Framing financial responsibility: An analysis of the limitations of accounting

Bay, Charlotta

doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2011.03.001

Cited by 36 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…One's credit identity thus becomes a dynamic project to be managed through an ''ethic of improvement'' (Marron, 2009, p. 193), and in a manner all the more insatiable because good credit is seemingly within everyone's reach. Hence the multiplication of financial education programs (often state-sponsored), TV shows and pedagogical devices, in the US as elsewhere (Bay, 2011;Fridman, 2010). No wonder, then, that this is also where activity around the score intensifies rapidly.…”

Section: The Difficulty Of Measuring Up: Economic Goodwill and Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era

Fourcade¹,

Healy²

2013

Accounting, Organizations and Society

349

212

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a b s t r a c tThis article examines the stratifying effects of economic classifications. We argue that in the neoliberal era market institutions increasingly use actuarial techniques to split and sort individuals into classification situations that shape life-chances. While this is a general and increasingly pervasive process, our main empirical illustration comes from the transformation of the credit market in the United States. This market works as both as a leveling force and as a condenser of new forms of social difference. The U.S. banking and credit system has greatly broadened its scope over the past twenty years to incorporate previously excluded groups. We observe this leveling tendency in the expansion of credit amongst lower-income households, the systematization of overdraft protections, and the unexpected and rapid growth of the fringe banking sector. But while access to credit has democratized, it has also differentiated. Scoring technologies classify and price people according to credit risk. This has allowed multiple new distinctions to be made amongst the creditworthy, as scores get attached to different interest rates and loan structures. Scores have also expanded into markets beyond consumer credit, such as insurance, real estate, employment, and elsewhere. The result is a cumulative pattern of advantage and disadvantage with both objectively measured and subjectively experienced aspects. We argue these private classificatory tools are increasingly central to the generation of ''market-situations'', and thus an important and overlooked force that structures individual life-chances. In short, classification situations may have become the engine of modern class situations.

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Section: The Difficulty Of Measuring Up: Economic Goodwill and Sufferingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era

Fourcade¹,

Healy²

2013

Accounting, Organizations and Society

349

212

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“…The arrangement of the accounts forces, urges, and seduces prisoners toward legal ways of consumption, financial self‐reliance, prudence, and responsibility with the hopes of improving their chances of “functioning” as members of society after their sentence. In order to discuss these findings, we reflect on three roles of individualized accounts in the context of the German prison sector: First, we look at accounting as a way for public organizations to interact with individual service users; second, we explore how accounting is used with the aim to develop financial literacy (Bay, , ) and citizen virtues that are intended to foster social inclusion; third, we reflect on accounting and the dynamic combination of different modes of power and subjectification in prisons (Miller & Rose, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This too serves as preparation and as a central proxy for determining a prisoner's potential successful reintegration into society. Bay (, ) has already linked citizenship with financial responsibility and argued that this necessitates financial literacy, whereas the education of financial literacy comprises substantial elements of power. This prior literature focused on school education (Bay et al., ) and a TV show for educating indebted Swedish households (Bay, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A relatively small number of works in financial literacy literature discuss how accounting is used to (re)educate individuals as financially responsible and knowledgeable citizens (Ahrens, ; Bay, ; Roberts & Scapens, ). Yet, the dissemination of neoliberal ideas may actually be implemented through accounting practices, rather than political discourses (Lapsley & Hyndman, ).…”

Section: Theoretical Background: Accounting and Societal Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Free” and “unfree” money in German prisons: The role of accounting in educating public service users

Balep

Junne

2020

Financ Acc Manag

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This paper explores how public organizations use accounting as a pedagogical instrument for educating individual citizens. Drawing on conceptions of financial literacy and governmentality, our paper presents the findings of a qualitative case study of German prisons and analyzes how accounting practices shape interactions between public organizations and individual citizens. Our findings show how three types of financial accounts—prison money, gate money, and private money—grant prisoners differentiated access to funds. Prison administrators refer to these accounts as “free” or “unfree,” depending on whether prisoners can decide how the money will be used. The study reveals how German law, ministries, and prison administrations attach three basic virtues to prisoner accounts—legal consumption, financial prudence, and social responsibility—in an attempt to include individuals (back) into a population of economically and socially functioning citizens. To public management research, this paper contributes a description of how public institutions employ accounting as a pedagogical technology in interactions with individual citizens. To prior works on financial literacy, we add the idea that educative measures not only produce viable and disciplined market actors, but also transport specific virtues of being a social citizen. Finally, our study discusses how disciplinary and postdisciplinary notions of accounting interact and provide possibilities for governing through freedom—even behind bars.

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“…Frame analysis suggests that a frame should be credible; the receiver of a message has to believe that it is real or reasonable (Bay 2011). Its credibility depends on the amount of evidential support provided, and whether this evidence is culturally believable (Benford and Snow 2000).…”

Section: (Sentimental) Narratives and Impression Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing the Magdalen: sentimental narratives and impression management in charity annual reporting

Evans

Pierpoint²

2015

Accounting and Business Research

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We are grateful for comments, advice and feedback received from Stephen Walker, Alan Goodacre, colleagues in the Accounting and Finance Division, Stirling University, delegates at the BAFA conference 2014, and during a seminar presentation at Durham University Business School. We also gratefully acknowledge the helpful suggestions from the editors and our two anonymous referees.1 Framing the Magdalen. The sentimental narrative and impression management in the annual report of the Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum. AbstractWe analyse the annual report narratives, between 1801 and 1914, of the Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum, a reformatory for 'fallen' women. We aim to provide new insights by combining interdisciplinary perspectives: the work of Erving Goffman on stigma, asylums, impression management and framing, and writings on literary genres, in particular eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction. We also contribute to research on the annual report as source material for social history and to accounting histories of women. We find that the narratives were employed to discharge the directors' accountability, by portraying their work and the asylum as socially and economically useful, accounting for the inmates in their charge, securing funding, and finding suitable employment for inmates after release. The narratives and their subjects were framed in accordance with conventions of sentimental novels and recurring literary plot structures. By creating a dichotomy between victims of seduction and 'hardened' prostitutes, the directors could manage expectations: not all Magdalens could be saved. On the other hand, this allowed the directors to advertise their 'product' in the market for domestic labour: Case histories and personal narratives were presented to show that the remorseful Magdalen could become a docile domestic servant and productive citizen.2 Framing the Magdalen. The sentimental narrative and impression management in the annual report of the Edinburgh Magdalen Asylum.

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Framing financial responsibility: An analysis of the limitations of accounting

Cited by 36 publications

References 37 publications

Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era

Classification situations: Life-chances in the neoliberal era

“Free” and “unfree” money in German prisons: The role of accounting in educating public service users

Framing the Magdalen: sentimental narratives and impression management in charity annual reporting

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