- Email: [email protected]
Reflections on the practice of research
Accounting Forum 33 (2009) 280–284
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Accounting Forum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/accfor
Reflections on the practice of research Joni J. Young ∗ , Leslie S. Oakes University of New Mexico, Mexico
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords: Accountability Dewey Standard-setting
a b s t r a c t In this essay, we consider the relevance of research. To support our argument of its relevance, we offer three cases – Hull House, the Indian Trust Fund, and accounting standard-setting – that examine the taken-for-grantedness of accountability and the ways in which the term is frequently used. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
In July 2008, the University of Wollongong department of accounting hosted a doctoral colloquium intriguingly titled, “Paradigm, Paradox and Paralysis” The invited participants, including myself, were advised to present published or unpublished work. The presentation by one co-author linked together three related studies that had been accepted for publication or submitted for review to other journals. Rather than only rehash these studies, we begin by asking, why do research? We then connect these reasons to our specific research choices. We close the paper with some brief concluding comments. 1. Why do research? During our graduate school studies, research was typically justified based upon one and/or two sets of reasons. The first set of reasons was instrumental. Research was a necessary precursor to journal publications and a certain number of quality publications were required attain various desirable ends including tenure and promotion, pay raises and/or other forms of recognition. While our experience has shown that research does lead to publications that, in turn, result in promotion, tenure, etc., we have also observed that individuals who undertake research mainly for these reasons almost as frequently stop doing so once they have attained their goals. Instrumental reasons provide insufficient motivation to remain actively involved in the sometimes lonely and often, frustrating process of engaging with ideas, materials, and people. Further, the monetary rewards accruing from consulting or administrative work frequently exceed those associated with research. The second set of reasons was more idealistic. These reasons regarded research as a means for pursuing and increasing knowledge, albeit knowledge of a rather limited kind. In particular, graduate seminars emphasized that the purpose of research was to engage in scientific endeavors to increase our knowledge for the purpose of producing explanatory and predictive theory. This purpose was echoed in a seminar text, a AAA monograph in which Abdel-Khalik and Ajinkya (1979) state that “. . . the value of research projects can, and should, ultimately be measured in terms of their contributions to understanding, problem solving, reduction of uncertainty, and prediction of phenomena” (2). This purpose presumes the appropriateness of a natural science model in defining the purpose of social science research. The validity of drawing upon this model to inform, explain and describe social science research enterprises has been questioned within many different and intersecting literatures including anthropology, feminist theory, philosophy, sociology, etc. (e.g., Bernstein, 1983; Flyvbjerg,
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.J. Young). 0155-9982/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.accfor.2009.01.004
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2001; Haraway, 1991, 1997; Harding, 1991; Latour, 1993, 1999; Rabinow & Sullivan, 1979; Rorty, 1979, 1982) as well as accounting (e.g., Chua, 1985, 1986).1 Furthermore, if prediction is a primary aim of social science research (including accounting research), then we social scientists have been remarkably unproductive. We are unable to point to few, if any, predictive theories that have emerged in the last 100 years or so of work. This observation also holds true for economics (often touted as the most scientific of the social sciences) as evidenced by half-joking comments such as “An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday did not happen today” (quoted in Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 44). Such remarks are perhaps particularly apt in view of the surprise that accompanied recent economic events including the sub-prime mortgage crisis. If instrumental reasons are insufficient and the production of predictive theories unlikely, then why do research? We agree that the purpose of research is to develop, extend and enhance our knowledge and understanding of the world. However, the aims of this knowledge are not to develop predictive and controlling theories. This production is an unlikely outcome given that the world “changes independently of our thought and also changes in accordance with it” (Barzun, 1983). Economic, democratic, scientific, technological, indeed all human institutions and organizations are continually changing as we fail, learn, test, and rethink our relations to them and with each other. Rather than futilely searching for a “realm of permanence and certain knowledge” (Campbell, 1995, p. 85), research is better aimed at providing input into the ongoing social dialogue about the problems and risks that we face. In particular, researchers can highlight the often unexamined values and assumptions in use within particular organizations and institutions. This highlighting can, in turn, begin the process of assessing the consequences of their use. Through our research, we may gain a better understanding of where we are going and help to appraise the desirability of these trends and directions. Further, we can draw attention to how things have been done differently in the past and how they might be done differently in the future. In other words, research may usefully contribute to a continuous conversation surrounding the question—how should we live both collectively and individually. The work of Dewey and his commentators have influenced the development of our perspectives on the purpose of research. Dewey argued that knowledge was not to be sought for its own sake but should help “. . .empower human beings to make wise choices and decisions” (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 399). By focusing on the taken-for-granted assumptions and values that underpin accounting practices and institutions, we are continually reminded that these (and all other human constructs) are not to be regarded as fixed, final, or unchangeable. Following the work of Dewey, we should regard these as hypotheses whose workings must be evaluated in light of their consequence in particular concrete situations. We are reminded that laws, standards, practices are all products of human experience that “. . .inevitably require reconstruction as social conditions change” (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 418). 