Keith Dixon | University of Canterbury/Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha (original) (raw)
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Papers by Keith Dixon
Accounting, auditing & accountability, Mar 23, 2023
Accounting figures variously in New Higher Education. However, despite their infant precursors ha... more Accounting figures variously in New Higher Education. However, despite their infant precursors having been labelled curricular accounting (see Theodossin, E. (1986), The Modular Market, Further Education Staff College, London), accounting researchers have overlooked calculative practices, processes, records and associated means of measuring, recording and reporting university-student learning. The means in question comprise credit, credit points, levels of learning, level descriptors, learning outcomes, and related characteristics of course catalogues, qualification frameworks, credit transfer systems and student records, transcripts and diploma supplements. The former University of New Zealand and its affiliate in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Te Whare Wānanga o Waitahā, also of that city, are used as a case study. This paper provides a retrospective analysis to illuminate how curricular accounting about university-student learning has reflected and constituted standards and equivalence of this learning, not only at the case study site but across tertiary education in many countries.
The purpose of this study is to add to our knowledge of the composition and exercise of managemen... more The purpose of this study is to add to our knowledge of the composition and exercise of management control systems (MCSs). The study focused on a Thai-owned chicken processing company in Thailand. Although most previous studies on MCSs have examined the use of MCSs as developed in mainly English-speaking countries in the West, there are some studies set in emerging economies in South and Southeast Asia around Thailand. These have found a variety of factors that affect the composition and exercise of MCSs. These factors include national culture, employers' and employees' demographic characteristics, ethnic tensions, political intervention, and liberalisation and privatisation. Thailand was chosen for this study because the author is Thai and because few previous studies had been done about Thailand. Thailand has been influenced significantly by Western ideas but differs from many of its South and Southeast Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, in havi...
Ethnographic research methods were used in this study to investigate management control systems i... more Ethnographic research methods were used in this study to investigate management control systems in use in a Thai owned company, the Saha Farms Company. The findings show that Thai culture has had a significant influence on management control practices at the Company. Komin (1990a, 1990b) writes from an insider's point of view about nine Thai value orientations that are to be seen in the very hierarchical Thai society. These nine cultural value orientations are ego, grateful relationship, smooth interpersonal relationship, flexibility and adjustment, religious-psychical, education and competence, interdependence, fun and pleasure, and task-achievement. These cultural values have such a strong influence on management control within the case company that other control systems, such as Western accounting controls, have very little influence on the internal control and management of the Company.
The accounting education of people in managerial roles or performing managerial work is relativel... more The accounting education of people in managerial roles or performing managerial work is relatively neglected in the literature compared with educating accountants. Moreover, judged from most textbooks purporting to serve their study programmes, the education they receive very often seems like a potted version of that served out to accountant students. In this paper, models of managerial work and abilities, prior research into learning-centred accountant education and management study programmes, and the authors' participant-observation of educating these people are synthesised in order to propose a curriculum better attuned to their roles and work.
The objective of this paper is to explore the role of accounting information used by people with ... more The objective of this paper is to explore the role of accounting information used by people with power to manipulate the perceptions of the audience of an organisation and build trust in uncertain circumstances. Approach: The study takes a qualitative approach. We examined the claims made by interviewees and published documentary evidence to identify how contextual and partial knowledge was constructed and communicated in shaping the perceptions of individuals and gaining support for privatisation of Sri Lanka Telecom. Findings: The power to control the availability of accounting information, the audience's lack of knowledge, the well-regarded reputation of newly introduced Japanese management practices and the engagement of employees in implementing new accounting and management practices enabled the Government and the policy implementers to rationalise the privatisation process and counter opponents. Research implications: The study raises the importance of challenging the use of accounting information by people with the power to define the context in uncertain situations, particularly in a non-western context. Originality/value: The evidence collected in this study was not limit to annual reports as in many extant studies. It provides a broad and comprehensive perspective on the use of accounting information in constructing and defining a context under uncertain circumstances by using documentary evidence such as newspapers, corporate reports and administration reports, as well as information obtained from interviews.
