Purpose The aim of this study is to explore what types of institutional work (IW) an actor of change, the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), used to create sustainable development goals (SDGs) auditing practices for supreme audit institutions (SAIs). Design/methodology/approach Building on IW and theoretical concepts of proto-institutions, we examine the case of IDI promoting the diffusion of SDG auditing practices throughout national SAIs worldwide. The paper draws on longitudinal data (secondary and primary sources, respectively, official IDI sources and interviews with IDI professionals working with SDG audits) collected between 2021 and 2025, reflecting key stages in the development of SDG auditing. Findings Our findings suggest that the creation of SDG auditing as a proto-institution is best understood as a contested process of institutional adaptation. The creation of SDG auditing was not intended to replace existing practices but rather to reinforce them to meet the current challenges defined by the UN's 2030 Agenda. We observe that SDG audits appear to repurpose existing performance audits with new concepts and principles linked to the 2030 Agenda and can be seen as gradual change mechanisms that ensure the continued existence and relevance of institutions. The diverse IW strategies were motivated by the objective of creating SDG auditing as an augmentation of performance auditing. The findings demonstrate that SDG auditing emerged as a proto-institution rather than as a new institution in the traditional sense. Originality/value This paper presents a case of the creation of an institution (i.e. SDG auditing) through interactions between IDI and multiple actors, aimed at reinforcing and repurposing existing public auditing practices such as performance audits. We offer a nuanced view on how the IW of a proto-institution creation is part of an overall strategy by a change agent (IDI) to develop an established institutional field (i.e. performance audits) by gaining legitimacy, support and engaging stakeholders. The proto-institution of SDG audits thus represents an augmentation or adaptation of an existing practice for new purposes, consistent with the view of institutions as “multipurpose tools”.
Purpose This study examines gender issues in Chinese local accounting firms under the influence of jianghu culture – a socio-cultural space characterised by opacity, informality, fluidity and the absence of explicit written rules. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Connell's (1995) theory of hegemonic masculinity, this study examines gendered workplace dynamics through a four-month ethnography at a single firm. This approach combined in-depth interviews with 28 accountants, including senior leaders and junior staff, and extensive participant observation of their daily work and social interactions. The research investigates how gender manifests in professional and informal settings, and analyses participants' perceptions of and responses to gender-related issues. Findings It reveals that the firm's dominant faction was male-centric, hierarchical and structured around hegemonic masculine traits, loyalty and reciprocity. This system shunned “effeminate” male colleagues who embodied subordinated masculinity, while relegating female staff – stereotyped through traditional femininity – to routine tasks such as tax filing, proxy bookkeeping and basic consulting. Consequently, “effeminate” male and female staff faced barriers to advancement into senior managerial roles. Although some women adopted masculine traits (demonstrating a form of female-complicit masculinity), the hegemonic faction within jianghu culture fundamentally limited their likelihood of joining dominant cliques because of the stereotype that women are unsuited for navigating the jianghu. Originality/value This paper offers a culturally grounded extension to gender research in accounting. Departing from Western models rooted in patriarchy, capitalism and professionalism, it finds that gender exclusion in Chinese accounting firms operates through jianghu culture – centred on renqing (favour), mianzi (face) and yiqi (brotherhood loyalty). The originality lies in showing how this framework systematically excludes women and “effeminate” men not through formal performance discourse, but through informal relational practices embedded in factional networks, social rituals and affective bonds.
Purpose This article addresses how purposeful research can be sustained in academic systems where what matters is increasingly defined through citation counts and journal rankings. It proposes the recovery of purpose through concern. A study's concern is the normative orientation of its contribution. The article shows how authors, reviewers, editors and academic leaders can use concern to examine the purpose of what they publish, evaluate and curate, treating it as a form of methodological responsibility. Design/methodology/approach The argument proceeds through conceptual analysis. Drawing on the work of Adorno, Honneth and Weber, it develops a framework that contrasts three orientations of concern: transformative, emancipatory and disciplinary. Each orientation names a distinct intellectual ambition and a corresponding kind of work a study can perform upon its field. Our concern framework is illustrated through accounting studies that exemplify these orientations in practice. Findings Read through the three orientations, accounting studies can be composed to (1) open new constellations of meaning, (2) widen recognition through emancipatory engagement or (3) contribute to cumulative inquiry by addressing the questions the field treats as worth pursuing or by strengthening the methodologies through which it pursues them. Because social science participates in shaping the realities it studies rather than merely explaining them, what a study is composed to do matters. Its composition allows it to carry a normative orientation into the field. Some studies manage to combine more than one orientation. Studies composed instrumentally, by contrast, satisfy the formal criteria of publication without carrying any clear concern. Originality/value This article offers a methodological response to the rise of instrumentalism in accounting research. Rather than treating instrumentalism only as a consequence of universities' performance management systems, it identifies resources within scholarly practice itself, three orientations of concern, through which researchers can compose work that has direction beyond its publication. The concern framework is available to any accounting scholar regardless of methodological paradigm.