2. A focus on accountability The concept of accountability comprised the common link between the three studies presented at the colloquium. In recent years, calls for accountability have occurred within many sites, areas and disciplines. Concerns about the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental provision of services are answered with the enactment of new performance measures and requirements intended to enhance governmental performance. Worries that academics fail to work after obtaining tenure are countered with post-tenure review requirements. Anxiety over the lagging reading and mathematical skills of U.S. students is dealt with by enacting the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. Fears about the extent and pervasiveness of fraudulent behavior by corporations, auditors, credit rating agencies and others are to be allayed by the passage of Sarbanes–Oxley. The quest for accountability has far-ranging effects impacting individuals in their various roles as students, workers, employers, customers, etc. In each example, several commonalities may be observed. Revelations emerge regarding the presence of troubling activities or the absence of desired conduct. These problematic situations are constructed as indicative of an absence of accountability—resources were inappropriately used, discretion was inappropriately abused. New methods to restore and ensure accountability must be enacted. Consequently, new rules, laws, requirements, and measures are promoted as solutions to help ensure the production of desired behavior and accountability on the part of workers, employees, professors, or schools. Accountability is also frequently discussed within the practice and academic literatures. Little disagreement exists regarding the desirability of accountability and templates are offered for its achievement. Frequently, the guidance to enact accountability follows a somewhat simple format—develop a mission, state goals consistent with this mission, develop performance measures, and use these to assess achievement of goals. If the goals are achieved, then the individual or organization can be regarded as fulfilling her/his/its accountability requirements. At other times, the presence or absence of particular activities is considered indicative of the presence or absence of an accountable person, organization, and/or activity. In discussions about accountability, much attention is given to developing measures that are then said to facilitate assessments of accountability. Indeed the impetus for writing this paper emerges from the assumption by the organization sponsoring
1 Indeed, the usefulness of this model of science is at doubt within the natural sciences in view of the emergence of complexity theory and questions about the possibility of prediction for events within the so-called natural realm.
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the doctoral colloquium that worthwhile activities (i.e., those deserving of continuing funding) will result in observable, measurable outcomes such as journal publications. These activities and measures emerge from general statements about accountability. They seem to suggest that accountability can be achieved through the application of a one-size fits all template. Outcome measures can be developed and usefully compared to benchmark the relative performance of organizations. While such a perspective has its uses, it also has its blind spots, silences and limits and these are frequently ignored within much of the extant literature. By attending to concrete examples of “accountability in action,” research can help to bring to light the limitations of this perspective. It can also bring our attention to other conceptualizations of accountability that have been enacted in different times and different places that might help to enrich our understanding of the possibilities for this concept. Through such work, researchers can highlight the ambiguity frequently associated with the term accountability and explore some of the ways in which the concept has been negotiated and/or imposed within different contexts. Attention to specific contexts usefully complements the more theoretical and abstract discussion of accountability and ethics that have appeared in the literature (see e.g., Roberts, 1990; Shearer, 2002; etc.). The research output from such concrete studies is frequently written as a story and such stories provide powerful devices for reflecting upon the strengths and difficulties associated with particular approaches to issues. Booth (1988, p. 15) argues that we act and live through stories: even the statisticians and accountants must in fact conduct their daily business largely in stories: the reports they receive from and give to superiors and subordinates; the accounts they deliver to tax lawyers; the anecdotes and parables they hear told by a histrionic president as he sells his panaceas; the metaphors, living or moribund, implied in the vignettes that flood the office correspondence and publicity releases. Our stories do matter. The stories we tell can influence, dominate and/or reshape our thinking (Werhane, 1999). Shearer (2002, p. 545) goes so far as to claim that “We are the stories we tell; what we would be if we told different stories is precisely the point.” By attending to the concrete, stories about the enactment of accountability within particular contexts can help us to understand the past consequences of such enactments as well as to explore possible future enactments (Dewey, 1983; Fesmire, 2003; Rockefeller, 1991). The cases presented during the colloquium each help to illustrate the limitations of existing operationalizations of accountability. In so doing, they help to enrich the possibilities for different understandings about its potentiality. 3. Why these stories? The three cases discussed here span different historical periods – the American Progressive and contemporary eras – and different societal sectors – immigrants, Native Americans and modern corporations. Why were these particular topics selected? Hull House2 : We were fascinated by the settlement movement that occurred during the Progressive era in the U.S. Founded in 1889 and located within a Chicago slum, Hull House was a prominent force within this movement and for reform efforts more generally. Many prominent reformers were connected to Hull House including Jane Addams, its founder; John Dewey, philosopher and educational reformer, Alice Hamilton, a founder of industrial medicine; Florence Kelley, founder of the consumer league. The inhabitants of Hull House produced demographic studies that influenced the development of the Chicago school of sociology. Secondly, Hull House was a feminine space, a space in which the first generation of college-educated women began to move into public life from the domestic sphere to which they had been confined. Some historians have argued that this space offered women the opportunity to meld their understandings of women’s traditional role as homemakers with nascent conceptions of women as public professionals and to create sites fundamentally different from other, more traditional nonprofit organizations. Finally, while the residents of Hull House did not employ the term accountability, they produced a volume of written material focused on explaining the settlement movement and their experiences at Hull House. In these narratives, the authors attempted to explain their actions to others and to make sense of their experience to themselves. These works appear to form an extensive narrative of accountability. These reasons suggested that Hull House might provide different perspectives on the possibilities for accountability and help to enrich our understandings of accountability. Indian Trust Fund: In an effort to assimilate Native Americans and to facilitate land transfers from tribes to settlers and railroads, the U.S. government enacted legislation in 1887 that removed lands that had been ceded to tribes through various treaties from tribal control. These lands were either placed in trust for the benefit of individual tribal members or designated as surplus lands that could be transferred to European Americans. The lands were to remain in trust for 25 years and during this time government agents were responsible for deciding the usage of such lands. Although the legislation successfully transferred approximately 51 million acres into the hands of settlers, the efforts at assimilation failed and the trust arrangement was made in permanent in 1934. Fast forward to 1992. The U.S. House issues a report entitled “Misplaced Trust” that details (and reiterates) the management and accounting problems that pervaded the Indian Trust Fund throughout its 100-year history. Rather than exploring the