I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative pr... more I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative practices, and to examine critically the implications of this curricular accounting. The practices in question, in which credits or credit points are the prime unit of currency, are most visible in specifications of qualifications and courses (or units or modules), credit accumulation and transfer systems, and qualification frameworks, and on students' academic records and diploma supplements. They run in conjunction with learning outcomes, assessment scores and grades, levels of learning, graduate profiles and similar items. They cross over into student fee charging methods and scales, public funding of higher education based on student numbers, mechanisms within institutions for allocating financial resources and controlling academic workloads, and so marrying up with things more usually associated with accounting functions and practices. I use a genealogical approach, based on occurrences and events at a college and now university in Christchurch, New Zealand, since English settlers established it in the 1870s. Today's practices are shown to trace to ever-present concerns to attain and maintain equivalence in standards with institutions whence the settlers hailed and other places their descendants venerate, while simultaneously responding to economic, social, political and cultural needs in their settlements (e.g., locally educated secondary school teachers, engineers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals, and academics). Further international and national influences on how and why these practices developed were the growth of student numbers, as demands for educated labour increased and wider access to higher education became a social policy imperative, the broadening of the higher education curriculum, and the extension of accounting and associated calculative practices in government, public policy and higher education, as ideas associated with neo-liberalism and managerialism took hold.
Meditari Accountancy Research, 2017
Purpose Sustainability reporting serves as a means of communication between corporations and thei... more Purpose Sustainability reporting serves as a means of communication between corporations and their stakeholders on sustainability issues. This study aims to identify and account for the contents of sustainability reporting communicated through the websites of the plants in five continents of the same multinational mining corporation. Design/methodology/approach This study uses data published by Newmont Mining Corporation. The corporation has regional headquarters in five continents: Africa, Asia, Australia and North America and South America. The data were drawn from the websites of the five plants adjacent to those regional headquarters. Economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability as reported by each plant were identified; to do so, a disclosure analysis based on the elements of the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Division for Sustainability Development was used. These aspects were then compared and contrasted to highlight if, and to what extent,...
I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative pr... more I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative practices, and to examine critically the implications of this curricular accounting. The practices in question, in which credits or credit points are the prime unit of currency, are most visible in specifications of qualifications and courses (or units or modules), credit accumulation and transfer systems, and qualification frameworks, and on students’ academic records and diploma supplements. They run in conjunction with learning outcomes, assessment scores and grades, levels of learning, graduate profiles and similar items. They cross over into student fee charging methods and scales, public funding of higher education based on student numbers, mechanisms within institutions for allocating financial resources and controlling academic workloads, and so marrying up with things more usually associated with accounting functions and practices. I use a genealogical approach, based on occurrenc...
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 2021
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and developm... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and development (CRD) activities done in conjunction with mining activities of multinational companies affecting indigenous peoples and thus help improve relationships between them, despite continuing bad consequences the people continue to endure. It is through such better relationships that these consequences may be redressed and mitigated, and greater sharing of benefits of mining may occur, bearing in mind what constitutes benefits may differ from the perspectives of the indigenous peoples and the miners. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach is taken, including interviews with company officials responsible for CRD activities, elaborated with observations, company and public documents and previous literature about these mining operations and the peoples. Findings The CRD activities have gradually increased compared with their absence previously. They are officially labelled social i...
The paper provides an insight into a management accounting change, namely the introduction of the... more The paper provides an insight into a management accounting change, namely the introduction of the balanced scorecard (BSC) in a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The process of institutionalisation is evaluated using the theoretical framework proposed by Burns & Scapens (2000), which breaks the process down into the steps of encoding, enacting, reproduction and finally institutionalisation. Approach A qualitative field study was carried out, gathering data from interviews, documents and non-participant observation. Findings It was found that resistance to change in the factories of the company resulted in the rules of the BSC being only loosely coupled with routines embedded in everyday working activities. Originality This study makes a contribution to the institutional theory literature by showing that, despite its western roots, institutional theory may be used to explain attempts to change management accounting in other hemispheres, as in this Chinese case. The research also contributes to the sparse research on management accounting in China.
The manuscript comprises a literature review in progress, to examine research relevant to how acc... more The manuscript comprises a literature review in progress, to examine research relevant to how accounting and finance academics can improve their proficiency and effectiveness as teachers. The notion of improving proficiency and effectiveness is conceptualised in terms of enhancing student-learning outcomes. Particular attention is paid to how accounting and finance educators use and conduct lectures as part of the courses and programmes in which they profess their knowledge and ply their skills. A conceptual model linking factors that influence lecturing proficiency and effectiveness with student learning experience satisfaction and learning effectiveness is presented. This model offers educators insights to support their reflective teaching practices and provides scholars with research propositions amenable to empirical investigation
How accounting enables governors to govern is analysed. The governors comprise multilateral and a... more How accounting enables governors to govern is analysed. The governors comprise multilateral and aid organisations, and their imperial body predecessors, and the governed are the population of the Republic of Kiribati. A governmentality framework of analysis is used and a genealogical approach is taken. Data were obtained from participant-observation and reviews of histories, memoirs and official documents. The essence of the analysis is to show, in the context of the governance of the population in question since c. 1890, how the actions of various people spawned and maturated accounting usages alongside how the actions of various people developed and changed governmentalities. Accounting is interpreted as a changing technology of governance used, in this case, to help “develop” people who fit externally determined rhetorical images (e.g. civilised natives, colonial subjects, modernised citizens, global consumers). The study may prompt similar studies of usage of accounting in creat...
