findings highlight that as local governments become responsible to international development agencies through the "social accountabilities" that the WB is promoting, they become less socially and democratically accountable to their own populace-the very place where social accountability should truly rest.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional model for assessing the quality of corporate environmental reporting (CER) incorporating both preparer- and user-based views. Design/methodology/approach As opposed to frequently used researcher-chosen proxies, the authors used an online questionnaire asking preparers and users how they assess the quality of a company’s environmental report. Findings The analysis of the responses of 177 users and 86 preparers shows that quantity was not perceived as the most significant element in determining quality. Besides quantity, the respondents also perceived information types, measures used, themes disclosed, adopting reporting guidelines, inclusion of assurance statement and the use of visual tools as significant dimensions/features of reporting quality. Research limitations/implications The online questionnaire has some limitations, especially in terms of researcher being absent to clarify meanings and, hence, possibilities that respondents may misinterpret the questionnaire elements. Practical implications Considering that robust, reliable measurement of reporting quality is difficult, preparers, standard setters and policy makers need multidimensional quality models that incorporate both users’ perceptions of quality and preparers’ pragmatic understanding of the quality delivery process. These will make the preparers informed of whether their disclosure may be falling short of users’ expectations. Originality/value Amid, increasing complexity of CER, the research contributes to the growing body of literature on assessing the quality of CER by developing a less subjective, multidimensional, preparer–user-based quality model. This innovative quality model goes beyond the traditional quality models, subjective author-based quality measures. Focussing on the three dimensions of reporting quality – content, credibility and communication – it also offers a high-level resolution of meaning of CER quality.

Purpose -This paper aims to report on subalterns' emancipatory accounting (SEA) embedded in transformation of governance and accountability structures (GAS) in Ceylon Tea. Design/methodology/approach -The paper draws on James Scott's political anthropology to examine how subalterns' resistance and emancipatory accounting triggers structural transformations.Findings -An attempt is made to theorise subaltern resistance as a form of emancipatory accounting. Concerning the commentaries that accounting has been to suppress or hegemonise the subalterns and appreciating the analysis of indigenous resistance implicated in emancipatory potential, this paper examines how a distinct subaltern group in Ceylon Tea deployed their own weapons towards the changes in GAS. Originality/value -The accounting literature neglects how subalterns reconstruct governance and accountability structures: this paper introduces a social accounting perspective on resistance, control and structural transformations. Also, it introduces to accounting researchers James Scott's political anthropology as an alternative framework.