2
This section incorporates materials from Oakes and Young (2008b).
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extent of fraud and mismanagement that harmed the trust fund holders to the benefit of other parties and attempting to remedy these past wrongs, the report concludes that new accounting systems, controls and reports are required to mitigate and resolve the documented problems. In so doing, the report equates the production of accounting and accounting reports with the production of accountability. These recommendations and this equation of accounting with accountability are subsequently enacted into law with the passage of the American Indian Trust Fund Act in 1994.3 Little progress is made in meeting the new law’s requirements and a group of trust fund holders file a lawsuit in 1996 seeking to force the government to reform the trust system and to provide an historical accounting of the individual accounts within the trust fund. The litigation winds its way through the legal system and a judge rules that the government must provide this accounting. Despite past testimony regarding missing documents and the inadequacy of the records and systems to provide such an accounting, the Department of the Interior publishes a pamphlet in 2005 detailing the work completed and its plans for providing this historical accounting. In particular the document makes four claims: the documents are available contradicting past testimony, the organization can provide an historical accounting, its definition of an historical accounting is appropriate because it is cost effective and that these efforts render the organization accountable to Congress and the trust fund holders.4 What is the significance of this case? The case serves as a cautionary tale that raises questions about the adequacy of the frequently asserted relationship between transparency and accountability. Increased transparency is presumed to enhance opportunities for scrutiny and thereby to encourage more appropriate activities and performance by individuals and organizations. In this case, we observe the increasing focus of the Department of the Interior on defining the boundaries and requirements of an historical accounting. Through this accounting, the Interior asserted that it would meet the requirements outlined by the courts. As the Interior sought to assert that its efforts would result in an historical accounting of trust fund activity, the attention of the plaintiffs became focused on contesting Interior’s claims and providing evidence to the contrary. The plaintiffs were placed in the position of arguing about the weaknesses and inadequacies of Interior’s proposed accounting and limited their abilities to outline a positive account of the actions required to produce accountable trust fund management. In turn, the courts also remain fixed on the adequacy of the accounting. Indeed, the presiding judge described the core question of the dispute as “What is the scope or nature of the accounting that is required by the adequacy of the 1994 Act?” In turn, this focus limited the possibilities for negotiating the meaning of accountability to exclude raising questions and obtaining answers about who did benefit (and by how much) from governmental mismanagement of the trust fund. In the words the of the presiding judge, “. . . lurking in the background of this case . . . is the suggestion, or more than the suggestion, that less money was collected for oil and gas production on Indian lands, for example, than other lands.” Accounting Standard-setting: The final study presented at the colloquium focused on the connections that have been made between accounting standard-setting and accountability.5 Accounting standard-setting is still widely viewed as a technical practice through which accounting techniques are developed that capture and incorporate significant economic events and transactions within accounting reports. Viewing this process as a technical one has in turn influenced the connections forged between the standard-setting organization and accountability requirements. The paper emerged from a sense of disease about the connections that have been made and the possible ways that these facilitate ignoring the impacts of accounting standards. Drawing on materials produced by the FASB and appearing in the business press, the study outlines the two primary connections that have been made. The first connection emphasizes the importance of “getting the accounting right.” Here, the standard-setter must attend to values such as enhancing representational faithfulness of reports and facilitating the transparency of corporate activities and performance. The second connection stresses the importance of following appropriate processes in developing accounting standards. Here attention is given to elements such as voting requirements, funding, agenda formation, timeliness in addressing emerging issues, membership composition as well as well-defined opportunities for diverse parties to provide input into standards development. While demonstrating that accountability is an important consideration for standard-setters, the paper questions the adequacy of existing accountability formulations. In doing so, a group of studies is used to illustrate the difficulty of calling upon any reality to justify the “rightness” or “aptness” of a particular accounting pronouncement. Instead, these studies highlight the performativity of accounting standards and the ways in which they support some discursive constructions of transactions and events and lessen the potentiality of others. A second set of studies is employed to show the limited and perhaps negligible ability of many affected parties to participate meaningfully in the standard-setting process. Taken together, these limitations and questions suggest that the existing connections between accountability and standard-setting serve to maintain a boundary around the technical practice of accounting that acts to insulate it from questions regarding the appropriateness of the values that that inform standard-setting practice. The focus on getting the accounting right and on procedural accountability provide little opportunity for reconsideration of such values and effectively remove these values from view. This boundary maintenance serves to maintain accounting issues as technical issues best left to the experts.
