Therapeutic governance: The art of mediating shame and blame and quasi-judicial pragmatic technologies in Indonesian government auditor-auditee engagements

Abstract

Government audit services provided by state auditors are frequently beset by complex and often emotional engagements with the auditees. Both auditors and auditees are subjected to multiple yet conflicting socio-political rationalities, administrative demands, and complex performance measurements. Auditees often perceive these interactions as a source of burden, fear, frustration, anxiety, and, at times, resistance or even revulsion regarding the audit process. Our ethnographic case study shows that the Indonesian government auditors and auditees employ the arts of the emotional self, as they feel burdened with the potential shame and blame that might result from an unsuccessful audit. Our study provides insights into how the quasi-judicial rationalities and bureaucratic demands manifested in various indices of performance imposed upon auditors and auditees lead to the critical need to achieve unqualified audit opinions. The pressures of ensuring a successful audit and reputation maintenance stimulate the enfolding of emotionalities in different stages of the audit process. Our study reveals auditor-auditee engagement in therapeutic governance as a mediation strategy to avoid the enfolding of shame or blame around a failure to achieve the targeted audit performance. In such a complex audit setting, both parties engage in pragmatic technological actions by administering shifts in roles and fostering familiarity to co-produce audit evidence.