West Meets East and East Meets West: Gender Research as a Cultural Encounter in Accounting

Abstract

Globalisation has brought about migration and the transnational movement of people from different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, using different languages, and has thereby facilitated intercultural interaction and re-interpretation of lived experiences. Gender research in accounting is also influenced by globalization, which has created a platform where different cultures can meet and interact, and where knowledge can be synthesized from the work of authors from various different countries. Building on my own research experiences and its outcomes, this study examines the globalisation of gender research in accounting by tracing the development of research on the relationship between Japanese women and accounting. The experiences of Japan highlight that knowledge in accounting, including gender-in-accounting studies, historically flows from West to East. The language, concepts and framework in existing Western-led accounting studies translate and visualise the history and phenomena in a Japanese context to be shared within the international accounting arena. This study demonstrates that this process provides a body of interesting evidence from Japanese contexts in the fields of history, household accounting and professionalization. Accounting played an enabling role for women in Japan, while positioning women to act as catalysts for social change. Questions arise regarding the potential for such findings (from the East) to flow to the West and be accorded equal status to Western-led accounting research. The study concludes by discussing, in terms of achieving sustainable and innovative knowledge creation in accounting, the importance of herstory in understanding local culture and its integration into 'global' academic research.

Promoting gender equality through the use of management control systems: a case study in Japan

“…These training programs are designed to enable women to develop careers similar to those of men. These aimed at reforming the idea of gender-role division of labour specific to Japanese companies (Komori, 2008(Komori, , 2016, the different career patterns formed by gender (Ciancanelli et al, 1990), genderbased managerial competencies and skill definitions (Broadbent, 2016;Parker, 2008) and ideologies regarding occupations (Khalifa, 2013).…”

“…The theoretical significance clarifies how MCSs can help realise gender equality in gender accounting research. While gender accounting research based on a management accounting perspective remains scarce (Hardies and Khalifa, 2018), and gender accounting research targeting Japan is limited (Komori, 2008(Komori, , 2016, this study considers the characteristics of MCSs in Japanese companies and shows how formal and cultural MCSs can be used to promote gender equality. This study is significant in that it theoretically demonstrates how MCSs can be utilised to effectively address social issues and advance the study of gender accounting to achieve gender equality.…”

“…Although studies have been conducted on gender accounting, they mainly focus on the West. Studies exploring the relationship between women and accounting in different social and cultural contexts are limited, and their importance has long been noted (Annisette, 2007;Haynes, 2017;Kamla and Komori, 2018;Komori, 2008Komori, , 2016Lehman, 2012;Ogharanduku et al, 2021). Notably, Japan has a different social and cultural context from the West, and studies considering this reality are desirable.…”

Audit and the Pursuit of Dynamic Repair

“…Such results could include the potential privileging of formal over substantive compliance and a reduction in the capacity for professional judgement, that prior to external standardization, had been suitably aligned with differing contextual circumstances and conditions (for more discussion, see Sunder, 2016). If the notion that 'an audit is an audit' is largely constructed around an Anglo-led, western institutional socio-cultural, political and business context (Botzem & Quack, 2009;, the direction of practice development is not only largely one-dimensional -from Anglo-led nations to others -but runs significant risks of limiting the opportunity for substantive practice innovation (Komori, 2008(Komori, , 2015(Komori, , 2016.…”

Diagnosing the translation gap

“…When I started my interviews with female accounting professionals in Japan, there was no equivalent concept or word for "gender". This concept has been implanted in Japan since 1995, when the Tokyo Women's Foundation introduced the concept from American academics Similarly the concept of "independent auditing" developed in Japanese society after being imported from the West to enlighten Japanese people (see Komori, 2016). 12 In the absence of shared understanding with the interviewees, the significance of my research (choosing gender as my research subject) was, and still remains, very unorthodox for Japanese accounting academia, which prompted some colleagues to call me "Miss Gender."…”