3
For more details regarding the history of the trust fund and the content of this report, see Oakes and Young (2008a). See Oakes and Young (2008a) for details that provide evidence regarding the significant omissions in this the government document that raise serious questions about the feasibility of producing an historical accounting. 5 See Young (2008) for details. 4
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4. Concluding comments Toulmin (2001, p. 93) asks: “. . .why should we think that the aim of the human sciences is to predict the future behavior of human beings, in the way that the aim of a physical science was (supposedly) to predict the future behavior of physical objects?” Similarly, our research is not intended to enhance prediction and control or to force greater accountability upon individuals or organizations. Instead, we are concerned with questioning the taken-for-granted, examining the silenced and offering possible alternatives. In this essay, we outline three cases that examine the concept of accountability across different locations and time periods. Overlaid upon this discussion are some of our reasons for choosing these projects, an overlay that provides a passing glimpse into research in action. The three cases discussed here illustrate some of the limitations (or perhaps a more apt term would be absences) inherent in many contemporary enactments of accountability. Secondly, by outlining our reasons for conducting research we provide our justification for its importance and relevance. Our research seems frequently to be assailed on many fronts. Accounting practitioners want us to produce research that is “productive” and enables them to be faster, better accountants and auditors. Researchers drawing upon positivism want our work to be more “scientific.” Researchers in the Marxist and critical theory traditions want our work to be “more political”, more active, more engaged. To these critics, we would say that our work is productive, is rigorous and is engaged. Our work is productive in that it offers alternative ways to think about received notions, ways that may prove useful in re-formulating our relationship with concepts like accountability. Our work is rigorous in that we carefully examine our materials and help the reader of our research understand the sources upon which we base our conclusions and observations. While we do not presume to have the “answers” to contemporary issues and do not insist that we know what must be done, our work is engaged in that we carefully examine controversial institutions and concepts employing alternative perspectives and present our findings in carefully crafted prose intended to be accessible to many readers. References Abdel-Khalik, A. R., & Ajinkya, B. (1979). Empirical research in accounting: A methodological viewpoint. Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association. Barzun, J. (1983). A stroll with William James. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bernstein, R. J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics and praxis. Chicago: University of Pennsylvania Press. Booth, W. C. (1988). The company we keep: An ethics of fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Campbell, D. (1995). Understanding John Dewey. Open Court: Chicago, IL. Chua, W. F. (1985). Theoretical constructions of and by the real. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 11, 583–598. Chua, W. F. (1986). Radical developments in accounting thought. Accounting Review, 61, 601–632. Dewey, J. (1983, 1922). Human nature and conduct. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Fesmire, S. (2003). John Dewey and moral imagination: Pragmatism in ethics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1997). Modest Witness@Second Millennium. FemaleMan© Meets OncoMouseTM : Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, translated by Catherine Porter. Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oakes, L., & Young, J. (2008a). Misplaced trust: The American Indian trust fund debacle, working paper. Oakes, L., & Young, J. (2008). Accountability re-examined: Evidence from hull house. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 21(6), 765–790. Rabinow, P., & Sullivan, W. M. (1979). Interpretive social science: A reader. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roberts, J. (1990). The possibilities of accountability, accounting. Organizations and Society, 16(4), 355–368. Rockefeller, S. (1991). John Dewey. New York: Columbia University Press. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Shearer, T. (2002). Ethics and accountability: From the for-itself to the for-the-other. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27, 541–573. Toulmin, S. (2001). Return to reason. Boston: Harvard University Press. Werhane, P. (1999). Moral imagination and management decision-making. New York: Oxford University Press. Young, J. (2008). Thinking accountability: Implications for accounting standard-setting, working paper.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Accounting Forum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/accfor
Reflections on the practice of research Joni J. Young ∗ , Leslie S. Oakes University of New Mexico, Mexico
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords: Accountability Dewey Standard-setting
a b s t r a c t In this essay, we consider the relevance of research. To support our argument of its relevance, we offer three cases – Hull House, the Indian Trust Fund, and accounting standard-setting – that examine the taken-for-grantedness of accountability and the ways in which the term is frequently used. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
In July 2008, the University of Wollongong department of accounting hosted a doctoral colloquium intriguingly titled, “Paradigm, Paradox and Paralysis” The invited participants, including myself, were advised to present published or unpublished work. The presentation by one co-author linked together three related studies that had been accepted for publication or submitted for review to other journals. Rather than only rehash these studies, we begin by asking, why do research? We then connect these reasons to our specific research choices. We close the paper with some brief concluding comments. 