Purpose To develop a research method for evaluating accounting for sustainability from the perspective of governing organisational interconnections within dynamic socio-ecological systems. Design/methodology/approach We develop a research method that evaluates differences between the expected and the accounted-for interconnections between an organisation, its activities and the resilience of the socio-ecological systems it is embedded in. This method is designed to identify interconnections that are unaccounted for, inappropriately accounted for and appropriately accounted for. This method can be integrated with established sustainability accounting research methods, providing additional insights from sustainability science and complex adaptive systems by articulating (mis)alignments of organisational accounting with requirements for governing the resilience of socio-ecological systems and sustainable transformation programmes. Findings We apply a three-stage method to a case study to illustrate its feasibility and confirm its potential to provide additional insights in this and other empirical contexts. In this case, the combination of omitted and inappropriately accounted for interconnections was problematically misaligned with the organisation's sustainability strategy. Managers in the organisation reported that this analysis offered a pathway for developing more appropriate accounting to inform their sustainability governance and sector-wide transformation. Originality/value We contribute to the literature on accounting for sustainability by proposing a method for evaluating accounting for interconnectivity, a critical attribute for sustainable transformation. We illustrate the possibilities created through a resilience-informed method built on a normative framework that incorporates an explicit consideration of the essential accounting attributes of the interconnections between an accounting object, sustainable governance, the consequences of any actions by an accounting object and resilient socio-ecological systems.
Purpose This article develops a decolonial framework to reconceptualize social audit in Indonesia as a tripartite praxis of epistemic resistance, political resistance and transformative hybridity. It examines how communities use audit to challenge colonial governance logics and reclaim accountability, moving beyond technical anti-corruption tools toward transformative state-society renegotiation. Design/methodology/approach Employing critical interpretive methodology, this study synthesizes diverse secondary data: NGO reports, policy documents, media analysis and academic literature across multiple Indonesian cases. Through abductive thematic and narrative analysis, it examines how social audit practices manifest as epistemic, political and hybrid dimensions of decolonial accountability. Findings The analysis reveals social audit as a tripartite decolonial praxis: (1) epistemic resistance challenges state knowledge monopolies through vernacular evidence; (2) political resistance reclaims space and reverses the audit gaze; and (3) transformative hybridity builds strategic bridges to reshape state logics from within, enabling fragile but significant accountability gains. Research limitations/implications Reliance on secondary data limits granular ethnographic insight. Future research requires longitudinal and comparative studies to trace institutional change. For practice, this implies shifting from toolkit approaches to supporting communities' epistemic infrastructure, protecting political space and fostering strategic state-society engagement for sustainable accountability. Practical implications Policymakers and practitioners must move beyond technical toolkits to support communities' epistemic infrastructure, protect political space from reprisal and foster long-term institutional engagement. This requires identifying reformist state allies and nurturing platforms for sustained state-society negotiation to enable transformative rather than ritualistic, accountability. Social implications This framework transforms accountability from a state-managed procedure to a democratically enacted right. It empowers communities as legitimate knowers and political actors, fostering civic dignity and reclaiming postcolonial citizenship. By bridging state-society divides, it seeds alternative democratic horizons in contexts of democratic erosion. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study offers the first integrated decolonial framework of social audit as tripartite praxis, bridging critical political economy with epistemic critique. It advances accountability theory by conceptualizing transformative hybridity and provides empirical nuance from Indonesia, challenging universalist governance models with Southern pluriversal alternatives.
