IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bracre/v50y2018i2p214-226.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unveiling the role of identity accountability in shaping charity outcome measurement practices

Author

Listed:
  • Yang, Cherrie
  • Northcott, Deryl

Abstract

Internationally, charities are grappling with the challenges of measuring their service outcomes for accountability purposes. This study employs recent developments in institutional theory to examine the role of identity accountability in shaping these outcome measurement practices. Semi-structured interviews with staff and managers in two New Zealand charities are drawn on to understand their perceptions and experiences of outcome measurement. The findings reveal that charity actors engage in institutional work aimed at discharging both identity accountability and upward accountability via their outcome measurement practices. However, they face challenges in achieving and balancing these two forms of accountability. Policy-practice and means-ends decoupling result, creating the potential for mission drift and other unintended consequences of outcome measurement practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Cherrie & Northcott, Deryl, 2018. "Unveiling the role of identity accountability in shaping charity outcome measurement practices," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 214-226.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:50:y:2018:i:2:p:214-226
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2017.09.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890838917300604
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bar.2017.09.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Trevor Hopper & Mathew Tsamenyi & Shahzad Uddin & Danture Wickramasinghe (ed.), 2012. "Handbook of Accounting and Development," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13725.
    2. Ciaran Connolly & Noel Hyndman, 2013. "Charity accountability in the UK: through the eyes of the donor," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 10(3), pages 259-278, September.
    3. Canning, Mary & O'Dwyer, Brendan, 2016. "Institutional work and regulatory change in the accounting profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-21.
    4. Thomas Lawrence & Roy Suddaby & Bernard Leca, 2009. "Introduction: theorizing and studying institutional work," Post-Print hal-00576557, HAL.
    5. Cherrie Yang & Deryl Northcott & Rowena Sinclair, 2017. "The accountability information needs of key charity funders," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 173-180, April.
    6. T. Lawrence & R. Suddaby & B. Leca, 2009. "Introduction : Theorizing and studying institutional work," Post-Print hal-00808954, HAL.
    7. Brendan O'Dwyer & Roel Boomsma, 2015. "The co-construction of NGO accountability," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(1), pages 36-68, January.
    8. Ebrahim, Alnoor, 2003. "Accountability In Practice: Mechanisms for NGOs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 813-829, May.
    9. Gloria Agyemang & Brendan O’Dwyer & Jeffrey Unerman & Mariama Awumbila, 2017. "Seeking “conversations for accountability”," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(5), pages 982-1007, June.
    10. Jeffrey Unerman & Brendan O'Dwyer, 2006. "Theorising accountability for NGO advocacy," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 19(3), pages 349-376, April.
    11. van der Heijden, Hans, 2013. "Small is beautiful? Financial efficiency of small fundraising charities," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 50-57.
    12. Ciaran Connolly & Noel Hyndman, 2013. "Charity accountability in the UK: through the eyes of the donor," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(3/4), pages 259-278, November.
    13. Jeffrey Unerman & Brendan O'Dwyer, 2010. "Ngo Accountability And Sustainability Issues In The Changing Global Environment," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 475-486, July.
    14. Jeffrey Unerman & Brendan O'Dwyer, 2012. "Accounting and Accountability for NGOs," Chapters, in: Trevor Hopper & Mathew Tsamenyi & Shahzad Uddin & Danture Wickramasinghe (ed.), Handbook of Accounting and Development, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ramesh Nair & Roshayani Arshad & Ruhaini Muda & Siti Aeisha Joharry, 2023. "Web-disclosure practices for transparency and the sustainability of non-profit organisations," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Graeme Harrison & Lu Jiao & Jinhua Chen, 2022. "Performance measurement systems and client performance in fee‐generating not‐for‐profit human service organisations," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(1), pages 931-957, March.
    3. Elka Johansson & Peter Carey & George Tanewski & Iliyas Yusoff, 2022. "The effect of members on charities’ annual reporting: evidence from companies limited by guarantee in Australia," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1851-1886, April.
    4. Hyndman, Noel & McKillop, Donal, 2018. "Public services and charities: Accounting, accountability and governance at a time of change," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 143-148.
    5. Cavicchi, Caterina & Vagnoni, Emidia, 2023. "Digital information systems in support of accountability: The case of a welfare provision non-governmental organisation," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5).
