New Forms Of Accountability Research Articles

Constitutionalising the BBC

AbstractThis article argues that BBC policy needs a change of emphasis. In the last two BBC Charter periods the emphasis has been on marketisation and market failure. The aim has been to harness market discipline to hold the BBC to account and ensure it does not chill investment. In an era of almost limitless choice, faltering democratic institutions, and new business models based on monetising data and attention, this approach is no longer appropriate. Whilst media users will always be able to choose not to consume BBC services, policy makers should accept that the BBC should be a permanent, privileged part of the communications landscape and enact reforms that reflect this. Policy should focus on overhauling and improving the ‘constitutional’ checks and balances of the BBC rather than accountability through the market. This requires new policies that actively facilitate new forms of accountability to citizens.

NAVIGATING THE TRANSITION TO A DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE MODEL FOR STATE UNIVERSITIES IN UZBEKISTAN

This article discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in transitioning state universities in Uzbekistan to a decentralized corporate governance model. Drawing on international experiences and local context, the article examines the importance of reducing state funding, providing support for universities, and developing new forms of accountability and transparency. The article also highlights the potential benefits of decentralized governance, including greater efficiency and innovation. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for careful planning and effective support mechanisms to facilitate a successful transition.

Country-led monitoring and evaluation systems through the lens of participatory governance and co-production: Implications for a Made in Africa Evaluation approach

Background: The history of evaluations on the African continent can be linked to the introduction of upward systems of accountability resulting from the rapid introduction of international aid programmes for the (re)building of African states during the post-independence era. Results-based management and monitoring and evaluation (ME) became commonplace, the features of which continue to imbue national ME systems across the continent. These systems, if not intentionally so designed and implemented, are not particularly focused on learning for course-correction and performance improvement from the perspective of citizens. Conducting evaluations, in particular, is often based on the need for accountability to funders or decision-makers, as opposed to downward accountability to the public and intended beneficiaries of the interventions.Objectives: This article explores how localised approaches to governance (merged with co-production) could ensure that evaluation systems are liberatory if they are endogenous and indigenous in their design and respond to the needs of citizens (rather than serving an upward accountability agenda).Method: Through the analytical framework of participatory governance and co-production, this article examines how participatory approaches to establishing national evaluation (and monitoring) systems may help the African continent liberate itself from the instrumental adoption of ME systems, defined by compliance and accountability, and instead design systems based on a citizen-owned, people-centred notion of downward accountability.Results: Participatory governance and co-production are well aligned to the principles of MAE (Made in Africa Evaluation) and may provide the means to arriving at more inclusive forms of ME systems development and, concomitantly, more inclusive ways of producing and using evidence for policy, governance and development on a national scale.Conclusion: Although desirable due its potential to transform systems of governance to become more citizen-centred, co-production must not be romanticised nor over-simplified. Increasing levels of citizen participation in governance must consider that there are significant changes that need to be made to institutional structures and processes, such as new forms of accountability, governance, systems and structures for citizen involvement. Therefore, a combination of practical, technical, ideological, relational and political factors must be considered in the adoption of more participatory approaches in establishing national ME systems.

Auditing governable space—A study of place‐based accountability in England

AbstractThe governance of territories has become increasingly fragmented and complex, challenging the accountability arrangements for “governable spaces.” Tension between central and local governments is a perennial feature of their relationship, but few analyses have explored the implications of this tension for accountability relationships. This article assesses policy initiatives within England aimed at increasing accountability in localities, by establishing governable spaces that include territorializing, mediating, adjudicating, and subjectivizing. During the 2010s, the UK government sought to introduce a form of place‐based accountability within the context of reduced central government funding to English local authorities. This meant that local government faced new forms of accountability while adapting to considerable financial shocks. Accounting methods—assessing what phenomena can and should be governed—underpin audit and orthodox concepts of accountability in the United Kingdom. These have driven a narrow finance‐focused narrative of local audit and local accountability. However, we also argue that developments in England in the 2010s have undermined political accountability in the localities, because they have worked against critical components within it for making governable space auditable: interpretation of data, judgments on service quality and the impact of cross‐public sector relationships on local authorities’ “decision space.”