![Research paper thumbnail of Functions of accounting, types of rulership (-archies) and forms of rule (-[o]cracies)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/84513729/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Sexual cannibalism is an extreme expression of sexual conflict, which can grant females significa... more Sexual cannibalism is an extreme expression of sexual conflict, which can grant females significant fitness benefits, particularly if female fecundity depends on foraging success. However, when cannibalism is precopulatory, there is the risk that females remain unmated. Therefore, males simultaneously present the option of a meal or a mate to the females they encounter. The springbok mantis (Miomantis caffra) is highly aggressive, and when females cannibalize males, it is exclusively precopulatory. However, females can circumvent the risk of infertility by reproducing asexually, providing a rare opportunity to explore the interaction between sexual cannibalism and facultative parthenogenesis. We kept female mantises on high and low feeding regimes, and paired them with males, to examine how body condition and age influenced rates of cannibalism. We also investigated whether reproductive mode (sexual or asexual) influenced fecundity by measuring ootheca weight. Overall, there was an extremely high average cannibalism frequency (~62%), but no significant difference in frequencies of cannibalism between feeding regimes. Although there was a relationship between female condition and fecundity, influenced by feeding treatment, the mode of reproduction (sexual or asexual) did not result in any difference in ootheca weight. Using information-theoretic approaches, we determined that, of the variables examined, female age best accounted for cannibalistic behavior and that females became less aggressive and more likely to mate over time. This suggests that, although parthenogenesis may allow females to cannibalize males at a high frequency without incurring the cost of infertility, they may still benefit from reproducing sexually later in their lives.
Using an institutional theory lens, our study examines how variations in responsiveness to formal... more Using an institutional theory lens, our study examines how variations in responsiveness to formal organisation-wide changes bring about diversity in the functioning of the same management control system in different units of an organisation. As we conducted the study inside a Chinese state-owned enterprise’s headquarters and at three of its factories, we illustrate the use and relevance to the Chinese socialist market economy of a theoretical framework developed from research undertaken in organisations functioning as part of the Western socio-economic system of market capitalism. We focus on the role of responsiveness in distinguishing formal and informal change, the distinction in question giving rise to varieties in the kinds of coupling occurring simultaneously in the same organisation. We show that the functionings of coupling are dynamic and that assessing them is facilitated through comparison over time in one location and with concurrent circumstances in other locations. We ...
Accounting, auditing & accountability, Mar 23, 2023
Accounting figures variously in New Higher Education. However, despite their infant precursors ha... more Accounting figures variously in New Higher Education. However, despite their infant precursors having been labelled curricular accounting (see Theodossin, E. (1986), The Modular Market, Further Education Staff College, London), accounting researchers have overlooked calculative practices, processes, records and associated means of measuring, recording and reporting university-student learning. The means in question comprise credit, credit points, levels of learning, level descriptors, learning outcomes, and related characteristics of course catalogues, qualification frameworks, credit transfer systems and student records, transcripts and diploma supplements. The former University of New Zealand and its affiliate in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Te Whare Wānanga o Waitahā, also of that city, are used as a case study. This paper provides a retrospective analysis to illuminate how curricular accounting about university-student learning has reflected and constituted standards and equivalence of this learning, not only at the case study site but across tertiary education in many countries.
The purpose of this study is to add to our knowledge of the composition and exercise of managemen... more The purpose of this study is to add to our knowledge of the composition and exercise of management control systems (MCSs). The study focused on a Thai-owned chicken processing company in Thailand. Although most previous studies on MCSs have examined the use of MCSs as developed in mainly English-speaking countries in the West, there are some studies set in emerging economies in South and Southeast Asia around Thailand. These have found a variety of factors that affect the composition and exercise of MCSs. These factors include national culture, employers' and employees' demographic characteristics, ethnic tensions, political intervention, and liberalisation and privatisation. Thailand was chosen for this study because the author is Thai and because few previous studies had been done about Thailand. Thailand has been influenced significantly by Western ideas but differs from many of its South and Southeast Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, in havi...
Ethnographic research methods were used in this study to investigate management control systems i... more Ethnographic research methods were used in this study to investigate management control systems in use in a Thai owned company, the Saha Farms Company. The findings show that Thai culture has had a significant influence on management control practices at the Company. Komin (1990a, 1990b) writes from an insider's point of view about nine Thai value orientations that are to be seen in the very hierarchical Thai society. These nine cultural value orientations are ego, grateful relationship, smooth interpersonal relationship, flexibility and adjustment, religious-psychical, education and competence, interdependence, fun and pleasure, and task-achievement. These cultural values have such a strong influence on management control within the case company that other control systems, such as Western accounting controls, have very little influence on the internal control and management of the Company.
