Critical Perspectives on Accounting 22 (2011) 629– 631

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Critical Perspectives on Accounting

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Editorial

Global flows: labour, politics and ethics

1. Introduction

This collection of papers is drawn primarily from the 2007 European Critical Accounting Symposium (ECAS), convenedat the University of Glasgow. ECAS was a network committed to bringing together organization studies, sociology andaccounting. It operated between 2001 and 2008, organizing numerous workshops and editing a variety of special issues. Itwas heterodox and iconoclastic and imbued with a strong interdisciplinary orientation. This is the final output from the ECASnetwork and the contents of the special issue capture the overarching ethos well: the papers in this special issue are unitedby a sense of global flows—in particular picking up on themes of labour, politics and ethics. The special issue goes from a1970s English factory to modern day West African migrants in Naples (labour), from the accountings of migrant labour tothose of big corporates in Bangladesh (politics/ethics), from problems of accountability in Bangladesh to questions of theaccountability of PFI projects in the British NHS (politics/capital), to seemingly intractable questions of accountability andpower in a global summit (politics), before closing with a consideration of the responsibilities of the accounting intellectual(ethics/politics and accountability).

The opening paper in the issue is by Armstrong (2011). He takes us on a trip to 1970s Britain, revisiting classic ethnographicwork he conducted in a factory. The factory is long closed – swept away in the economic restructuring of the 1980s – and at thetime of Armstrong’s ethnography it was clearly struggling in the face of low cost competition from overseas. Many featuresof the factory would seem unfamiliar to the contemporary eye: the clear difference between the managers and those who aremanaged, the strict demarcation of occupations on class and gender lines, and the manual nature of the labour process. Thehistorical nature of Armstrong’s study does not lessen its relevance to the contemporary workplace. Quite the reverse. Theorganization had strict budgetary controls in place which provided the ‘occasion, medium and rationale’ for the productionmanager, who was universally feared, to engage in bullying behaviour. The ethnography reveals both the human costs ofthe production manager’s behaviour and its perverse commercial logic. The production manager’s bullying was mediatedthrough, and legitimated by, the budgetary process. Armstrong notes that similar commercial pressures and processesapply to most contemporary organizations and that variations on the theme of ‘budgetary bullying’ are a persistent part oforganizational life. The problem, Armstrong notes, is that ‘budgetary bullying’ falls outside of the conventional definitionof bullying adopted by anti-bullying groups. The corollary is that campaigns against bullying in the workplace, howeverlaudable and well intentioned, may fail to engage with one of the most insidious forms of bullying. Armstrong’s paper notonly illustrates how ostensibly ‘neutral’ forms of budgeting are directly entwined with bullying, his contribution is to changethe conversation about how we can think and act to prevent bullying. Armstrong concludes his piece with a rallying call forcollective action by workers against ‘budgetary bullying’.

In the second paper Armstrong’s factory is swapped for the street life of contemporary Naples. Once again, labour is thetheme as De Maria Harney (2011) explores the experiences of West African migrants working in the hidden economy. Hispaper presents a fascinating account about how the migrants make a living and he provides a rich fabric of ideas aboutthe various accounting practices they are engaged in. Methodologically the paper centres on the major bus route used byWest Africans as they journey out to construction sites where they are employed as day-rate labourers. De Maria Harneywas ‘on the buses’ conducting his ethnographic studies in the course of bus journeys he took out to the edge of town. Inthis regard, De Maria Harney’s practice as a social anthropologist offers accounting scholars a further means of pursuingqualitative research. The bus route was, however, much more than an ethnographic site for De Maria Harney or a meansfor the migrants to traverse the city to find paid labour, as it had been identified by the City government as a site for policyinterventions aimed at alleviating social tensions between the migrants and the Neapolitans. The authorities, for instance,introduced a policy to persuade migrants to adhere to the law by purchasing tickets for the bus, which was viewed as a meansof acculturating the migrants to local customs and practices. The paper provides an illuminating glimpse into the lives of

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630 Editorial / Critical Perspectives on Accounting 22 (2011) 629– 631

African migrants in Italy and, more specifically, the accounting practices they engage in. The methods used by migrants torepatriate monies to their home are revealed, highlighting the complex interdependencies between Naples and West Africa.The migrants’ lives are reported as transient, which further complicates their practices of accounting.

