Crisis accountability and aged “care” during COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to fill the gaps in mandated reports with social accounts to provide more inclusive accountability during a crisis using the illustrative example of Anglicare’s Newmarch House during a deadly COVID-19 outbreak. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a close-reading method to analyse Anglicare’s annual review, reports, board meeting minutes and Royal Commission into Aged Care submissions. Informed by Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the study collocates alternate “social accounts” in the form of investigative journalism, newspaper articles and media commentary on the events that transpired at Newmarch House to unveil a more nuanced and human-centric rendering of the ramifications of a public health/aged care crisis. Findings COVID-19 exacerbated pre-existing issues within the aged care sector, exemplified by Newmarch House. The privileging of financial concerns and lack of care, leadership and accountability contributed to residents’ physical, emotional and psychological distress. The biopolitical policy pursued by powerful actors let die vulnerable individuals while simultaneously making live more productive citizens and “the economy”. Research limitations/implications Organisations express their accountability by using financial information provided by accounting, even during circumstances with more prevailing humanistic concerns. A transformational shift in how we define, view and teach accounting is required to recognise accounting as a social and moral practice that should instead prioritise human dignity and care for the betterment of our world. Originality/value This paper contributes to the limited literature on aged care, extending particularly into the impact of COVID-19 while contributing to the literature concerned with crisis accountability. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is also the first to examine a form of biopolitics centred on making live something other than persons – the economy.

COVID-19 and accounting as multidimensional technical, social and moral practice: a framework for future research

“…Of the other seven articles, the authors of five of these quoted in full the definition of accounting outlined earlier and elaborated upon in Figure 1 (Powell and McGuigan, 2023; Sidaway et al , 2023; Twyford, 2023; Twyford and Abbas, 2023; Vesty et al , 2023). The broad scope of accounting positions taken by each of these five author teams is now aligned with the Framework outlined in Figure 1.…”

“…Seven of the following eight articles hereafter published specifically deployed this proposed new definition of accounting in undertaking their studies (i.e. Masiero et al , 2023; O’Connell et al , 2023; Powell and McGuigan, 2023; Sidaway et al , 2023; Twyford, 2023; Twyford and Abbas, 2023; Vesty et al , 2023). Three sub-sections now follow.…”

“…While the authors were aware of the constitutive nature of accounting in stating "the power of accounting to shape organisations and societies is enabled through a number of mechanisms or roles", they do not specifically address the notion of accounting as shaping a better world by means of the broadening of its definition. Twyford (2023) and Twyford and Abbas (2023) introduce the proposed new definition of accounting with their justification closely following the Framework provided in Figure 1. Twyford (2023) examines failures of accountability in aged care during COVID-19 and calls for accounting educators to understand and teach what accounting does and can do as social practice and what accounting should and should not do as moral practice.…”

“…Twyford (2023) and Twyford and Abbas (2023) introduce the proposed new definition of accounting with their justification closely following the Framework provided in Figure 1. Twyford (2023) examines failures of accountability in aged care during COVID-19 and calls for accounting educators to understand and teach what accounting does and can do as social practice and what accounting should and should not do as moral practice. She refers to "the inadequacy of current accounting definitions that focus solely on its technical features rather than its social implications" and argues "this requires a renewed vision for what constitutes accountability and for accounting to embrace the social and moral implications of an account".…”

Broadening the boundaries of accounting: a call for interdisciplinarity in the calculative era

“…Amongst these concerns, there have been recent calls from critical accounting scholars for wider accountability beyond financial compliance reports (Ahn and Wickramasinghe, 2021;Ahrens and Ferry, 2021;Mitchell et al, 2021;Twyford, 2022;Yates and Difrancesco, 2022) and for recognising accounting as a practice that has social and moral influence over the lives of citizens (Carnegie et al, 2021). Despite these calls, accounting education and practice has not significantly deviated from its 18th-century originsa technical practice numerically and objectively represented, albeit now integrating digital technologies to support these technical functions.…”