Purpose This paper aims to understand the visual and textual rhetorical strategies used in NGO annual reports to build organizational legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach A single case study was conducted on the NGO Biodiversity (KEHATI). Barthes's semiotic and Aristotle's rhetoric theories were used to analyze the photographs and images, together with the accompanying text, in the organization's annual reports. Findings KEHATI predominantly uses culturally and aesthetically-coded visual rhetorical strategies, as well as textual strategies based on ethos and pathos, to enhance the persuasiveness and effectiveness of its messages. The organization chose symbolic messages: organizational identity, good governance, program success and stakeholder trust, to share meaning, create empathy and demonstrate credibility in order to build organizational legitimacy. The rhetoric of ethos in the visual messages of good governance and stakeholder trust forms KEHATI's moral compass, grounded in practical wisdom and good intentions for the welfare of humanity and nature. Research limitations/implications Single case studies cannot be generalized to other NGO cases. Originality/value The integration of Barthes's semiotic and Aristotle's rhetoric theories provides a new theoretical framework for understanding NGOs' visual accountability to both humans and non-humans. The rhetoric of the text, representing a “virtue anchor”, leads readers to accept the KEHATI’s benevolent ideology as essential to the survival of humans and the natural world.
Purpose This paper examines how accountability is enacted in rewilding and restoration projects in Britain, with particular attention to how different forms of knowledge shape accountability relationships. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 17 project-side actors directly involved in the design, management and delivery of rewilding and restoration projects across Britain, including project managers and community engagement practitioners. The analysis followed an inductive approach, reflecting the exploratory nature of the paper. Findings Accountability in rewilding and restoration projects is shaped by which forms of knowledge are recognised, and by whom. Knowledge structures these relationships, shaping who is positioned to demand an account, what counts as a valid account and the direction accountability takes. Scientific and technical knowledge anchors upward accountability to funders. For local communities, accountability remains largely informational. Knowledge feeds into engagement activities but does not extend to shaping project priorities. Site-based expertise opens more negotiated relationships with farmers and other locally knowledgeable actors. Originality/value The paper contributes to the accountability literature by showing that knowledge does structural work in accountability relationships, with power and cultural context shaping accountability largely through their influence on which knowledge is recognised. The paper also extends accountability research into the underexplored yet timely context of rewilding and restoration.
Purpose In 2023, the Dutch professional institute revised its guidance for auditor presentations at annual general meetings (AGMs), encouraging more transparency and enhanced communication with shareholders. This paper studies how auditors have enacted this guidance and hence how accountability is constructed at shareholder meetings. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes 20 auditor presentations and question-and-answer sessions at AGMs held in 2024 by listed Dutch entities. We investigate the micro-foundations of accountability through a three-pronged focus on situational, individual, and transformational mechanisms. Findings Our analysis reveals that auditors cautiously enact the revised guidance, furnishing some additional information while aiming to reassure shareholders about the opinion rendered. We also find that pertinent social facts penetrate the AGMs and become issues of contestation. Shareholder attention shifts from gaining insights into the audit work conducted, as intended by the professional guidance, and toward auditors’ public interest role. Auditors hence become accountability subjects and rely on company boards to repair the disruption. Originality/value The paper reveals that external developments can become consequential for AGM interactions and upend the roles enacted in these meetings. Rather than functioning as shareholders’ monitor, auditors may come under scrutiny for fellow professionals’ conduct. Company boards become allies of auditors, as they work together to mitigate shareholder dissent. The paper makes visible practical enactments of accountability, which is reconfigured in unintended ways by blurring and inverting the roles commonly assigned to AGM actors.
Purpose In complex systems, digitisation creates accountability sinks, whereby decision-making is delegated to computer systems so that humans are not responsible or in control. The accountability feedback loop is broken. Accountability sinks generate responsibility voids. These, in turn, lead to accountability gaps, creating technological injustice resulting in inequalities. This research develops a model of accountability for complex systems incorporating accountability sinks, responsibility voids and accountability gaps, highlighting the impact of digitisation that led to inequality for one group of workers. The British Post Office/Horizon Information Technology (IT) scandal has been described as the worst miscarriage of justice in UK legal history. Subpostmasters were imprisoned, fined and required to compensate the British Post Office for deficits in their branch accounts, caused by the malfunctioning of the Horizon IT branch accounting system. Design/methodology/approach This research operationalises Davies's (2024) concept of an accountability sink, developing an analytical framework for the purpose. The dataset is based on transcripts of 111 key witness statements at the public inquiry investigating the scandal. The authors apply their analytical framework to six elements relating to the Horizon IT system operating as an accountability sink. Findings Our analysis confirms that six elements of the British Post Office/Horizon IT outsourcing arrangement operated as an accountability sink. The case highlights the consequences of digitised systems for technological (in)justice. Originality/value The research operationalises the novel accountability sink concept and shows how such digital-system flaws, which are everywhere in modern society, contributed to inequality for one group of workers.