The accounting education of people in managerial roles or performing managerial work is relativel... more The accounting education of people in managerial roles or performing managerial work is relatively neglected in the literature compared with educating accountants. Moreover, judged from most textbooks purporting to serve their study programmes, the education they receive very often seems like a potted version of that served out to accountant students. In this paper, models of managerial work and abilities, prior research into learning-centred accountant education and management study programmes, and the authors' participant-observation of educating these people are synthesised in order to propose a curriculum better attuned to their roles and work.
The objective of this paper is to explore the role of accounting information used by people with ... more The objective of this paper is to explore the role of accounting information used by people with power to manipulate the perceptions of the audience of an organisation and build trust in uncertain circumstances. Approach: The study takes a qualitative approach. We examined the claims made by interviewees and published documentary evidence to identify how contextual and partial knowledge was constructed and communicated in shaping the perceptions of individuals and gaining support for privatisation of Sri Lanka Telecom. Findings: The power to control the availability of accounting information, the audience's lack of knowledge, the well-regarded reputation of newly introduced Japanese management practices and the engagement of employees in implementing new accounting and management practices enabled the Government and the policy implementers to rationalise the privatisation process and counter opponents. Research implications: The study raises the importance of challenging the use of accounting information by people with the power to define the context in uncertain situations, particularly in a non-western context. Originality/value: The evidence collected in this study was not limit to annual reports as in many extant studies. It provides a broad and comprehensive perspective on the use of accounting information in constructing and defining a context under uncertain circumstances by using documentary evidence such as newspapers, corporate reports and administration reports, as well as information obtained from interviews.
I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative pr... more I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative practices, and to examine critically the implications of this curricular accounting. The practices in question, in which credits or credit points are the prime unit of currency, are most visible in specifications of qualifications and courses (or units or modules), credit accumulation and transfer systems, and qualification frameworks, and on students' academic records and diploma supplements. They run in conjunction with learning outcomes, assessment scores and grades, levels of learning, graduate profiles and similar items. They cross over into student fee charging methods and scales, public funding of higher education based on student numbers, mechanisms within institutions for allocating financial resources and controlling academic workloads, and so marrying up with things more usually associated with accounting functions and practices. I use a genealogical approach, based on occurrences and events at a college and now university in Christchurch, New Zealand, since English settlers established it in the 1870s. Today's practices are shown to trace to ever-present concerns to attain and maintain equivalence in standards with institutions whence the settlers hailed and other places their descendants venerate, while simultaneously responding to economic, social, political and cultural needs in their settlements (e.g., locally educated secondary school teachers, engineers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals, and academics). Further international and national influences on how and why these practices developed were the growth of student numbers, as demands for educated labour increased and wider access to higher education became a social policy imperative, the broadening of the higher education curriculum, and the extension of accounting and associated calculative practices in government, public policy and higher education, as ideas associated with neo-liberalism and managerialism took hold.
Meditari Accountancy Research, 2017
Purpose Sustainability reporting serves as a means of communication between corporations and thei... more Purpose Sustainability reporting serves as a means of communication between corporations and their stakeholders on sustainability issues. This study aims to identify and account for the contents of sustainability reporting communicated through the websites of the plants in five continents of the same multinational mining corporation. Design/methodology/approach This study uses data published by Newmont Mining Corporation. The corporation has regional headquarters in five continents: Africa, Asia, Australia and North America and South America. The data were drawn from the websites of the five plants adjacent to those regional headquarters. Economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability as reported by each plant were identified; to do so, a disclosure analysis based on the elements of the Global Reporting Initiative and the United Nations Division for Sustainability Development was used. These aspects were then compared and contrasted to highlight if, and to what extent,...
I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative pr... more I explain how and why higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative practices, and to examine critically the implications of this curricular accounting. The practices in question, in which credits or credit points are the prime unit of currency, are most visible in specifications of qualifications and courses (or units or modules), credit accumulation and transfer systems, and qualification frameworks, and on students’ academic records and diploma supplements. They run in conjunction with learning outcomes, assessment scores and grades, levels of learning, graduate profiles and similar items. They cross over into student fee charging methods and scales, public funding of higher education based on student numbers, mechanisms within institutions for allocating financial resources and controlling academic workloads, and so marrying up with things more usually associated with accounting functions and practices. I use a genealogical approach, based on occurrenc...
