PurposeIn the debate on the effects of digital transformation and accountability, this paper aims to analyse to what extent integrated information systems (IISs) in public administrations affect the use of social, ecological and economic performance information on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by politicians and public administrators and to what extent public corporate governance codes (PCGCs) strengthen and balance the effects of IISs. The paper conceptually introduces PCGCs as frameworks for the design of IISs and sustainability-oriented performance information.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on agency theory and uses a triangulation approach using data from an online survey of 337 public administrators and politicians in German cities, expert interviews and content analysis of cities’ PCGCs.FindingsOverall, the use of economic/financial performance information is higher than the use of non-financial performance information. IISs are associated with a higher use of economic but not of social performance information, indicating an unaccounted effect of digital transformation. Higher quality of PCGCs strengthens the effects of IISs on the use of social performance information.Originality/valueThis paper explores special chances and potential “dark sides” of IISs as key instruments for digital transformation and accountability in connected city societies. It innovatively differentiates between the three dimensions of sustainability for a more nuanced theoretical understanding in the scientific debate. The introduction and theorising of PCGCs as frameworks for IISs and sustainability-oriented performance information use have very high potential for scientific debates and to organise sustainable solutions for the grand challenges.

Purpose This paper aims to theorize the role of affect in shaping accounting numbers by studying accountants who specialize in the production of fair value measurements for intangibles. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on interviews with valuation specialists employed by public accounting firms, I investigate the circulation of affect in fair value measurement networks. While prior studies stress the coordinative potential of affect, I focus on affective clashes, as well as on the associations that are drawn between the specialists and other actors in response to these clashes. Findings The findings suggest that affect impacts the stability of accounting inscriptions, in that it plays a significant role in both the destabilization and the ultimate stabilization of valuation networks. Practical implications The proposed reframing of valuation work may allow regulators and other stakeholders to consider issues beyond pure cognitive bias and to recognize that interrelational affect is materially implicated – both favourably and unfavourably – in valuation outcomes. Originality/value The study reframes the issue of fair value measurement as one of stabilizing value inscriptions through clashes of passionate interests, rather than one of reducing individual bias at the valuator level. In addition, the study refines the concept of stability in actor-network theory by considering its significant interrelations with the affective dimension of networks and discusses certain issues in the current fair value literature.

Purpose The purpose of the present study is to investigate the demand side of non-financial reporting, especially integrated reporting. We investigate (1) what type of content the users of online integrated reports access most frequently and (2) whether users search for non-financial content and content that integrated reports must contain to comply with the requirements of the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRF). Design/methodology/approach We perform big data analysis on the log files associated with user access to five online integrated reports over a period of 12 months to investigate what type of information users access most frequently when they visit online integrated reports. Content analysis enabled us to match the usage data (page impressions) to certain topics within the integrated reports. Our analysis, which is based on data reflecting over one million webpage views, indicates which types of integrated-report content attract the users’ attention and which do not. Findings Our results confirm that integrated reports in general, and specific components in particular, are of significant value to users. In contrast to what other studies suggest, we find no evidence that users seek financial information to a much greater extent than non-financial information. Specifically, our results show that usage between financial and non-financial information is quite evenly distributed and differs depending on the metric under consideration; considering usage by topic impressions financial information is used more frequently, scaling topic impressions by report pages addressing a specific topic, non-financial information displays higher usage. With respect to specific topics, our analysis shows that the topics that attracted most interest from our sample of users are performance, financial statements, company profile and value creation. Furthermore, our findings confirm the importance of integrated reporting from a user perspective. Practical implications The results of our study are of practical value to both standard setters and (potential) preparers for two main reasons: first, they provide user-centric evidence about the importance of non-financial information and empirically confirm that integrated reporting has become widely accepted among users; second, they provide evidence about the topics that are of specific interest for users and therefore should also be considered by preparers and standard setters more carefully. Originality/value The present study enriches the literature on financial and sustainability reporting with informative insights into which of the topics that integrated reports contain attract most interest from users. Moreover, our results are based on actual data on the usage of such reports that reflect real user-journeys, rather than on artificial data, created for research purposes.

