IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v19y2008i4p487-522.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial reporting as technology that supports and sustains imperial expansion, maintenance and control in the colonial and post-colonial globalisation: The case of the Jamaican economy

Author

Listed:
  • Bakre, Owolabi M.

Abstract

In the colonial Jamaican economy, available evidence has enriched our understanding that financial reporting techniques and practices supported, sustained and legitimised the expansion, maintenance and control of the triangular relationship of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. Financial reporting techniques enabled the colonialist and transnational businesses in Jamaica to accumulate and allocate economic surpluses and safeguard the interests of colonial and other international capital by watching over capital and performing global functions of capital. The advent of independence did not necessarily mean that these methods were withdrawn with formal decolonisation. This current era of global capitalism under the auspices of globalisation, has ushered in more developments in the financial reporting field and poses developmental implications for Jamaica as a former colony. There is pressure to entrench even more than what already exists—financial reporting standards and practices that are more in line with western standards and practices to fit the requirements of international mobility of capital. Yet while this occurs, the impression continues that financial reporting techniques and practices are nevertheless neutral and rational calculation, enabling interested parties to produce socially mediated accounts. The aim of this paper is to challenge this thesis. In doing so, the paper provides evidence which questions the legitimacy and the claim that financial reporting techniques and practices are neutral and rational calculations. The evidence provided in this paper seems to suggest that financial reporting is a political technology, with grave socio-economic and political consequences for the colonial, post-colonial globalisation era Jamaica.

Suggested Citation

  • Bakre, Owolabi M., 2008. "Financial reporting as technology that supports and sustains imperial expansion, maintenance and control in the colonial and post-colonial globalisation: The case of the Jamaican economy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 487-522.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:19:y:2008:i:4:p:487-522
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2006.09.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235406000992
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2006.09.002?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. Gallhofer, Sonja & Haslam, James, 1991. "The aura of accounting in the context of a crisis: Germany and the first world war," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 16(5-6), pages 487-520.
    2. Miller, Peter, 1990. "On the interrelations between accounting and the state," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 315-338.
    3. Bryer, R. A., 2000. "The history of accounting and the transition to capitalism in England. Part one: theory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 131-162, February.
    4. Tinker, Anthony M., 1980. "Towards a political economy of accounting: An empirical illustration of the cambridge controversies," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 147-160, January.
    5. Loft, Anne, 1986. "Towards a critical understanding of accounting: The case of cost accounting in the U.K., 1914-1925," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 137-169, March.
    6. Miller, Peter & O'Leary, Ted, 1987. "Accounting and the construction of the governable person," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 235-265, April.
    7. Prem Sikka & Mark P. Hampton, 2005. "The role of accountancy firms in tax avoidance: Some evidence and issues," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 325-343, September.
    8. Arnold, Patricia J. & Sikka, Prem, 2001. "Globalization and the state-profession relationship: the case the Bank of Credit and Commerce International," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 475-499, August.
    9. Burchell, Stuart & Clubb, Colin & Hopwood, Anthony & Hughes, John & Nahapiet, Janine, 1980. "The roles of accounting in organizations and society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 5-27, January.
    10. Sikka, Prem & Willmott, Hugh, 1995. "The power of "independence": defending and extending the jurisdiction of accounting in the United Kingdom," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 547-581, August.
    11. Bryer, R. A., 2000. "The history of accounting and the transition to capitalism in England. Part two: evidence," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(4-5), pages 327-381, May.
    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. Verma, Shraddha & Gray, Sid J., 2009. "The development of company law in India: The case of the Companies Act 1956," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 110-135.
    2. Adhikari, Pawan & Kuruppu, Chamara & Matilal, Sumohon, 2013. "Dissemination and institutionalization of public sector accounting reforms in less developed countries: A comparative study of the Nepalese and Sri Lankan central governments," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 213-230.
    3. Belal, Ataur Rahman & Cooper, Stuart M. & Khan, Niaz Ahmed, 2015. "Corporate environmental responsibility and accountability: What chance in vulnerable Bangladesh?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 44-58.
    4. Hopper, Trevor & Lassou, Philippe & Soobaroyen, Teerooven, 2017. "Globalisation, accounting and developing countries," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 125-148.
    5. Wynter, Carlene Beth & Oats, Lynne, 2018. "Don’t worry, we are not after you! Anancy culture and tax enforcement in Jamaica," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 56-69.
    6. Jensen, Mads Langballe & Agyemang, Gloria & Lehman, Cheryl R., 2021. "Accountabilities, invisibilities and silences in a Danish slave trading company on the Gold Coast in the early 18th century," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Cooper, Christine & Catchpowle, Lesley, 2009. "US imperialism in action," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 716-734.
    8. Dillard, Jesse & Vinnari, Eija, 2017. "A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 88-109.
    9. S. Susela Devi & R. Helen Samujh, 2015. "The Political Economy of Convergence: The Case of IFRS for SMEs," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 25(2), pages 124-138, June.
    10. Morales, Jérémy & Sponem, Samuel, 2017. "You too can have a critical perspective! 25 years of Critical Perspectives on Accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 149-166.
    11. Dixon, Keith, 2023. "Consequences of accountings, distributional and otherwise," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    12. Yaser Saleh ALfrijat, 2020. "Compliance with Continuing Professional Development (IES7) of Internal Auditor and Quality of Internal Audit Function," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 9(1), pages 1-28, February.
    13. Kira Hibbert & Ranjini Thaver & Mark Hutchinson, 2012. "An Econometric Analysis Of Jamaica’S Import Demand Function With The Us And Uk," The International Journal of Business and Finance Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 6(1), pages 109-120.
    14. Aburous, Dina, 2019. "IFRS and institutional work in the accounting domain," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-15.
    15. Nnadi, Matthias & Soobaroyen, Teerooven, 2015. "International financial reporting standards and foreign direct investment: The case of Africa," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 228-238.