1. Why do research? During our graduate school studies, research was typically justified based upon one and/or two sets of reasons. The first set of reasons was instrumental. Research was a necessary precursor to journal publications and a certain number of quality publications were required attain various desirable ends including tenure and promotion, pay raises and/or other forms of recognition. While our experience has shown that research does lead to publications that, in turn, result in promotion, tenure, etc., we have also observed that individuals who undertake research mainly for these reasons almost as frequently stop doing so once they have attained their goals. Instrumental reasons provide insufficient motivation to remain actively involved in the sometimes lonely and often, frustrating process of engaging with ideas, materials, and people. Further, the monetary rewards accruing from consulting or administrative work frequently exceed those associated with research. The second set of reasons was more idealistic. These reasons regarded research as a means for pursuing and increasing knowledge, albeit knowledge of a rather limited kind. In particular, graduate seminars emphasized that the purpose of research was to engage in scientific endeavors to increase our knowledge for the purpose of producing explanatory and predictive theory. This purpose was echoed in a seminar text, a AAA monograph in which Abdel-Khalik and Ajinkya (1979) state that “. . . the value of research projects can, and should, ultimately be measured in terms of their contributions to understanding, problem solving, reduction of uncertainty, and prediction of phenomena” (2). This purpose presumes the appropriateness of a natural science model in defining the purpose of social science research. The validity of drawing upon this model to inform, explain and describe social science research enterprises has been questioned within many different and intersecting literatures including anthropology, feminist theory, philosophy, sociology, etc. (e.g., Bernstein, 1983; Flyvbjerg,
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.J. Young). 0155-9982/$ – see front matter. Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.accfor.2009.01.004
J.J. Young, L.S. Oakes / Accounting Forum 33 (2009) 280–284
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2001; Haraway, 1991, 1997; Harding, 1991; Latour, 1993, 1999; Rabinow & Sullivan, 1979; Rorty, 1979, 1982) as well as accounting (e.g., Chua, 1985, 1986).1 Furthermore, if prediction is a primary aim of social science research (including accounting research), then we social scientists have been remarkably unproductive. We are unable to point to few, if any, predictive theories that have emerged in the last 100 years or so of work. This observation also holds true for economics (often touted as the most scientific of the social sciences) as evidenced by half-joking comments such as “An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday did not happen today” (quoted in Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 44). Such remarks are perhaps particularly apt in view of the surprise that accompanied recent economic events including the sub-prime mortgage crisis. If instrumental reasons are insufficient and the production of predictive theories unlikely, then why do research? We agree that the purpose of research is to develop, extend and enhance our knowledge and understanding of the world. However, the aims of this knowledge are not to develop predictive and controlling theories. This production is an unlikely outcome given that the world “changes independently of our thought and also changes in accordance with it” (Barzun, 1983). Economic, democratic, scientific, technological, indeed all human institutions and organizations are continually changing as we fail, learn, test, and rethink our relations to them and with each other. Rather than futilely searching for a “realm of permanence and certain knowledge” (Campbell, 1995, p. 85), research is better aimed at providing input into the ongoing social dialogue about the problems and risks that we face. In particular, researchers can highlight the often unexamined values and assumptions in use within particular organizations and institutions. This highlighting can, in turn, begin the process of assessing the consequences of their use. Through our research, we may gain a better understanding of where we are going and help to appraise the desirability of these trends and directions. Further, we can draw attention to how things have been done differently in the past and how they might be done differently in the future. In other words, research may usefully contribute to a continuous conversation surrounding the question—how should we live both collectively and individually. The work of Dewey and his commentators have influenced the development of our perspectives on the purpose of research. Dewey argued that knowledge was not to be sought for its own sake but should help “. . .empower human beings to make wise choices and decisions” (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 399). By focusing on the taken-for-granted assumptions and values that underpin accounting practices and institutions, we are continually reminded that these (and all other human constructs) are not to be regarded as fixed, final, or unchangeable. Following the work of Dewey, we should regard these as hypotheses whose workings must be evaluated in light of their consequence in particular concrete situations. We are reminded that laws, standards, practices are all products of human experience that “. . .inevitably require reconstruction as social conditions change” (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 418). 2. A focus on accountability The concept of accountability comprised the common link between the three studies presented at the colloquium. In recent years, calls for accountability have occurred within many sites, areas and disciplines. Concerns about the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental provision of services are answered with the enactment of new performance measures and requirements intended to enhance governmental performance. Worries that academics fail to work after obtaining tenure are countered with post-tenure review requirements. Anxiety over the lagging reading and mathematical skills of U.S. students is dealt with by enacting the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. Fears about the extent and pervasiveness of fraudulent behavior by corporations, auditors, credit rating agencies and others are to be allayed by the passage of Sarbanes–Oxley. The quest for accountability has far-ranging effects impacting individuals in their various roles as students, workers, employers, customers, etc. In each example, several commonalities may be observed. Revelations emerge regarding the presence of troubling activities or the absence of desired conduct. These problematic situations are constructed as indicative of an absence of accountability—resources were inappropriately used, discretion was inappropriately abused. New methods to restore and ensure accountability must be enacted. Consequently, new rules, laws, requirements, and measures are promoted as solutions to help ensure the production of desired