The third paper in the issue shifts from our attention from migrants in Italy to corporations in Bangladesh. Belal and Cooper(2011) investigate Corporate Social Responsibility in Bangladesh. The paper is foreshadowed by a nuanced reading of CSR –noting that it is a complex phenomenon with a dark side, something conveniently ignored by most of its advocates – beforeproceeding to provide a contextual discussion of the difficulties of implementing CSR in a desperately poor country rivenby political conflict. The authors report on the corporate attitudes and managerial perceptions of CSR in Bangladesh. Theirfindings make for dismal – if not surprising – reading as they find an absence of CSR which they attribute to a lack of resources,lack of regulation and a lack of awareness. Probing more deeply, Belal and Cooper find that managers are unwilling to reporton information that might fuel criticism of their organization, and, perhaps more strikingly, that managers are reluctant toreport on cases of good ‘CSR’ lest it be met with censure by powerful shareholders, who see such practices as little more thanthe incurring of unnecessary expense that detracts from the ‘bottom line’. Belal and Cooper draw on concepts of power toformulate the problem and draw the conclusion that the ‘rules of the game’ are stacked against CSR in a developing country,something that is compounded by the footloose nature of finance capital. Their insightful analysis makes clear that CSR mustbe studied in relation to the prevailing structures of power which shape and define the ‘rules of the game’.

Finance capital is prominent in Toms et al. (2011) investigation of Private Finance Initiative in the UK, which was theprincipal means of procuring infrastructure during the Blair and Brown Administrations (1997–2010). The failings of PFIare well known, especially through its tendency to socialize risk and privatise gain, and their attraction to the New LabourGovernment is well documented. Toms et al. focus on the refinancing of PFI projects, a process that typically takes placeonce the infrastructure has been constructed and if the risk profile of the project has been reduced. The reduction of riskshould realise gains for the public sector in the refinancing process. Toms et al. illuminate both the magnitude and natureof the private sector’s capture of the PFI process—skewing the re-financing in their favour. The authors focus on the caseof refinancing at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where the private sector lowered its risk profile whilst simultaneouslyincreasing its profits from the contract: the rates of profit recorded were in the region of 350%. Toms et al. contrast the lackof effective regulation by government of the re-financing of PFI contracts with the powerful and well organized networkacting in the interests of the PFI firms—which leads inexorably to a redistribution of profits and risks in the private sector’sfavour.

The theme of politics is continued in Carter et al. (2011) article, which focuses on strategy and realpolitik. The authorsexplore why at a time when there is general acceptance of the IPCC view on climate change it is proving intractable to securea political agreement on how to tackle climate change. Picking up on Spence et al.’s (2010) call for politically relevant andtheoretically well informed research into the environment, Carter et al. examine the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit,providing a detailed analysis of dramaturgy of the event. In explaining the failure of the summit, Carter et al. (2008, 2010)illustrate the micro-politics of power, highlighting the processes of the ‘mobilisation of bias’ and ‘non-decision making’ thatoccurred in Copenhagen. Following Flyvbjerg (1998) they demonstrate how the rationality of science lacked a strategy ofpower when confronting powerful interests: naked power easily prevailed over the rationality of science. The authors arguethat it is difficult to secure authority across organizations, especially when those organizations represent ‘national interests’that crystallize local discourses, pressures, and politics. Carter et al. highlight the institutional and discursive failures ofthe Copenhagen summit and argue that despite its basis in scientific research climate change is more of a political than ascientific problem: as an essentially discursive matter they argue for a realpolitik approach requiring a better vocabulary fororganizing interests, rather than a better science.