An Anthropology of Epochal Shift; or, What Leith Mullings Teaches Us about Global Transformation

AbstractThis article draws from Leith Mullings’s insights about the changing dimensions of racism, a “relationship of accumulation through dispossession” (2020, 250), to think through contemporary realignments of global capitalism spawned by the intensification of Chinese investment overseas. I frame my analysis within the concept of epochal shift in order to draw attention not only to the novel dimensions of power within a changed global political economy, but also to the ways these novel arrangements are fitted into people’s previous understandings and experiences of sovereignty and security in Jamaica. I will argue that thinking through the frame of epochal shift requires that we reconfigure the forms of intimacy and notions of scale that have been normative within anthropology, and that we reevaluate our methods and the forms of evidence we mobilize. Ultimately, I suggest that the new organization of global political power must draw our attention both to the new dimensions of racism that are emerging and to the ways people are demanding new forms of accountability.

A Structured Literature Review about the Role of Management Accountants in Sustainability Accounting and Reporting

Management accountants have proven to be pivotal for introducing new forms of accounting and reporting in companies to support managers in their decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the role management accountants play in sustainability accounting and reporting to understand how research is progressing, point out its focus, critique its developments, and finally, identify future research avenues. Results reveal that, to date, management accountants’ level of involvement is lower than that of non-accountants and that there is a consensus in academia and practice that a more significant involvement of management accountants is needed for promoting homogenization of sustainability accounting and reporting in companies and its more widespread diffusion and use among managers, thus embedding sustainability in corporate strategy and practices. Our findings show that more active involvement of management accountants depends, among other things, on their ability to broaden their competencies to include other domains of expertise and on the role of accounting education in improving their sustainability knowledge. Therefore, we call for more research on the competencies, skills, and roles that management accountants should play in order to promote the adoption and improvement of sustainability accounting and reporting.

Digitally Rethinking Hunter v Southam

Canadian debates about lawful access -- the legal regime that authorizes various methods used by law enforcement to intercept and/or search or seize information for investigatory purposes -- need a new solution space for the digital age, one that is able to incorporate new technological solutions for minimizing rights-infringements and to provide new forms of accountability and safeguards against misuse. However, this is not simply a matter of adopting the popular framework of “privacy by design”, or even a reworked “lawful access by design”. We argue that an appreciation of the challenges of the digital world require us to rethink our basic constitutional framework. The Canadian constitutional framework for lawful access was set out by the Supreme Court in Hunter v Southam and then refined in the subsequent jurisprudence. We argue that this framework is ill-suited to contemporary digital challenges to informational privacy and requires four fundamental shifts. First, its basic point-of-collection focus needs to shift to the broader life-cycle of the data. Second, it needs to shift away from its categorical approach to informational privacy, where some categories of information are thought to be inherently more private than others, and instead approach informational privacy in terms of the use-context of the data. Third, this framework needs to shift away from a dominant focus on privacy and recognize a broader set of rights and interests at stake in lawful access practices, including the rule of law, equality, and other fundamental freedoms. Fourth, this framework needs to shift away from its exclusive focus on procedural safeguards at the point-of-collection (e.g. the warrant requirement) and consider procedural, legislative, and technical safeguards throughout the life-cycle of the data as well. Once we have a constitutional framework that is better able to address the digital era then we can more precisely craft new techniques for protecting rights, ensuring accountability, and safeguarding against abuse within this framework. Indeed, we can then see why some of these techniques are constitutional requirements. The pay-off for doing so, we argue, is a way of enabling specific justified uses of data by law enforcement, while safeguarding the data against non-justified uses over its life-span.

Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Humans, Law and Technology Interactions in Judicial Proceedings

The paper connects the potentially disruptive effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) deployment in the administration of justice to the pre-existing trajectories and consequences of court technology development. The theoretical framework combines Luhmann’s theory of technology with actor–network theory to analyse how the new digital environment affects judicial agency. Then, it explores law and technology dynamics to map out the conditions that make legal the use of technologies in judicial proceedings. The framework is applied to analyse ‘traditional’ digital technologies (simple online forms and large-scale e-justice platforms) and AI-based systems (speech-to-text and recidivism assessment). The case comparison shows similarities and dynamics triggered by AI and traditional technologies, as well as a radical difference. While system developers and owners remain accountable before the law for the functioning of traditional systems, with AI, such accountability is transferred to users. Judges—users in general—remain accountable for the consequences of their actions supported or suggested by systems that are opaque and autonomous. This contingency, if not adequately faced with new forms of accountability, restricts the areas in which AI can be used without hampering judicial integrity.

Cost and management accounting in budget-funded organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article aims to provide information on the level of application of cost and management accounting practices in the budget-funded organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter B&H) and the usefulness of these practices in the performance measurement in the B&H public sector. Namely, the current budget accounting system in B&H does not provide measurement and reporting on efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of the public administration, which results in a decrease in transparency and the creation of a favourable ground for corruption. Therefore, the study was conducted among 208 budget-funded organizations by using a survey questionnaire to evaluate the current level of theoretical and practical knowledge in the field of cost and management accounting and the possibilities for their application in the budget-funded organizations in B&H to improve current budget accounting system. Research results have shown that, even though respondents are less familiar with cost and management accounting practices, they believe that the introduction of new forms of accounting (cost and management accounting) into budget accounting system in B&H would improve the quality of accounting information as a basis for decision-making of the public management. This would enable performance measurement in the B&H public sector and therefore improve transparency and accountability of the public management.

Decentralised energy, decentralised accountability? Lessons on how to govern decentralised electricity transitions from multi-level natural resource governance

Emerging decentralised electricity systems require new approaches to energy governance. As energy sources shift and technology evolves, electricity governance is shifting from largely centralized models to include multiple decentralised and multi-level sites not bounded in their operations by established democratic processes. New forms of accountability are required to ensure that multi-level electricity systems meet societal needs and expectations. While multi-level governance dynamics are new for many electricity systems, they are common across other resources (e.g. water). This article uses an OECD framework that synthesizes decades of research on multi-level natural resource governance to describe 12 principles for “good” resource governance. These principles are developed and applied to decentralising electricity governance contexts in order to develop mechanisms, and identify potential governance gaps, that are relevant for ensuring accountability in decentralised electricity governance systems. The nature of decentralised electricity systems particularly highlights the need to rescale many governance functions, while paying attention to issues of inclusion, capacity building, coherence, adaptiveness, and transparency.

Addressing the Gap: Accountability Mechanisms for Peacekeepers Accused of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

The United Nations (UN) has been plagued by incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers for a number of years. These tragedies have had major implications for the credibility of the organisation and have hindered its ability to achieve its goals. As the organisation has struggled to address this problem, a new form of accountability has evolved: direct non-legal accountability. This article examines the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, previous responses to this problem and the emergence of this new type of accountability. Direct non-legal accountability provides a viable alternative to standard conceptions of accountability in response to the situation. Although it will not solve the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse, normative improvements could be made to these mechanisms in order to better provide some accountability to the victims of this exploitation and abuse.

