 Accountability and information disclosure in a Catholic charity (1798–1801)Pedro Araújo-Pinzón, Mariló Capelo-Bernal and Manuel Núñez-Nickel Business History, 2025, vol. 67, issue 3, 845-885 Abstract: By examining a Spanish Catholic charity that operated in an unregulated environment in Cádiz between 1798 and 1801, this article analyses the motivations for discharging accountability to stakeholders and the factors that influence information disclosure. Drawing on stakeholder theory and not-for-profit accountability literature, we show how the organisation’s founders, managers and board members translated their feeling of responsibility and the accounting insight prevailing in their socio-economic context to this charity setting. Their efforts to discharge accountability and disclose information focused largely on upward stakeholders, but they also discharged accountability to aid recipients. Nevertheless, they restricted the information they revealed because of the Catholic doctrine about secret almsgiving and concerns about the protection of poor people’s privacy and fear of public shame. These restrictions may have been somewhat counterbalanced by the charity’s observable actions and by social interaction among board members, donors, and beneficiaries enabled through physical proximity and social ties. Date: 2025 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:67:y:2025:i:3:p:845-885 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2024.2304746 Access Statistics for this article Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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