Account and acknowledge, or represent and control? On post-modern politics and economics of collective responsibility

Beyond accountants as technocrats: A common good perspective

“…The same phenomenon is evident in accounting (Power, 1997;Power & Laughlin, 1996) and especially with the construction of the principal-client or agent arrangement (Hanlon, 1996). This transactionally-oriented and principal-dependent relationship provides principals with outcomes that can then be potentially used to control others' (Nelson, 1993). Some contend that this is a perversion of accounting that is dialogical in nature (see Neu, 2000).…”

Reclaiming the public sphere: problems and prospects for corporate social and environmental accounting

“…However, our analysis parts from that of Puxty in seeing the necessary seeds of change already implanted in such a society and therefore a role for social accounting in developing a far wider form of accountability. (Gray et al, 1991, p. 14, emphasis in original) This argument takes decided steps towards a broader ethical framework that supports Nelson's (1993) view that accounting must develop, and is developing, its internal goods of narration, virtue and social recognition. Gray et al's (1991Gray et al's ( , 1996 call for more detailed social and environmental information reflects Rawls' concern not to exclude minorities in a democracy but to create the conditions for social justice, openness and closeness.…”

When words gain their meanings: Turning politics into law and back again in rhetoric—and what can happen when the word for law is literature

“…As we should know from the work of Wittgenstein and Kuhn, Maclntyre and more, thinking in terms of languages, forms of life, cultures, paradigms, or practices helps greatly to identify what is distinctive and autonomous about a sustained set of institutionalized interactions (Nelson 1992). But it mostly leaves open how we are to understand transactions between such practices and their environments.…”