The distinction of excellent students in the Portuguese state school as a strategy of educational marketing accountability

The mechanisms of academic distinction of the best students, such as the Honours Boards of Excellence and Value, emerge in Portuguese state schools as important institutional management strategies for promoting the school image and attracting the best students. This is what the authors propose to discuss, and that they identify as being a new form of accountability—the educational marketing accountability. In other words, at the theoretical level, this article intends to explore the relationship between the results obtained by students, the promotion of academic excellence and a new form of accountability in the Portuguese non-higher education system. The empirical focus was the analysis of the institutional marketing strategies of management adopted by the head teachers and their impact on the school choice by the students. The authors used data from a questionnaire applied to students from four secondary schools who were asked to complete, interviews with head teachers and content analysis of documents from most Portuguese schools with academic distinction rituals. The research confirms the obsessive centrality of academic results in the daily management of schools; simultaneously, the distinction of the best students is an institutional marketing strategy that influences the choice of school, projects a desired social image and further reinforces the performance and leadership style of the head teachers.

The public space and informal accountability: Verdandi’s study manual, the press and Uppsala University

This article is concerned with the introduction of new forms of accountability. Instead of studying political reforms in the present, it explores a process in 19th century Sweden where the universi...

Escaping Numbers?

Numbers have long been associated with statecraft. In bureaucratic processes of accounting, regulation was effected by forming centres of calculation. This paper suggests that contemporary post-bureaucratic regimes are evolving new forms of accounting, in which the centre inserts itself into individual sites to exercise authority. This ‘intimate accounting’ involves technologies of transparency through which individual sites such as schools are required to declare intimate information publicly. In turn, the public, armed with information, is exhorted to become informed and to exercise influence on institutions to excel and to hold them to account. Using the case of Australia’s ‘Education Revolution’, this paper describes the processes of intimate accounting. It then explores the efforts to resist, subvert and undo such calculations. Finally, it speculates on why these calculations have continued to appear robust in the face of opposition and what would need to be done to escape or resist such calculations. 
 Keywords: Sociology of Numbers; Education Policy and Numbers; Accountability

Performance regulation in a networked healthcare system: From cosmetic to institutionalized compliance

This article studies the role of a public regulator in managing the performance of healthcare professionals. It combines a networked governance perspective with responsive regulation theory to show the mechanisms that have added to significant changes in medical cost management in the Netherlands. In a five‐year period, hospital practices transitioned from cosmetic compliance with performance regulation and strategic upcoding to institutionalized compliance more in line with regulatory goals. The article demonstrates how policy changes transformed incentive structures, introduced new forms of accountability, and added actors to the network with technocratic disciplining tasks. The networked character of performance regulation offered opportunities for a responsive, non‐coercive regulatory strategy that engaged various actors in a regulatory conversation about strategic coding. Responsive regulation can reduce strategic responses to performance regulation and manage the gap between administrative and clinical logics. The case study contributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of responsive, non‐punitive regulation in networked settings.

Epidemiological accountability: philanthropists, global health and the audit of saving lives

There have been concerns about the recent private turn and re-emergence of philanthropies in world health, with many worrying about philanthropies’ perceived lack of transparency and accountability. In contrast, I argue that while the private turn might have led to a decline in democratic or public accountability, it did not bring an end to all forms of accountability. Specifically, I suggest that philanthropists’ involvement in global health has led to the spread of another, new form of accountability: epidemiological accountability. The latter is a combination of two regimes of expertise and practices hitherto kept separate: audit and epidemiology. To substantiate this argument, I draw on my research on the Bloomberg Initiative – a global effort to reduce tobacco use spearheaded by the Bloomberg and Gates foundations.