    6. Louisi Francis Moura & Edson Pinheiro Lima & Fernando Deschamps & Eileen Van Aken & Sergio Eduardo Gouvea da Costa & Rafael Duarte & Rafael Araujo Kluska, 2022. "What Role Do Design Factors Play in Applying Performance Measurement Systems in Nonprofit Organizations?," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, March.
    7. Kingston, Kylie L. & Luke, Belinda & Furneaux, Craig & Alderman, Lyn, 2023. "Examining the re-territorialisation of beneficiary accountability: Digitising nonprofit services in response to COVID-19," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5).
    8. Giacomo Boesso & Fabrizio Cerbioni & Marco Ghitti, 2022. "Strong planners versus weak planners: An analysis of nonprofit organizations," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(2 Suppl.), pages 143-166.
    9. Campanale, Cristina & Cinquini, Lino & Grossi, Giuseppe, 2021. "The role of multiple values in developing management accounting practices in hybrid organisations," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(6).
    10. Giacomo Boesso & Fabrizio Cerbioni & Andrea Menini, 2022. "Does the Adoption of Planning and Control Tools Influence Performance? Opinions of Grantors and Grantees About Non-profit Projects," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(2), pages 35-55.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. O’Leary, Susan, 2017. "Grassroots accountability promises in rights-based approaches to development: The role of transformative monitoring and evaluation in NGOs," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 21-41.
    2. Yasmin, Sofia & Ghafran, Chaudhry, 2019. "The problematics of accountability: Internal responses to external pressures in exposed organisations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Clerkin, Brendan & Quinn, Martin, 2021. "Institutional agents missing in action?: Management accounting at non-governmental organisations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Ahmed, Zahir Uddin & Hopper, Trevor & Wickramasinghe, Danture, 2023. "From Minnow to Mighty: A hegemonic analysis of social accountability in BRAC - the world’s largest development NGO," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    5. Boomsma, Roel & O'Dwyer, Brendan, 2019. "Constituting the governable NGO: The correlation between conduct and counter-conduct in the evolution of funder-NGO accountability relations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Hall, Matthew & O'Dwyer, Brendan, 2017. "Accounting, non-governmental organizations and civil society: The importance of nonprofit organizations to understanding accounting, organizations and society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-5.
    7. Aburous, Dina, 2019. "IFRS and institutional work in the accounting domain," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Hyndman, Noel & McConville, Danielle, 2018. "Trust and accountability in UK charities: Exploring the virtuous circle," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 227-237.
    9. Vien Chu & Belinda Luke, 2021. "Understanding success in micro‐enterprise development: Dimensions and misconceptions," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2), pages 63-78, May.
    10. Daoust, Laurence & Malsch, Bertrand, 2019. "How ex-auditors remember their past: The transformation of audit experience into cultural memory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Ang, Soon Yong & Wickramasinghe, Danture, 2023. "Ethical disputes, coordinating acts and NGO accountability: Evidence from an NGO river-care programme in Malaysia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Troshani, Indrit & Janssen, Marijn & Lymer, Andy & Parker, Lee D., 2018. "Digital transformation of business-to-government reporting: An institutional work perspective," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 17-36.
    13. Martínez-Ferrero, Jennifer & García-Sánchez, Isabel-María, 2017. "Coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphism as determinants of the voluntary assurance of sustainability reports," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 102-118.
    14. Victoria Johnson & Walter W. Powell, 2015. "Poisedness and Propagation: Organizational Emergence and the Transformation of Civic Order in 19th-Century New York City," NBER Working Papers 21011, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Syed Imran Saqib & Matthew MC Allen & Geoffrey Wood, 2022. "Lordly Management and its Discontents: ‘Human Resource Management’ in Pakistan," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 465-484, June.
    16. Cuckston, Thomas, 2022. "Accounts of NGO performance as calculative spaces: Wild Animals, wildlife restoration and strategic agency," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    17. Stephen L. Vargo & Robert F. Lusch, 2016. "Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 5-23, January.
    18. Maged Albaz & Mohamed Mostafa Ali Albaz, 2019. "Core Perspectives Of Performance Measurement In Npos: In Search Of Accountability And Legitimacy," Economic Archive, D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics, Svishtov, Bulgaria, issue 3 Year 20, pages 3-16.
    19. Richard Nielsen & Felipe Massa, 2013. "Reintegrating Ethics and Institutional Theories," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 135-147, June.
    20. Beninger, Stefanie & Francis, June N.P., 2021. "Collective market shaping by competitors and its contribution to market resilience," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 293-303.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:50:y:2018:i:2:p:214-226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-british-accounting-review .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.