Devised by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956) while still at school, and taking its title from his second name, a “clerihew” is a form of light, usually biographical, verse of two rhyming couplets of irregular metre (Teague, 2012). The first line generally ends with the subject’s name and often contains nothing else, thus setting up the initial rhyming challenge. The rhymes are often eccentric (Teague, 2012), which can be part of the form’s humour. The following well-known example illustrates.Bentley published three collections of clerihews during his lifetime [1], dealing with a mixture of historical and contemporary figures from various fields. Other practitioners of the craft have included writers of the stature of G.K. Chesterton [2], W.H. Auden and J.R.R. Tolkien (Teague, 2012). It is still a frequently attempted form (Seymour-Smith, 1994), and collections of new clerihews continue to appear (e.g. Szirtes and Jackson, 2019, 2022).A perusal of the contents of Bentley’s collected clerihews (Bentley, 1981) reveals no major accounting figures. In assuming the challenge of writing clerihews on accounting subjects, who better to begin with than Luca Pacioli? I offer two attempts here.

PurposeThis study aims to examine how hospitals and regional and local health authorities in the Italian region of Marche accounted for and reported the use of emergency funds from the EU, the Ministry of Economic and Finance and administrative bodies called actuator subjects. Unlike a sudden impact disaster, such as an earthquake, the pandemic was slow moving and novel. This meant that the guidelines for medical, legislative, financial and administrative action were not as developed as those for sudden impact emergencies with which the Italian state was, unfortunately, experienced.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates the Italian public healthcare setting since the declaration of the State of Emergency until its end—that is, from January 2020 to July 2021. We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with nine key-actors working for national, regional and local administrative bodies. A range of related official documents were analyzed.FindingsWe show a non-linear and emergent account of standardization and coordination. We show how different state and transnational actors developed their own procedures to standardize COVID-related cost classifications and reports. These attempts also involved coordinating assemblages, at the center of which are templates imposed on hospitals and regional authorities by national state entities for cost-reporting practices and aggregation. Importantly, templates’ visual features enabled coordination across the different standardization initiatives that populated the emergency response effort.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper provides academics and policy makers with insights into the role played by accounting tools, templates, reports and guidelines to coordinate different cost standardization initiatives.Originality/valueAccounting guidelines that standardize costs are known to be deployed hierarchically by states and transnational organizations for coordination purposes. We highlight, however, the emergence of not only hierarchical forms of coordination but also their interrelation with decentralized forms of coordination. These two types of coordinating assemblages, each standardizes cost through the accounting templates that they use. We demonstrate the emergent nature of coordination even within hierarchical entities like the state. Reporting templates are pivotal for understanding this coordination process. However, when a centralized coordinating body is absent, it is the visual features of accounting, rather than its imposition, that enable coordination.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability in a public services context.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a case study of the impact of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) on the practices of Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB) members. It draws upon multiple data sources, including in-depth interviews with the members, comprehensive archival data published by the HWB (2011–2019), and observations of HWB public meetings. We utilise the concept of dynamic duality (Li, 2008) to further theorise the relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability and how they mutually transform one another.FindingsThe case illustrates the role of formal and non-formal processes of accountability at a HWB in England. Moreover, the case study reveals the relationship and interaction between the formal and non-formal accountability processes and how they change and transform each other over time. We find that whilst non-formal accountability processes were strengthened by a historical legacy of partnership working, over time the dynamics at play led to the development of formal accountability processes through more sophisticated performance systems, which in turn transformed non-formal accountability processes.Originality/valueThe paper presents a more holistic conceptualisation than articulated in prior accountability literature, dynamic duality, on the relationship between formal and non-formal accountability processes. Through application of this conceptualisation to a HWB in England, the paper spotlights the inter-relationship between formal and non-formal processes of accountability, and how they have the potential to transform each over an extended time-period.

Purpose To advance understanding of transparency by problematising the motivations and strategies of a so far underexplored group: its users. Design/methodology/approach We explore the relationship between blindness, visibility, and transparency by drawing on our analysis of Max Frisch’s experimental novel Gantenbein (1964), in which the protagonist lives a life of feigned blindness. Findings The accounting scholarly debate on transparency has neglected the users of transparency. We address this through a novel theorisation of transparency as a game, highlighting some of its distinctive features and paradoxes. Originality/value By theorising the transparency game we move beyond concerns with what transparency reveals or conceals and conceptualise the motivations and strategies of the players engaged in this game. We show how different players have something to gain from the transparency game and warn of its emancipatory limits.