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 2021
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and developm... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about community relations and development (CRD) activities done in conjunction with mining activities of multinational companies affecting indigenous peoples and thus help improve relationships between them, despite continuing bad consequences the people continue to endure. It is through such better relationships that these consequences may be redressed and mitigated, and greater sharing of benefits of mining may occur, bearing in mind what constitutes benefits may differ from the perspectives of the indigenous peoples and the miners. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach is taken, including interviews with company officials responsible for CRD activities, elaborated with observations, company and public documents and previous literature about these mining operations and the peoples. Findings The CRD activities have gradually increased compared with their absence previously. They are officially labelled social i...
The paper provides an insight into a management accounting change, namely the introduction of the... more The paper provides an insight into a management accounting change, namely the introduction of the balanced scorecard (BSC) in a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The process of institutionalisation is evaluated using the theoretical framework proposed by Burns & Scapens (2000), which breaks the process down into the steps of encoding, enacting, reproduction and finally institutionalisation. Approach A qualitative field study was carried out, gathering data from interviews, documents and non-participant observation. Findings It was found that resistance to change in the factories of the company resulted in the rules of the BSC being only loosely coupled with routines embedded in everyday working activities. Originality This study makes a contribution to the institutional theory literature by showing that, despite its western roots, institutional theory may be used to explain attempts to change management accounting in other hemispheres, as in this Chinese case. The research also contributes to the sparse research on management accounting in China.
The manuscript comprises a literature review in progress, to examine research relevant to how acc... more The manuscript comprises a literature review in progress, to examine research relevant to how accounting and finance academics can improve their proficiency and effectiveness as teachers. The notion of improving proficiency and effectiveness is conceptualised in terms of enhancing student-learning outcomes. Particular attention is paid to how accounting and finance educators use and conduct lectures as part of the courses and programmes in which they profess their knowledge and ply their skills. A conceptual model linking factors that influence lecturing proficiency and effectiveness with student learning experience satisfaction and learning effectiveness is presented. This model offers educators insights to support their reflective teaching practices and provides scholars with research propositions amenable to empirical investigation
How accounting enables governors to govern is analysed. The governors comprise multilateral and a... more How accounting enables governors to govern is analysed. The governors comprise multilateral and aid organisations, and their imperial body predecessors, and the governed are the population of the Republic of Kiribati. A governmentality framework of analysis is used and a genealogical approach is taken. Data were obtained from participant-observation and reviews of histories, memoirs and official documents. The essence of the analysis is to show, in the context of the governance of the population in question since c. 1890, how the actions of various people spawned and maturated accounting usages alongside how the actions of various people developed and changed governmentalities. Accounting is interpreted as a changing technology of governance used, in this case, to help “develop” people who fit externally determined rhetorical images (e.g. civilised natives, colonial subjects, modernised citizens, global consumers). The study may prompt similar studies of usage of accounting in creat...
Sexual cannibalism is an extreme expression of sexual conflict, which can grant females significa... more Sexual cannibalism is an extreme expression of sexual conflict, which can grant females significant fitness benefits, particularly if female fecundity depends on foraging success. However, when cannibalism is precopulatory, there is the risk that females remain unmated. Therefore, males simultaneously present the option of a meal or a mate to the females they encounter. The springbok mantis (Miomantis caffra) is highly aggressive, and when females cannibalize males, it is exclusively precopulatory. However, females can circumvent the risk of infertility by reproducing asexually, providing a rare opportunity to explore the interaction between sexual cannibalism and facultative parthenogenesis. We kept female mantises on high and low feeding regimes, and paired them with males, to examine how body condition and age influenced rates of cannibalism. We also investigated whether reproductive mode (sexual or asexual) influenced fecundity by measuring ootheca weight. Overall, there was an extremely high average cannibalism frequency (~62%), but no significant difference in frequencies of cannibalism between feeding regimes. Although there was a relationship between female condition and fecundity, influenced by feeding treatment, the mode of reproduction (sexual or asexual) did not result in any difference in ootheca weight. Using information-theoretic approaches, we determined that, of the variables examined, female age best accounted for cannibalistic behavior and that females became less aggressive and more likely to mate over time. This suggests that, although parthenogenesis may allow females to cannibalize males at a high frequency without incurring the cost of infertility, they may still benefit from reproducing sexually later in their lives.
Using an institutional theory lens, our study examines how variations in responsiveness to formal... more Using an institutional theory lens, our study examines how variations in responsiveness to formal organisation-wide changes bring about diversity in the functioning of the same management control system in different units of an organisation. As we conducted the study inside a Chinese state-owned enterprise’s headquarters and at three of its factories, we illustrate the use and relevance to the Chinese socialist market economy of a theoretical framework developed from research undertaken in organisations functioning as part of the Western socio-economic system of market capitalism. We focus on the role of responsiveness in distinguishing formal and informal change, the distinction in question giving rise to varieties in the kinds of coupling occurring simultaneously in the same organisation. We show that the functionings of coupling are dynamic and that assessing them is facilitated through comparison over time in one location and with concurrent circumstances in other locations. We ...