From the Black-Market to the Gray-Market: Accounting's Role in the Budding Cannabis Industry

We examine accounting’s role in the development of the cannabis industry within the U.S., where formal accounting has historically been strongly discouraged. Employing an inductive approach, we conduct in-depth interviews to examine the current landscape of the cannabis industry and the ways in which accounting is used within the industry. Unique to the development of the cannabis industry is that, prior to state legalization, cannabis operations existed within a black-market, with no formal guiding rules or regulations, opposition to formal accounting records, and long-standing operational norms that were challenged once state regulation passed. Regulation, therefore, was the impetus for the dissolution of the black-market and the prerequisite for the development of an innovative industry within the gray-market. Our findings suggest that current cannabis participants face a unique set of challenges not experienced by other developing industries in modern times, including federal illegality of the primary product, limited access to and higher cost of peripheral services, punitive tax provisions that severely limit deductions of ordinary and necessary business expenses, and operations restricted to cash transactions. This set of obstacles, in addition to pervasive negative stigma, has created a path toward industry development that is not supported by theory. Therefore, we re-theorize industry evolution to recognize the unique nature of the cannabis industry, which will provide insight to other semi-legal, stigmatized industries. We also provide evidence of the use of accounting toward normalizing the dirty work associated with the cannabis industry and discover the development of new forms of accounting in response to the unique needs of industry participants.

The Social Accountability Report within the Chambers of Commerce: Theory, Procedure and Empirical Evidence

In Italy, many companies and central and local public administration offices, including the Chambers of Commerce, are turning to new forms of accounting of their results. Amongst these, the social accountability report definitely represents an innovative tool; an innovation intended to guarantee compliance with the principles of accountability and social control, that are growing strong within the wider process of transparency and accessibility of management data, as well as the use of the resources, which involves the whole Public Administration. The social accountability report is presented as a non-accounting tool meant to spread a systemic and structured vision of the activities carried out and of the results obtained by the administration in reference to the period of the ending mandate. The aim of the work is to examine in depth the issue of social reporting in the Chambers of Commerce, referring in particular to the social accountability report, highlighting its potential and its criticalities through a theoretical, empirical and methodological analysis. By using the empirical analysis, we are going to show, first of all, the composition and the territorial distribution of social reporting in the Chambers of Commerce between 1999 and 2016. By offering, later on, a case study, such as the social accountability report of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso, we will show how the experiences of the Chambers of commerce relating to social reporting are so heterogeneous that the several reports produced often show some significant peculiarities on a structural level. In the knowledge that such heterogeneity represents, however, a methodological enhancement, the work will later show a standard social accountability report for the Chambers of Commerce that is a result of the adaptation and reasoned integration of the contents of the social accountability reports produced by the Chambers of Commerce so far.

When Morals Ain’t Enough: Robots, Ethics, and the Rules of the Law

No single moral theory can instruct us as to whether and to what extent we are confronted with legal loopholes, e.g. whether or not new legal rules should be added to the system in the criminal law field. This question on the primary rules of the law appears crucial for today’s debate on roboethics and still, goes beyond the expertise of robo-ethicists. On the other hand, attention should be drawn to the secondary rules of the law: The unpredictability of robotic behaviour and the lack of data on the probability of events, their consequences and costs, make hard to determine the levels of risk and hence, the amount of insurance premiums and other mechanisms on which new forms of accountability for the behaviour of robots may hinge. By following Japanese thinking, the aim is to show why legally de-regulated, or special, zones for robotics, i.e. the secondary rules of the system, pave the way to understand what kind of primary rules we may want for our robots.

The Accounting and Accountability Practices of Fairtrade International (FLO)

ABSTRACTThis study examines the accounting and accountability practices of Fairtrade International (FLO), one of the largest Fair Trade umbrella organisations. Our aim is to explore whether new forms of accounting and related disclosures emerge in the reporting practices of FLO and how these reflect their self-declared social mission towards the emancipation and sustainability of producers. Using thematic analysis and reflecting on Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power, we analyse FLO’s reporting practices from 2006 to 2013. Our findings reveal that FLO mobilises the taken-for-granted images and symbols of ‘fairness’ in the Fair Trade system by using descriptive statistics of Fairtrade premium distributions and pictures of producers, but keeps silent to current concerns surrounding the limitations of Fair Trade. Such findings extend important insights into how new forms of accounting and related disclosure are used to legitimise the practice of Fair Trade.