Purpose The study seeks to reveal actual experiences of decision-making about the choice of audit system and the consequential choice of audit firm in an international humanitarian organisation. Design/methodology/approach The investigation comprises a qualitative historical case based on primary sources. It utilises the Governmental (Bureaucratic) Politics Model, applied to decision-making in international organisations, as its analytical framework. Findings The paper reveals the politics of decision-making about auditing regimes in an international organisation. It demonstrates that choices made represent the outcome of a game played by nation-states who adopt diverse stances and possess varying degrees of influence over the political resultant. In the focal case, the bargaining power of the USA is revealed as a potent determinant of audit architecture. Choice of audit firm was based on consideration of territorial presence and an altruistic approach to fee-setting. It is shown that projecting the cost of the audit for a new international organisation operating during a global conflict was highly problematic. Originality/value The paper responds to calls for research into the real-world audit practice, audit histories beyond the corporation and the development of audit systems in international organisations. The study provides insights to demand- and supply-side dimensions of auditor choice.
Purpose This paper explores “developmental” corporate social responsibility (CSR) using the financial sector (FS) in Thailand between the 2000s and 2020s as a case study. By analysing how FS CSR initiatives corresponded with Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Plans (NESDPs), the paper examines the role that state-led frameworks play in shaping CSR practices. The paper investigates how the Thai FS worked with small/medium rural enterprises (SMEs) to mobilise the Buddhist Economics practice of “right livelihood” within a NESDP framework and operationalise a Thai Buddhist form of “developmental” CSR that promoted national strategies on rural poverty through local agency and practice. Design/methodology/approach Using MAXQDA software, the analysis provides a detailed qualitative analysis of annual and sustainability reports from listed financial sector companies from the 2000s to the 2020s in the context of Thailand's 1st-12th NESDPs (1961–2021) and the Thai sustainability discourse of Buddhist Economics. Findings This paper demonstrates that CSR in Thailand is shaped by local socio-cultural and political contexts, especially the Buddhist concept of “right livelihood” which translates socio-cultural values into CSR practice. It highlights a developmental form of CSR driven by national plans to reduce rural poverty through collaboration between government, corporations and SMEs. In doing so, the paper proposes “right livelihood” as a framework that goes beyond legitimacy and stakeholder theories in its holistic concept of both wealth and well-being. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on a specific but important industry in Thailand, namely the financial sector, and highlights the potential value of its developmental CSR in alignment with NESDPs. This research emphasises the role and benefits of state-led frameworks in shaping effective and contextually-relevant CSR practices. The study thereby seeks to provide a foundation for future research in other developing economies and emerging markets (DEEMs) to assess whether and how CSR activities might be similarly guided by and integrated with national development strategies. Practical implications This paper challenges international CSR standard setters to engage with such local CSR alternatives. It suggests that developmental CSR in DEEMs can be a composite strategy deployed by large companies, the state and SMEs to address issues of poverty and rural under-development. This paper also proposes the concept of “right livelihood” as a potential means of promoting not only wealth development but also the pursuit of more holistic well-being through CSR. Social implications This paper highlights collaborations between government, larger corporations and SMEs in Thailand as a form of “developmental” CSR which seeks through the Buddhist concept and practice of “right livelihood” to address poverty by promoting the complementary development of wealth and social well-being. Originality/value This paper emphasises that CSR practice is substantially determined by local social, cultural and political context rather than solely by western-defined CSR theorisations. Using the financial sector in Thailand as an example, the paper demonstrates how the Buddhist Economics practice of “right livelihood” has been mobilised through national development plans to address poverty in collaboration between government, corporations and SMEs. As a consequence of the holistic focus of “right livelihood” on both “wealth and well-being”, this paper proposes “right livelihood” as a translatable concept with which to address the limitations of legitimacy and stakeholder theory interpretations of CSR.
