دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی تحقیقات حسابداری انتقادی و نئولیبرالیسم - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the way critical accounting research has addressed the question of liberalism. I show that the rise of this theme has been accompanied by a broadening of the issues addressed, but fairly little enlargement of the geographical spaces concerned. Three different approaches to neoliberalism are identified (as a phase of capitalism, as a discourse and as governmentality): while dialogue may exist between them, they are still disjointed and built on different inquiries. I seek to outline the contributions and limitations of each one. A second section studies the various roles critical authors have attributed to accounting and its actors in the neoliberal phenomenon and the way accounting is seen in their research (as an instrument, a project or an object). This mapping leads to proposal of an analysis framework that can be used for a broader conception of accounting's role in economic and social changes, based on a study of the conventions embedded in accounting devices and the distributive effects of the tests or trials they equip. Avenues for research are opened up throughout the article, with a view to enriching work on neoliberalism and delineating the specific contribution made by accounting researchers to its criticism.

4. Conclusion and perspectives

A number of avenues for research have been identified throughout this article. Three major areas can be highlighted. The first is that the seductive appeal of neoliberal apparatuses and some of the neoliberal discourse should be taken seriously, as they seem to be capable of enrolling actors who are opposed to the social and environmental consequences of the new capitalism. Some reform projects are currently being reformulated in the neoliberal Newspeak, and this phenomenon deserves exploration. We need to account for what is currently being invented as a form of resistance inside neoliberalism and is hidden from view by all-encompassing definitions that are too broad. The intuitions of the governmentalism-inspired literature should be pursued on this point. How far are liberal arts of governing serving objectives that are different from the objectives of a capitalist class whose power appears to have been restored? What contributions to criticism can be made by the identification of controversies and debates, and discursive plurality in neoliberalism? Finally, how can critical accounting research on neoliberalism benefit from the variable and often loose connections between the technologies of power, programmes of government and political rationalities?

The second avenue concerns extending the research using a critical accounting analysis approach. Researchers taking this approach use accounting as an instrument of evidence and a research tool to document social transformations, and particularly to lift the veil of discourses of justification and reveal the reality of material exchanges. The intelligibility that the study of accounting systems provides regarding the economic processes at work, especially at the level of organisations, is particularly necessary today to root a major narrative26 like the story of neoliberalism in practical economic life. This approach is also the most suitable for developing research related to the agendas of social movements, which are often seeking accounting and financial competences and whose actors may in exchange offer other angles for diagnosis of the same neoliberal phenomena. I am thinking particularly of environmental movements, which have trouble understanding micro-economic dynamics although they are able to denounce their effects on the environment. Such collaborations could also lead to normative conclusions while creating interesting spaces for progress on the first area of research presented above. Indeed, most actors campaigning for specific causes are in a situation of pragmatic experimentation and critical invention that cannot be subsumed into a simple stance on neoliberalism.