Life for people on many atolls is undoubtedly hard, frequently affected by droughts, rough seas a... more Life for people on many atolls is undoubtedly hard, frequently affected by droughts, rough seas and other adverse climatic conditions to name a few. It is little wonder then that kinship is the foundation of many atoll societies, traditional and even modern. This study is a retrospective analysis of a Pacific people living in several countries but held together as a diaspora through notions of kinship. The people concerned have indigenous, ancestral, cultural, social and continuing residential connections with Nikunau Atoll (coordinates 1.3475°S 176.4512°E). The analysis incorporates the present diasporic circumstances of this people, including how these circumstances arose historically. The core idea of the paper is that such an analysis provides a basis for surfacing and explaining the circumstances of the people in question, and so a basis for improving their circumstances from a critical, better-informed standpoint. The method of conducting the analysis relies heavily on the partisan stance of me, the author, whose kinship ties with I-Nikunau (= people who identify with Nikunau) are affinal. I identify, grapple with, articulate and interpret situations and events, including those I observed or experienced, or was told about, and those at least referred to or, in many cases, delved into by other researchers. The circumstances are analysed under 14 themes, including geographical, demographical, economic, environmental, cultural and societal circumstances. As well as appealing to I-Nikunau, the analysis may be relevant to the growing number of studies about Nikunau and Kiribati, most of them concerned with prospects of climate change making Nikunau, Tarawa and other atolls where I-Nikunau reside uninhabitable. That the authors of many of these studies published recently make so many references to the matters covered in this analysis would seem to indicate how relevant and important the matters in question are to the future of I-Nikunau and I-Kiribati. Furthermore, this relevance and importance may apply to the future of other peoples still inhabiting the world’s atolls and facing whatever challenges this future may bring, climate-related and otherwise.
Having students learn and be assessed in groups is a means to develop among students intellectual... more Having students learn and be assessed in groups is a means to develop among students intellectual and interactive skills/competencies described as generic or "wicked", as well as of producing deeper learning of various types of knowledge (e.g. organicistic, contextualistic, formistic, mechanistic). This paper reports assessments constituting and reflecting strategies of learning in groups. The assessments and the strategies were crafted while working with students on four courses presented annually in recent years and covering accounting, management and finance for public services and private activities in various organisations. Data about group experiences and their implications for working as accountants were collected from students during assessments and are used to elaborate the strategies. The paper provides insights into reducing impediments among students and teachers to shifting learning from teacher-centred to learner-centred, and suggests areas for further research in reducing institutional impediments.
Critical studies of accounting are a potential source of invigoration and action to abate lingeri... more Critical studies of accounting are a potential source of invigoration and action to abate lingering injustice and opportune the betterment of present and future life. In this study, we combine a foundation study of accounting usages over two centuries in the Kiribati Islands; and an exposé of these usages from the perspective of the I-Kiribati indigenes. The study is unusual in linking the history of a colony with the history of an emerging economy. We argue that colonisers espied economic, social and political benefits of colonialistic acts, and accounting usages were initiated and maturated alongside these, to avail commerce and life's personal dealings, religion-making, and government and public policymaking. Several persisting inadequacies of these accounting usages are revealed. They derive mostly from how asymmetric power relations in various contexts have played important roles in ways that accounting usages were constituted and sustained, and that this continues to be the case. The indigenes have not been accounted to, nor have had ready access to information concerning them. The indigenes have shared in some benefits but only incidentally and invariably down the pecking order. The indigenes have been precluded, befuddled and amazed by the usages, which concomitantly have enabled successive colonisers to re-define, enclose, exploit, subject and neo-liberalise them.
CONGRESS OF THE EUROPEAN ACCOUNTING …
Critical studies of accounting are a potential source of invigoration and action to abate lingeri... more Critical studies of accounting are a potential source of invigoration and action to abate lingering injustice and opportune the betterment of present and future life. In this study, we combine a foundation study of accounting usages over two centuries in the Kiribati Islands; and an exposé of these usages from the perspective of the I-Kiribati indigenes. The study is unusual in linking the history of a colony with the history of an emerging economy. We argue that colonisers espied economic, social and political benefits of colonialistic acts, and accounting usages were initiated and maturated alongside these, to avail commerce and life's personal dealings, religion-making, and government and public policymaking. Several persisting inadequacies of these accounting usages are revealed. They derive mostly from how asymmetric power relations in various contexts have played important roles in ways that accounting usages were constituted and sustained, and that this continues to be the case. The indigenes have not been accounted to, nor have had ready access to information concerning them. The indigenes have shared in some benefits but only incidentally and invariably down the pecking order. The indigenes have been precluded, befuddled and amazed by the usages, which concomitantly have enabled successive colonisers to re-define, enclose, exploit, subject and neo-liberalise them.
