Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate an element of the internal politics of standard setting by reference to the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) movement to the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs). The authors examine the politics of the IASB’s expertise in technocratic governance by focussing on how the IASB defined SMEs, gave the standard a title and issued a guide for micro-entities. Design/methodology/approach The narrative case study focusses on central “moments” in the development of IFRS for SMEs. The authors employ Laclau and Mouffe’s condensation, displacement and overdetermination to illustrate embedded politics in articulating IFRS for SMEs. Findings The authors extend literature on the internal politics of standard setting, such as agenda setting, by examining the condensing of disagreements between experts and political pressures and processes into central decision moments in IFRS for SMEs. The authors illustrate these moments as overdetermined, manifesting in an act of displacement through the production of a micro-entity guide. This form of politics is hidden due to the IASB’s attempt to protect their technocratic neutrality through fixing meaning. Originality/value The authors make three contributions: first, overdetermination through condensation and displacement illustrates the embedded nature of politics in regulatory settings, such as the IASB. Second, the authors provide a theoretical explanation of the IASB’s movement from listed entities to IFRS for SMEs, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe. Third, the authors reinforce the necessity of interrogating the internal politics of standard setting to challenge claims of technocracy.

We focus on what invoking the public interest 'does' for the International Accounting Standards Board [IASB], as a trans-national, private regulator. Our study focuses on a snapshot from 2010-2015 post the global financial crisis, as the IASB and the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation [IFRSF] suffered a legitimacy crisis. We are interested in how the IASB restated the meaning of the public interest and the impact of invoking different conceptions of public interest. With respect to metonyms, this paper employs rhetorical redescription to identify the implications of defining the public interest as procedural due process, substantive due process and as outcome-focused. At the same time, through careful interpretation, the paper examines the rival metaphors attached to meanings of the public interest. By examining what invoking the public interest 'does', our ontological analysis illustrates how these redescriptions constituted a rhetorical strategy for organizational legitimacy, how the meanings operated as a form of 'ideological cover', and the political impact of constructing the 'public interest' as a floating signifier. We argue that these strategies operated to reinstitute the technocratic power of the IASB.

PurposeThe study draws upon three accounts to examine post-truth politics and its link to accounting. In studying Petrobras, a Brazilian petrochemical company embroiled in a corruption scandal, the authors draw upon a politics of falsity to understand how different depictions of similar events can emerge. The authors depict Petrobras' corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures during the period of corruption juxtaposed against the Brazilian Federal Police investigation (the Lava Jato/Car Wash Operation) and Petrobras' response to the allegations of institutional corruption.Design/methodology/approachThe data set consisted of 56 Petrobras reports including Annual Reports, Financial Statements, Sustainability Reports and Form 20-Fs from 2004 to 2017, information disclosed by the Brazilian Federal Police concerning the Lava Jato Operation and media reports concerning Petrobras and the corruption scandal. The paper employs a discourse analysis approach to depict and interpret the accounts.FindingsThrough examining the connection between ontic accounts and ontological presuppositions, the authors illustrate a post-truth logic underpinning accounting, due to the interpretive, contestable and contingent nature of accounting information. Consequently, the authors turn to the “ethics of the real” as a response, as citizen subjects must be cautious in how they approach accounting and CSR disclosures.Originality/valueRather than relying on simplistic true/false dualities, the authors argue that the “ethics of the real” provides a courageous position for citizen subjects to interrogate the organisation by recognising the role of discourse and disclosure expectations on organisations in a post-truth environment. The study also illustrates how competing, contingent accounts of the same timeframe and events can emerge.

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This paper explores the role of accounting within the context of Lazzarato's theorisation of indebtedness. Accounting is often depicted as neutral, objective and technocratic, and despite Lazzarato referencing accounting within his exploration of indebtedness, we believe the role of accounting is underexplored in his analyses. Our intervention suggests that accounting is the primary language of financialisation, securitisation, financial capital and indebtedness. This paper also extends Lazzarato's thesis by arguing that, with new accounting technologies, indebtedness is being spread to emerging economies. This extension is mobilized through the work of the International Accounting Standards Board, as a private accounting standard setter, in partnership with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as accounting is language of advanced financial accounting and indebtedness.

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PurposeThis paper examines the 2012–2013 Starbucks tax crisis in the United Kingdom (UK) as an anatomy of tragedy. The tragedy in relation to Starbucks is the displacement of an opportunity to examine the relationship between financial capital and national capitalisms. The paper illustrates how the crisis displaced opportunities for substantive critique concerning financial capital, national capitalisms, multinationals, taxation and society.Design/methodology/approachAs a critical, discursive intervention, the paper examines how rhetoric was employed in 157 media articles published in six UK newspapers and on two news portals (both in print and online). The paper employs rhetorical redescription to the document archive, presenting the finding and analysis as a play in the style of an Aristotelian tragedy.FindingsAnalysis of the Starbucks approach to transfer pricing identifies misunderstandings of accounting, taxation transfer pricing, and ‘‘resolution” and how the media's construction of Starbucks as immoral, anti-British, potentially illegal operated to confuse the politics. The effect of these misunderstandings and confusion was to take attention away from a politics concerning financial capital valorisation and national capitalisms (jurisdictions raising tax revenue for government spending and social services).Originality/valueFirst, the paper explores the politics of displacement to illustrate the metonymic concealment of the primary identity of the political. Second, Aristotelian tragedy is employed to study and present methods of displacement. Third, the empirics are depicted in a dramatic format to illustrate how rhetorical interventions by the media and actors displaced the political focus away from financial capital and national capitalisms.

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