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Accounting colonization: Three case studies in further education

Helen Oakes and Anthony Berry

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2009, vol. 20, issue 3, 343-378

Abstract: The colonizing power of accounting in the public domain was linked to coercive institutional processes [Broadbent J, Laughlin R. Developing empirical research: an example informed by a Habermasian approach. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 1997;10(5):622–48]. To further explore processes of accounting change in the public domain, three linked case studies were undertaken, from a Habermasian standpoint, at a local Learning and Skills Council and two Further Education Colleges in England. Adopting a critical constructionist methodology, three interpretations of the data were developed suggesting that aspects of accounting were colonizing, implicated in legitimation and rationality crises and implicated in ambivalent managerial roles. A double hermeneutic, based in phenomenology, was then undertaken to critique the theory which underpinned these interpretations, leading to the development of an extended theory of colonization to include coercive (mock obedience; real obedience), instrumental (devious compliance; dialogic compliance) and discursive processes (discursively pathological; discursively benign). The way accounting colonization is theorised has implications for the critical theme of how desired accounting changes might be identified and initiated.

Keywords: Accounting colonization; Legitimation crisis; Rationality crisis; Ambivalent managerial roles; Phenomenology; Critical constructionism; Local learning and skills council; Further education colleges; Faith; Emotion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:20:y:2009:i:3:p:343-378

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2007.06.006

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