behavior and accountability on the part of workers, employees, professors, or schools. Accountability is also frequently discussed within the practice and academic literatures. Little disagreement exists regarding the desirability of accountability and templates are offered for its achievement. Frequently, the guidance to enact accountability follows a somewhat simple format—develop a mission, state goals consistent with this mission, develop performance measures, and use these to assess achievement of goals. If the goals are achieved, then the individual or organization can be regarded as fulfilling her/his/its accountability requirements. At other times, the presence or absence of particular activities is considered indicative of the presence or absence of an accountable person, organization, and/or activity. In discussions about accountability, much attention is given to developing measures that are then said to facilitate assessments of accountability. Indeed the impetus for writing this paper emerges from the assumption by the organization sponsoring
1 Indeed, the usefulness of this model of science is at doubt within the natural sciences in view of the emergence of complexity theory and questions about the possibility of prediction for events within the so-called natural realm.
282
J.J. Young, L.S. Oakes / Accounting Forum 33 (2009) 280–284
the doctoral colloquium that worthwhile activities (i.e., those deserving of continuing funding) will result in observable, measurable outcomes such as journal publications. These activities and measures emerge from general statements about accountability. They seem to suggest that accountability can be achieved through the application of a one-size fits all template. Outcome measures can be developed and usefully compared to benchmark the relative performance of organizations. While such a perspective has its uses, it also has its blind spots, silences and limits and these are frequently ignored within much of the extant literature. By attending to concrete examples of “accountability in action,” research can help to bring to light the limitations of this perspective. It can also bring our attention to other conceptualizations of accountability that have been enacted in different times and different places that might help to enrich our understanding of the possibilities for this concept. Through such work, researchers can highlight the ambiguity frequently associated with the term accountability and explore some of the ways in which the concept has been negotiated and/or imposed within different contexts. Attention to specific contexts usefully complements the more theoretical and abstract discussion of accountability and ethics that have appeared in the literature (see e.g., Roberts, 1990; Shearer, 2002; etc.). The research output from such concrete studies is frequently written as a story and such stories provide powerful devices for reflecting upon the strengths and difficulties associated with particular approaches to issues. Booth (1988, p. 15) argues that we act and live through stories: even the statisticians and accountants must in fact conduct their daily business largely in stories: the reports they receive from and give to superiors and subordinates; the accounts they deliver to tax lawyers; the anecdotes and parables they hear told by a histrionic president as he sells his panaceas; the metaphors, living or moribund, implied in the vignettes that flood the office correspondence and publicity releases. Our stories do matter. The stories we tell can influence, dominate and/or reshape our thinking (Werhane, 1999). Shearer (2002, p. 545) goes so far as to claim that “We are the stories we tell; what we would be if we told different stories is precisely the point.” By attending to the concrete, stories about the enactment of accountability within particular contexts can help us to understand the past consequences of such enactments as well as to explore possible future enactments (Dewey, 1983; Fesmire, 2003; Rockefeller, 1991). The cases presented during the colloquium each help to illustrate the limitations of existing operationalizations of accountability. In so doing, they help to enrich the possibilities for different understandings about its potentiality. 3. Why these stories? The three cases discussed here span different historical periods – the American Progressive and contemporary eras – and different societal sectors – immigrants, Native Americans and modern corporations. Why were these particular topics selected? Hull House2 : We were fascinated by the settlement movement that occurred during the Progressive era in the U.S. Founded in 1889 and located within a Chicago slum, Hull House was a prominent force within this movement and for reform efforts more generally. Many prominent reformers were connected to Hull House including Jane Addams, its founder; John Dewey, philosopher and educational reformer, Alice Hamilton, a founder of industrial medicine; Florence Kelley, founder of the consumer league. The inhabitants of Hull House produced demographic studies that influenced the development of the Chicago school of sociology. Secondly, Hull House was a feminine space, a space in which the first generation of college-educated women began to move into public life from the domestic sphere to which they had been confined. Some historians have argued that this space offered women the opportunity to meld their understandings of women’s traditional role as homemakers with nascent conceptions of women as public professionals and to create sites fundamentally different from other, more traditional nonprofit organizations. Finally, while the residents of Hull House did not employ the term accountability, they produced a volume of written material focused on explaining the settlement movement and their experiences at Hull House. In these narratives, the authors attempted to explain their actions to others and to make sense of their experience to themselves. These works appear to form an extensive narrative of accountability. These reasons suggested that Hull House might provide different perspectives on the possibilities for accountability and help to enrich our understandings of accountability. Indian Trust Fund: In an effort to assimilate Native Americans and to facilitate land transfers from tribes to settlers and railroads, the U.S. government enacted legislation in 1887 that removed lands that had been ceded to tribes through various treaties from tribal control. These lands were either placed in trust for the benefit of individual tribal members or designated as surplus lands that could be transferred to European Americans. The lands were to remain in trust for 25 years and during this time government agents were responsible for deciding the usage of such lands. Although the legislation successfully transferred approximately 51 million acres into the hands of settlers, the efforts at assimilation failed and the trust arrangement was made in permanent in 1934. Fast forward to 1992. The U.S. House issues a report entitled “Misplaced Trust” that details (and reiterates) the management and accounting problems that pervaded the Indian Trust Fund throughout its 100-year history. Rather than exploring the
