The quid pro quo of charity: accounting, power and social positioning

IF 8.3 2区管理学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Critical Perspectives on Accounting Pub Date : 2024-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102730

Mariló Capelo-Bernal, Pedro Araújo-Pinzón

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Abstract

This article analyses the role played by accounting in the social order, drawing inspiration from the works of Ezzamel and the literature related to accounting inscriptions and discourse. To that end, our research examines four Spanish charitable organisations with which the Catholic Church collaborated closely in the final years of the eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth, a period during which enlightened ideas about how to deal with poverty threatened the traditional role of the Church.

Based on this study, we argue that accounting, as a relevant part of the discursive practices of the dominant actors in charitable activity, (i) structures society, creating social spaces in which it inscribes people, and establishes links and distances between these spaces, (ii) constructs the truth about the achievements of charitable organisations and the charitable work of donors/collaborators, and (iii) collaborates in strengthening power relations and promotes both social equilibrium and the social mobility of individuals and groups.

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慈善的交换条件：会计、权力和社会定位

本文分析了会计在社会秩序中扮演的角色，从埃扎梅尔的作品以及与会计铭文和话语相关的文献中汲取灵感。为此，我们的研究考察了 18 世纪最后几年和 19 世纪初与天主教会密切合作的四个西班牙慈善组织，在这一时期，关于如何处理贫困问题的开明思想对教会的传统角色构成了威胁。基于这项研究，我们认为，会计作为慈善活动中占主导地位的行为者话语实践的相关部分，(i) 构建社会，创造社会空间，将人们纳入其中，并在这些空间之间建立联系和距离，(ii) 构建关于慈善组织的成就以及捐助者/合作者的慈善工作的真相，(iii) 合作加强权力关系，促进社会平衡以及个人和群体的社会流动性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Critical Perspectives on Accounting BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

9.40

自引率

7.80%

发文量

期刊介绍： Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such concerns, a new literature is emerging that seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we apprehend and affect that activity. Research Areas Include: • Studies involving the political economy of accounting, critical accounting, radical accounting, and accounting''s implication in the exercise of power • Financial accounting''s role in the processes of international capital formation, including its impact on stock market stability and international banking activities • Management accounting''s role in organizing the labor process • The relationship between accounting and the state in various social formations • Studies of accounting''s historical role, as a means of "remembering" the subject''s social and conflictual character • The role of accounting in establishing "real" democracy at work and other domains of life • Accounting''s adjudicative function in international exchanges, such as that of the Third World debt • Antagonisms between the social and private character of accounting, such as conflicts of interest in the audit process • The identification of new constituencies for radical and critical accounting information • Accounting''s involvement in gender and class conflicts in the workplace • The interplay between accounting, social conflict, industrialization, bureaucracy, and technocracy • Reappraisals of the role of accounting as a science and technology • Critical reviews of "useful" scientific knowledge about organizations