    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. Napier, Christopher J., 2006. "Accounts of change: 30 years of historical accounting research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(4-5), pages 445-507.
    2. Constable, Philip & Kuasirikun, Nooch, 2020. "From cosmological to commercial form: A Buddhist theory of ‘form’, ‘space’ and ‘stream of re-becoming’ in mid-19th century Thai accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Berland, Nicolas & Chiapello, Eve, 2009. "Criticisms of capitalism, budgeting and the double enrolment: Budgetary control rhetoric and social reform in France in the 1930s and 1950s," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 28-57, January.
    4. Jones, Michael John, 2010. "Sources of power and infrastructural conditions in medieval governmental accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 81-94, January.
    5. Carnegie, Garry D. & McBride, Karen M. & Napier, Christopher J. & Parker, Lee D., 2020. "Accounting history and theorising about organisations," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    6. Walker, Stephen P., 2016. "Revisiting the roles of accounting in society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-50.
    7. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    8. Toms, J. S., 2002. "The rise of modern accounting and the fall of the public company: the Lancashire cotton mills 1870-1914," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 61-84.
    9. Suzuki, Tomo, 2007. "Accountics: Impacts of internationally standardized accounting on the Japanese socio-economy," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-301, April.
    10. Mohamed Ali Dakkam, 2018. "qui et à quoi sert la comptabilité ? Un état de l'art et quelques réflexions théoriques pour dépasser le déterminisme des différents paradigmes," Post-Print hal-01907865, HAL.
    11. Davie, Shanta S.K., 2008. "An autoethnography of accounting knowledge production: Serendipitous and fortuitous choices for understanding our social world," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1054-1079.
    12. Toms, Steven, 2005. "Financial control, managerial control and accountability: evidence from the British Cotton Industry, 1700-2000," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(7-8), pages 627-653.
    13. Alawattage, Chandana & Wickramasinghe, Danture, 2008. "Appearance of accounting in a political hegemony," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 293-339.
    14. Lamb, Margaret, 2001. "'Horrid appealing': accounting for taxable profits in mid-nineteenth century England," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 271-298, April.
    15. Bigoni, Michele & Funnell, Warwick, 2015. "Ancestors of governmentality: Accounting and pastoral power in the 15th century," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 160-176.
    16. Barrett, Michael & Cooper, David J. & Jamal, Karim, 2005. "Globalization and the coordinating of work in multinational audits," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 1-24, January.
    17. Suddaby, Roy & Cooper, David J. & Greenwood, Royston, 2007. "Transnational regulation of professional services: Governance dynamics of field level organizational change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(4-5), pages 333-362.
    18. Bryer, R. A., 2005. "A Marxist accounting history of the British industrial revolution: a review of evidence and suggestions for research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 25-65, January.
    19. Uddin, Shahzad, 2009. "Rationalities, domination and accounting control: A case study from a traditional society," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 782-794.
    20. Baxter, Jane & Chua, Wai Fong, 2003. "Alternative management accounting research--whence and whither," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(2-3), pages 97-126.

    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:crpeac:v:19:y:2008:i:4:p:487-522. 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/critical-perspectives-on-accounting/ .

    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.