PurposeThis paper aims to advance recent literature on the performativity of accounting by examining how project accounting affects a project organization’s ability to deliver a relevant project outcome, such as a product or a building, for a receiving client organization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on a longitudinal case study of a 41.4-billion-kroner (5.5-billion-euro) Danish project of constructing 16 new public hospitals. Its objective was to reduce the average unit costs and improve the quality of patient care. Each hospital construction was managed by a separate project organization and handed over to a separate receiving hospital organization. The project organizations applied a common approach to project accounting. The paper relies on Michel Callon’s concepts of performativity and sociotechnical agencement – approaching project accounting as an arrangement of devices.FindingsThe paper shows that the project-accounting agencement simultaneously supported and undermined the project organizations’ ability to deliver hospitals relevant to the receiving hospital organizations. The agencement performed hospital designs, disciplined project actors and guided decision-making, thus supporting the overall work of the project organizations. It also, however, compelled the project organizations to compromise on hospital designs when unexpected events occurred. These compromises led to the delivery of hospitals, which largely prevented the receiving hospital organizations from achieving the project’s objective.Originality/valueThis paper advances our limited understanding of the dynamic and complex relationship between project accounting and the relevance of project outcomes. It introduces the concept of a “contronymity device” to capture the way project accounting simultaneously produces two opposing consequences, both supporting and undermining the enactment of a particular reality. The paper lastly enriches our understanding of how project-accounting devices impact hospital organizations’ operating cost structures and challenge patient care capabilities.

PurposeThis paper introduces the special issue on Race and Accounting and Accountability. In so doing, it explores racism in its historical and contemporary forms, the role of accounting and accountability in enabling racism and racial discrimination and also efforts of redress and resistance.Design/methodology/approachWe reflect on several critical themes to demonstrate the pervasive and insidious nature of racism and, review the literature on race and racism in accounting, focusing on studies that followed the seminal work by Annisette and Prasad (2017) who called for more research. We also review the six papers included in this special issue.FindingsWhile many overt systems of racial domination experienced throughout history have subsided, racism is engrained in our everyday lives and in broader societal structures in more covert and nuanced forms. Yet, in accounting, as Annisette and Prasad noted, the focus has continued to be on the former. This special issue shifts this imbalance – five of the six papers focus on contemporary racism. Moreover, it demonstrates that although accounting technologies can and do facilitate racism and racist practices, accountability and counter accounts offer avenues for calling out and disrupting the powers and privileges that underlie racial discrimination and, resistance by un-silencing minority groups subjected to discrimination and injustice.Originality/valueThis introduction and the papers in the special issue offer rich empirical and theoretical contributions to accounting and accountability research on race and racial discrimination. We hope they inspire future race research to nurture progress towards a true post-racial society.

PurposeIdentity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends on its trade-off with employees’ work identities and personalities. Organizational discourse nurtures this dynamic and interactive process. We focus on the regulation of an (undesired) organizational identity that is born at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sex and migrant discrimination in accounting-related positions. We aim to analyze how Latina accountants who migrate to Spain perceive that their triple status as Latina, women and migrants affects their careers as accountants and interpret whether this triple intersectional discrimination aims to create a Latina accountant’s self-identity.Design/methodology/approachThis critical study follows a phenomenological approach to analyze the experiences of women born in Latin America who migrated to Spain to occupy accounting-related positions. A thematic analysis of their semi-structured interviews allowed us to examine the challenges faced by Latina accountants in their accounting careers in Spain.FindingsOur interviewees' narratives display an internalization of, even resignation to, a self-identity that we label “Latina accountant identity.” This identity is based on explicit discrimination discourses that cause them to suffer from the intersection of racism, sexism and migrant conditions and is nurtured by the discourses of their senior managers, co-workers and subordinates.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to frame the regulation of an intersectional discriminatory identity that is used to control Latina accountants from the inside, acting on the triple condition of Latinas, women and foreigners, influencing their self-perceptions regarding work and personal lives.