Findings from earlier legitimacy based accounting studies provide evidence that firms respond to threats to their perceived legitimacy by increasing communication to the public. This communication is meant to demonstrate that their actions are commensurate with the values and norms of relevant...

The current study starts from the premise that accounting techniques and calculations have been, and continue to be, implicated in the colonization and genocide of Canada’s first nations. Relying upon previous literature concerned with governmentality, colonialism and genocide, it is proposed...

Starting from the premise that formal ethical codes and other ethical discourses differ in their audiences, effects and characteristics, it is analyzed how practitioner‐directed ethical discourses have spoken and continue to speak about character‐based ethics. Borrowing from the literature...

The current study explores the ambiguity of accounting technique in the context of a historical study of the Canadian Indian Department under the direction of Deputy Superintendent D.C. Scott at the beginning of the 20th century. Starting from the work of Bauman and his commentators, we argue...

Purpose – This essay sets out to introduce the special issue. Design/methodology/approach – The essay discusses a variety of approaches to exploring the relationship between accounting and the public interest, and briefly reviews the contribution of the articles in the issue. Findings –...

Purpose – Using the recent attempts by the Ghanaian Government to privatize its urban water services, this paper seeks to understand the role and functioning of accounting within the global move to “reinvent government.” Design/methodology/approach – Unlike the attempts made in other...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine: how financial practices are diffused across countries and who are the carriers of diffusion; and to determine why the nature of adoption varies across countries and specific institutional fields and why certain practices are adopted in some...