2
This section incorporates materials from Oakes and Young (2008b).
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extent of fraud and mismanagement that harmed the trust fund holders to the benefit of other parties and attempting to remedy these past wrongs, the report concludes that new accounting systems, controls and reports are required to mitigate and resolve the documented problems. In so doing, the report equates the production of accounting and accounting reports with the production of accountability. These recommendations and this equation of accounting with accountability are subsequently enacted into law with the passage of the American Indian Trust Fund Act in 1994.3 Little progress is made in meeting the new law’s requirements and a group of trust fund holders file a lawsuit in 1996 seeking to force the government to reform the trust system and to provide an historical accounting of the individual accounts within the trust fund. The litigation winds its way through the legal system and a judge rules that the government must provide this accounting. Despite past testimony regarding missing documents and the inadequacy of the records and systems to provide such an accounting, the Department of the Interior publishes a pamphlet in 2005 detailing the work completed and its plans for providing this historical accounting. In particular the document makes four claims: the documents are available contradicting past testimony, the organization can provide an historical accounting, its definition of an historical accounting is appropriate because it is cost effective and that these efforts render the organization accountable to Congress and the trust fund holders.4 What is the significance of this case? The case serves as a cautionary tale that raises questions about the adequacy of the frequently asserted relationship between transparency and accountability. Increased transparency is presumed to enhance opportunities for scrutiny and thereby to encourage more appropriate activities and performance by individuals and organizations. In this case, we observe the increasing focus of the Department of the Interior on defining the boundaries and requirements of an historical accounting. Through this accounting, the Interior asserted that it would meet the requirements outlined by the courts. As the Interior sought to assert that its efforts would result in an historical accounting of trust fund activity, the attention of the plaintiffs became focused on contesting Interior’s claims and providing evidence to the contrary. The plaintiffs were placed in the position of arguing about the weaknesses and inadequacies of Interior’s proposed accounting and limited their abilities to outline a positive account of the actions required to produce accountable trust fund management. In turn, the courts also remain fixed on the adequacy of the accounting. Indeed, the presiding judge described the core question of the dispute as “What is the scope or nature of the accounting that is required by the adequacy of the 1994 Act?” In turn, this focus limited the possibilities for negotiating the meaning of accountability to exclude raising questions and obtaining answers about who did benefit (and by how much) from governmental mismanagement of the trust fund. In the words the of the presiding judge, “. . . lurking in the background of this case . . . is the suggestion, or more than the suggestion, that less money was collected for oil and gas production on Indian lands, for example, than other lands.” Accounting Standard-setting: The final study presented at the colloquium focused on the connections that have been made between accounting standard-setting and accountability.5 Accounting standard-setting is still widely viewed as a technical practice through which accounting techniques are developed that capture and incorporate significant economic events and transactions within accounting reports. Viewing this process as a technical one has in turn influenced the connections forged between the standard-setting organization and accountability requirements. The paper emerged from a sense of disease about the connections that have been made and the possible ways that these facilitate ignoring the impacts of accounting standards. Drawing on materials produced by the FASB and appearing in the business press, the study outlines the two primary connections that have been made. The first connection emphasizes the importance of “getting the accounting right.” Here, the standard-setter must attend to values such as enhancing representational faithfulness of reports and facilitating the transparency of corporate activities and performance. The second connection stresses the importance of following appropriate processes in developing accounting standards. Here attention is given to elements such as voting requirements, funding, agenda formation, timeliness in addressing emerging issues, membership composition as well as well-defined opportunities for diverse parties to provide input into standards development. While demonstrating that accountability is an important consideration for standard-setters, the paper questions the adequacy of existing accountability formulations. In doing so, a group of studies is used to illustrate the difficulty of calling upon any reality to justify the “rightness” or “aptness” of a particular accounting pronouncement. Instead, these studies highlight the performativity of accounting standards and the ways in which they support some discursive constructions of transactions and events and lessen the potentiality of others. A second set of studies is employed to show the limited and perhaps negligible ability of many affected parties to participate meaningfully in the standard-setting process. Taken together, these limitations and questions suggest that the existing connections between accountability and standard-setting serve to maintain a boundary around the technical practice of accounting that acts to insulate it from questions regarding the appropriateness of the values that that inform standard-setting practice. The focus on getting the accounting right and on procedural accountability provide little opportunity for reconsideration of such values and effectively remove these values from view. This boundary maintenance serves to maintain accounting issues as technical issues best left to the experts.