The final article of this special issue is by McKernan (2011), who discusses the ethics of the accounting intellectual. In thispaper he draws on the work of Jacques Derrida, who has enjoyed only a marginal influence on the field of critical accounting.The author engages with some of the controversies and confusions that have affected the reception of deconstruction, andmaking use especially of two lectures delivered by Derrida in America on responsibility and the university, advocates aposition that constantly seeks to ‘suspect and criticize’ without falling into the nihilism of some deconstructive practices.McKernan is critical of Zygmunt Bauman’s conceptualisation of ethics as pre-social and of the use made of his “postmodernethics” by certain accounting scholars. Following Derrida, McKernan argues that our moral and ethical responsibilities alwayshave social and political contexts, and that we need to be sceptical of any conceptualisation of the moral responsibilitiesof the accountant that retreats into the metaphysics of universalism. McKernan proceeds to argue that, more than ever inthis period of crisis, accounting academics bear special responsibilities to help keep the institution of accounting open to itsfuture and to the other, whilst at the same time remaining faithful to its tradition of reason, rule, calculation, and the pursuitof truth.

2. Conclusion

This special issue brings together papers on the role of accounting in bullying, understanding the accounting practicesof migrants, the limits of CSR in the developing world, the politics of PFI, the realpolitik of climate change, and the ethicsof being an accounting intellectual. These are clearly important themes and attest to the role ECAS played in generatinginnovative ideas about the role of accounting in society. The ideas explored in this special issue will, no doubt, have anenduring relevance within the critical accounting community and be further developed in future.

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Perhaps the most significant contribution of the critical accounting community has been its insistent demonstration ofthe fact that accounting practice, once assumed to be essentially and ideally neutral, is actually always political and thatin accounting practice knowledge and power are ineluctably entwined. Critical accounting has helped challenge scholarlyperceptions of accounting as a dull pursuit with only a secondary function in organizations, and an even more marginalposition within the social sciences. The foundational insights of critical accounting are as important now as they were, whenfirst introduced, in the 1970s. As accounting has developed and metastasized across a broad range of social activities so theneed for the critical community to engage with its effects becomes all the more pressing. This special issue illustrates theimportance of studying labour, politics and ethics in a global context, highlighting critical accounting’s capacity to engagewith important phenomenon. We are living through times of a hydra-headed crisis (Held et al., 2010), that raise questionsand demand a response, and which make us, the critical accounting community, responsible: Responsible for engaging withthe many contours and facets of the crisis and for providing analysis and proposals to support the disclosing and making ofnew worlds.

References

Armstrong P. Budgetary bullying, Critical Perspectives on Accounting; 2011.Belal A, Cooper S. The absence of corporate social responsibility in Bangladesh. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2011.Carter C, Clegg S, Kornberger M. Strategy as practice? Strategic Organization 2008;6:83–99.Carter C, Clegg S, Kornberger M. Re-framing strategy: power, politics and accounting. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 2010;23(5):573–94.Carter C, Clegg S, Wahlin N. When science meets strategic realpolitik: the case of the Copenhagen UN climate change summit. Critical Perspectives on

Accounting 2011.De Maria Harney N. Accounting for African migrants in Naples, Italy. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2011.Flyvbjerg B. Rationality and power: democracy in practice. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1998.Held D, Kaldor M, Quah D. The Hydra-headed crisis, LSE Global Governance report; 2010. http://www.lse.ac.uk/archived/global/5publications2.htm.McKernan J. Deconstruction and the responsibilities of the accounting academic. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2011.Spence C, Husillos X, Correa-Ruiz C. Cargo cult science and the death of politics: a critical review of social and environmental accounting research. Critical

Perspectives on Accounting 2010;21(1):76–89.Toms S, Beck M, Asenova D. Accounting, regulation and profitability: the case of PFI hospital refinancing. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2011.

Chris Carter a,b,∗a University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, United Kingdom

b Newcastle University Business School, Downing Plaza, Newcastle NE1 4JH, United Kingdom

John Francis McKernan 1

University of Glasgow Business School, West Quadrangle, Main Building, University Avenue,Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom

∗ Corresponding author at: Newcastle University Business School,Downing Plaza, Newcastle NE1 4JH, United Kingdom.

E-mail addresses: cjgcarter@yahoo.co.uk (C. Carter),john.mckernan@glasgow.ac.uk (J.F. McKernan)

1 Fax: +44 0141 330 4442.