Unpublished manuscript available from author, Jan 1, 2007
Purpose: Applications of accounting ideas and practices invariably have consequences. The people ... more Purpose: Applications of accounting ideas and practices invariably have consequences. The people in any way responsible for these applications cannot know all possible consequences; however, this predicament is yet more reason to anticipate as many as possible, and behave accordingly. Our article responds to arguments that in order to increase the impact of research into accounting ideas and practices, researchers should give greater priority than hitherto to knowing about the consequences of accountings.
Method: We deal with the concept of consequences and exemplify how appreciating them is an interpretative process. We illustrate this process through studying an identity longitudinally, taking an eclectic approach and making liberal use of theoretical perspectives. Our empirical materials are from Nikunau Island and where I-Nikunau (i.e., indigenes of Nikunau) Diaspora reside—Tarawa Atoll, and other Pacific locations and Great Britain—along with further places where accounting usages affecting them have emanated (e.g., Rome, Washington and Manila). These usages relate to industrial hunting of marine life, trading for copra, mining for fertiliser, religion making, civilising and developing the people through colonial governance, and developing and emerging their economy with aid from neo-imperial organisations.
Findings: We argue that accounting usages have caused or possibilitated wide-ranging and far-reaching alterations to life among I-Nikunau, including that the majority now lives outside Nikunau. These alterations may be regarded as consequences of accounting usages, albeit in conjunction with those of many other actions, events, etc. Having drawn terms from a range of disciplines, we classify the consequences as macro- and micro-economic, distributional, organisational, political, social, environmental, societal, cultural, educational, geographical, demographical, spiritual, nutritional and biological, and we present these 15 classes in a framework specific to I-Nikunau.
Originality: We commend our approach to other researchers of accounting and other disciplines in order to induce equivalent classificatory frameworks relevant to their identities of study. We also put forward a canoe metaphor to help shape researchers’ endeavours and qualify a definition of accounting to help users of accounting technology to have greater consideration for accountings’ consequences.
Abstract Purpose -Credit, credit points, course weights, levels of learning, level descriptors, l... more Abstract Purpose -Credit, credit points, course weights, levels of learning, level descriptors, learning outcomes, and related characteristics of course catalogues, qualification frameworks, resource allocation practices, credit transfer systems and student records, transcripts and diploma supplements comprise curricular accounting, a form of accounting whose practices have become more obvious in recent times as a means to specify, record and control learning in higher education. These times have also been ones over which universities, ancient and modern, have been influenced by such policy movements as "'New' Higher Education", "'New' Public Management" and "Structural Adjustment". This study considers the interrelatedness of these two series of changes, addressing the questions of how curricular accounting has come to reflect these policy movements; and how curricular accounting has influenced or helped constitute them.
Purpose: Applications of accounting ideas and practices invariably have consequences. The people ... more Purpose: Applications of accounting ideas and practices invariably have consequences. The people in any way responsible for these applications cannot know all possible consequences; however, this predicament is yet more reason to anticipate as many as possible, and behave accordingly. Our article responds to arguments that in order to increase the impact of research into accounting ideas and practices, researchers should give greater priority than hitherto to knowing about the consequences of accountings.
The comments and encouragement of confidential referees associated with the sixth Accounting Hist... more The comments and encouragement of confidential referees associated with the sixth Accounting History International Conference in Wellington are acknowledged with gratitude. As these referees discerned, these are still early days in this study, particularly in respect of critical turns in New Zealand history from the 1830s to the present day. 2 Abstract Ministers responsible for finance portfolios in the governments of many countries around the world stand before their nation's legislature each year and present on behalf of the governments in question a bill for the consideration of these legislatures to permit the governments to levy and appropriate money. This paper presents a retrospective analysis of this annual occurrence and its associated "Arrangements" in New Zealand in 2010. The subject is addressed in the broader context of accounting in organisations and society. The analysis illuminates how and why these Arrangements have evolved, including similarities and differences to other similar systems in use in many countries. Among the social, economic and political issues that have spurred on this spread are global and regional developments in forms of government, political, economic and social policy, and accounting and finance. This is the first longitudinal study of these Arrangements. The findings have multifarious consequences for citizens, politicians, officials of multilateral organisations and governments, and others. There is much scope for further research.