3
For more details regarding the history of the trust fund and the content of this report, see Oakes and Young (2008a). See Oakes and Young (2008a) for details that provide evidence regarding the significant omissions in this the government document that raise serious questions about the feasibility of producing an historical accounting. 5 See Young (2008) for details. 4
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4. Concluding comments Toulmin (2001, p. 93) asks: “. . .why should we think that the aim of the human sciences is to predict the future behavior of human beings, in the way that the aim of a physical science was (supposedly) to predict the future behavior of physical objects?” Similarly, our research is not intended to enhance prediction and control or to force greater accountability upon individuals or organizations. Instead, we are concerned with questioning the taken-for-granted, examining the silenced and offering possible alternatives. In this essay, we outline three cases that examine the concept of accountability across different locations and time periods. Overlaid upon this discussion are some of our reasons for choosing these projects, an overlay that provides a passing glimpse into research in action. The three cases discussed here illustrate some of the limitations (or perhaps a more apt term would be absences) inherent in many contemporary enactments of accountability. Secondly, by outlining our reasons for conducting research we provide our justification for its importance and relevance. Our research seems frequently to be assailed on many fronts. Accounting practitioners want us to produce research that is “productive” and enables them to be faster, better accountants and auditors. Researchers drawing upon positivism want our work to be more “scientific.” Researchers in the Marxist and critical theory traditions want our work to be “more political”, more active, more engaged. To these critics, we would say that our work is productive, is rigorous and is engaged. Our work is productive in that it offers alternative ways to think about received notions, ways that may prove useful in re-formulating our relationship with concepts like accountability. Our work is rigorous in that we carefully examine our materials and help the reader of our research understand the sources upon which we base our conclusions and observations. While we do not presume to have the “answers” to contemporary issues and do not insist that we know what must be done, our work is engaged in that we carefully examine controversial institutions and concepts employing alternative perspectives and present our findings in carefully crafted prose intended to be accessible to many readers. References Abdel-Khalik, A. R., & Ajinkya, B. (1979). Empirical research in accounting: A methodological viewpoint. Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association. Barzun, J. (1983). A stroll with William James. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bernstein, R. J. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism: Science, hermeneutics and praxis. Chicago: University of Pennsylvania Press. Booth, W. C. (1988). The company we keep: An ethics of fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Campbell, D. (1995). Understanding John Dewey. Open Court: Chicago, IL. Chua, W. F. (1985). Theoretical constructions of and by the real. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 11, 583–598. Chua, W. F. (1986). Radical developments in accounting thought. Accounting Review, 61, 601–632. Dewey, J. (1983, 1922). Human nature and conduct. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Fesmire, S. (2003). John Dewey and moral imagination: Pragmatism in ethics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. (1997). Modest Witness@Second Millennium. FemaleMan© Meets OncoMouseTM : Feminism and Technoscience. New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1991). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, translated by Catherine Porter. Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Oakes, L., & Young, J. (2008a). Misplaced trust: The American Indian trust fund debacle, working paper. Oakes, L., & Young, J. (2008). Accountability re-examined: Evidence from hull house. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 21(6), 765–790. Rabinow, P., & Sullivan, W. M. (1979). Interpretive social science: A reader. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roberts, J. (1990). The possibilities of accountability, accounting. Organizations and Society, 16(4), 355–368. Rockefeller, S. (1991). John Dewey. New York: Columbia University Press. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Shearer, T. (2002). Ethics and accountability: From the for-itself to the for-the-other. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27, 541–573. Toulmin, S. (2001). Return to reason. Boston: Harvard University Press. Werhane, P. (1999). Moral imagination and management decision-making. New York: Oxford University Press. Young, J. (2008). Thinking accountability: Implications for accounting standard-setting, working paper.