IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v37y2016icp24-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Governing culture: Legislators, interpreters and accountants

Author

Listed:
  • Donovan, Claire
  • O’Brien, Dave

Abstract

Cultural policy has become dominated by questions of how to account for the intangible value of government investments. This is as a result of longstanding developments within government’s approaches to policy making, most notably those influenced by practices of audit and accounting. This paper will outline these developments with reference to Peter Miller’s concept of calculative practices, and will argue two central points: first, that there are practical solutions to the problem of measuring the value of culture that connect central government discourses with the discourses of the cultural sector; and second, the paper will demonstrate how academic work has been central to this area of policy making. As a result of the centrality of accounting academics in cultural policy, for example in providing advice on the appropriate measurement tools and techniques, questions are raised about the role academia might take vis-à-vis public policy. Accounting professionals and academics not only provide technical expertise that informs state calculative practices, but also play a surveillance role through the audit and evaluation of government programmes, and act as interpreters in defining terms of performance measurement, success and failure. The paper therefore concludes by reflecting on recent work by Phillip Schlesinger to preserve academic integrity whilst allowing accounting scholars and academics influence and partnership in policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Donovan, Claire & O’Brien, Dave, 2016. "Governing culture: Legislators, interpreters and accountants," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 24-34.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:37:y:2016:i:c:p:24-34
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2015.10.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235415000994
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2015.10.003?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. Steve Martin, 2010. "Co-production of social research: strategies for engaged scholarship," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 211-218, July.
    2. Ferri, Paolo & Zan, Luca, 2014. "Ten years after: The rise and fall of managerial autonomy in Pompeii," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 368-387.
    3. Michele Chwastiak & Glen Lehman, 2008. "Accounting for war," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 313-326, December.
    4. Claire Donovan, 2007. "The qualitative future of research evaluation," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(8), pages 585-597, October.
    5. Franses & Madesta Lede, 2015. "Cultural norms and values and purchases of counterfeits," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(54), pages 5902-5916, November.
    6. ., 2015. "Culture, globalization and urban landscapes," Chapters, in: Arts, Culture and the Making of Global Cities, chapter 12, pages 211-224, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Luca Zan, 2006. "Managerial Rhetoric and Arts Organizations," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-62480-1.
    8. Zhuk B.P., 2015. "Formation Of Corporate Culture In Ukraine," Management, Academy of Municipal Administration, vol. 7(3-4), pages 56-62, October.
    9. Helen Oakes & Steve Oakes, 2012. "Accounting and marketing communications in arts engagement: A discourse analysis," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 209-222, September.
    10. Chwastiak, Michele & Lehman, Glen, 2008. "Accounting for war," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 313-326.
    11. Phillips, M.. & Henriksson, P.J.G. & Tran, N. & Chan, C.Y. & Mohan, C.V. & Rodriguez, U-P. & Suri, S. & Hall, S. & Koeshendrajana, S., 2015. "Exploring Indonesian aquaculture futures," Monographs, The WorldFish Center, number 40532, April.
    12. Rose, Nikolas, 1991. "Governing by numbers: Figuring out democracy," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 673-692.
    13. Harvey, David, 2007. "A Brief History of Neoliberalism," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199283279.
    14. Oakes, Helen & Oakes, Steve, 2012. "Accounting and marketing communications in arts engagement: A discourse analysis," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 209-222.
    15. Miller, Peter & O'Leary, Ted, 1993. "Accounting expertise and the politics of the product: Economic citizenship and modes of corporate governance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 18(2-3), pages 187-206, April.
    16. Lu, Ruoxi & Dudensing, Rebekka, 2015. "What Do We Mean by Value-added Agriculture?," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 30(4), pages 1-8, December.
    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. Antonelli, Valerio & Bigoni, Michele & Funnell, Warwick & Mattia Cafaro, Emanuela & Deidda Gagliardo, Enrico, 2023. "Popular culture and totalitarianism: Accounting for propaganda in Italy under the Fascist regime (1934–1945)," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).

    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. Chwastiak, Michele, 2015. "Commodifying state crime: Accounting and “extraordinary rendition”," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 1-12.
    2. Schlaile, Michael P. & Bogner, Kristina & Muelder, Laura, 2021. "It’s more than complicated! Using organizational memetics to capture the complexity of organizational culture," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 801-812.
    3. Ejiogu, Amanze & Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Ejiogu, Chibuzo, 2021. "Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Paul Diaconu, 2017. "From The Accounting of War to the Accounting of Peace: Putting Bricks for a New Environmental Accounting. A Critical Analysis," Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 107-131, March.
    5. Agyemang, Gloria & Lehman, Cheryl R., 2013. "Adding critical accounting voices to migration studies," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 261-272.
    6. Noguchi, Masayoshi & Nakamura, Tsunehiko & Shimizu, Yasuhiro, 2015. "Accounting control and interorganisational relations with the military under the wartime regime: The case of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry's Nagoya Engine Factory," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 204-223.
    7. Lehman, Cheryl R., 2013. "Knowing the unknowable and contested terrains in accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 136-144.
    8. Thomson, Ian & Grubnic, Suzana & Georgakopoulos, Georgios, 2014. "Exploring accounting-sustainability hybridisation in the UK public sector," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 453-476.
    9. Neu, Dean & Ocampo Gomez, Elizabeth & Graham, Cameron & Heincke, Monica, 2006. ""Informing" technologies and the World Bank," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 635-662, October.
    10. Oakes, Helen & Oakes, Steve, 2016. "Accounting colonisation and austerity in arts organisations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 34-53.
    11. Ala, Alessandro S. & Lapsley, Irvine, 2019. "Accounting for crime in the neoliberal world," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).
    12. Crepaz, Lukas & Huber, Christian & Scheytt, Tobias, 2016. "Governing arts through valuation: The role of the state as network actor in the European Capital of Culture 2010," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 35-50.
    13. Power, Michael, 2015. "How accounting begins: object formation and the accretion of infrastructure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64324, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Dongwook Kim & Sungbum Kim, 2017. "Sustainable Supply Chain Based on News Articles and Sustainability Reports: Text Mining with Leximancer and DICTION," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-44, June.
    15. Russell, Shona L. & Thomson, Ian, 2009. "Analysing the role of sustainable development indicators in accounting for and constructing a Sustainable Scotland," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 225-244.
    16. Lehman, Cheryl R. & Hammond, Theresa & Agyemang, Gloria, 2018. "Accounting for crime in the US: Race, class and the spectacle of fear," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 63-75.
    17. 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.
    18. Chwastiak, Michele, 2013. "Profiting from destruction: The Iraq reconstruction, auditing and the management of fraud," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 32-43.
    19. Balluchi, Federica & Lazzini, Arianna & Torelli, Riccardo, 2021. "Accounting and music: The role of Giuseppe Verdi in shaping the 19th century culture industry," OSF Preprints 5hz87, Center for Open Science.
    20. Oakes, Helen & Oakes, Steve, 2012. "Accounting and marketing communications in arts engagement: A discourse analysis," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 209-222.

    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:37:y:2016:i:c:p:24-34. 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.