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](This critical history is concerned with accountings as technologies of domination and of legitima... more This critical history is concerned with accountings as technologies of domination and of legitimation. Widespread studies of accounting usages and their contexts have illuminated these socio-political functions of accounting. Many of these studies are set in governmental contexts, where budgets, budgetary accounting and budgetary reporting have attained special significance in matters of imposing and appropriating taxes. The present study is set in this context but is distinguishable in several respects. The author genealogizes the accounting presently associated with a sovereign state described variously as a parliamentary democracy, constitutional (or limited) monarchy and commonwealth realm; and which has led a recent worldwide neo-liberal trend away from bureaucracy towards managocracy. Furthermore, the direct ancestors of this accounting are discernible over at least one millenniumso making the study truly longitudinaland were used under several other -archies and -[o]cracies. Indeed, mostly, these ancestors were used in a distant geographical context, and some were a technology of the colonialism that precipitated the present sovereign state. That colonialism gave way to neo-imperialism, perpetrated by a settler élite in conjunction with external parties able to exercise significant power from a distance, assisted by accounting. There are still elements of neo-imperialism today, some of it reinforced by accounting as a technology of globalisation. The study is predicated on the inadequacies of history being relevant to understanding the present and contemplating the future, which will include the choice between the accession of the next hereditary monarch or the establishment of a republic.
This study is about how and why knowledge in the form of higher education learning has come to be... more This study is about how and why knowledge in the form of higher education learning has come to be accounted for using calculative practices. These practices are evident in public funding of higher education based on equivalent full-time students, student fee charging methods, credit accumulation and transfer systems, qualification frameworks, graduate profiles, levels of learning, learning outcomes, specifications of qualifications and courses/modules in credit points, assessment scores and grades, students' academic records, diploma supplements, and things of that ilk. Using a genealogical approach, the antecedents of these various paraphernalia are analysed and exemplified, mainly in a former British settler-colony/dominion setting that is now a parliamentary democracy but in which managerialistic ideas are ascendant. There, the antecedents were influenced significantly by practices of the ancient universities in the colonising country. This was in an effort to attain equivalence in standards to these institutions, but at the same time being cognisant of the colony's needs for secondary school teachers and the dominion's needs for various professionals (e.g. engineers, accountants, home-grown academics). Consequent to political, economic and social change in the post-WWII years, increased demands for educated labour, restructuring of higher education as a public policy system, broadening of the higher education curriculum, wider access to higher education, and mechanised forms of accounting also became influential. The third major twist was the imposition on and adoption by higher education institutions of various ideas associated with neo-liberalism and managerialism.
I, Keith Dixon, certify that I have the right to deposit the contribution with Munich Personal Re... more I, Keith Dixon, certify that I have the right to deposit the contribution with Munich Personal RePEc Archive.
Purpose – The method of lectures and technique of lecturing is ascendant in the discipline-centre... more Purpose – The method of lectures and technique of lecturing is ascendant in the discipline-centred teaching orientation of accounting education. Student evaluations of teaching seem to indicate that improvements in the proficient and effective use of this method are desirable. Our paper is about encouraging such improvements among accounting academics, both at the level of teaching specific classes and at the level of programme and course design. The improvements aim to enhance the learning that academics help their students realise, and so provide long-term benefits for graduates and society.
Approach – The paper reports a study-in-progress of how accounting academics can improve their proficiency and effectiveness as teachers. The study derives from perceptions of students from our two New Zealand universities: the perceptions are of factors they understand influence the effectiveness of their learning, and of matters referred to in questionnaires designed for student evaluation of teaching. The study has involved participant-observation, literature reviews, analysis of student evaluations of teaching, focus groups, written questionnaires and the dialectics involved in a research team writing manuscripts.
Findings – Having found much intricacy in the matter of improving the proficiency and effectiveness of lectures and lecturing in terms of the effectiveness of learning among accounting students—there are no quick fixes—we put forward a heuristic model for dealing with the intricacy. The model includes lectures and lecturing, discipline, learning environment, academic characteristics and perspectives, and student characteristics, perspectives, styles and approaches. The paper comprises explanations about the importance of these matters.
Limitations – Being based on largely on students and academics from only two universities, both situated in New Zealand, it is unclear whether the study’s findings have wider application to the participants in tertiary accounting teaching and learning in New Zealand and beyond. However, such a question is amenable to empirical study and future research could be directed to help determine the answer.
Originality – The study is original in taking a wholistic approach to considering the subject matter of lectures and lecturing in accounting.
Keywords: lecturing, learning, accounting education, discipline qualities, participant characteristics, teaching improvement interventions