Accounting and Accountability in the Field of Social Services - A Multi-level Investigation

Roberts (1991, p.355) remarked that the analysis of accounting in systems of accountability (also) offers alternative ways to conceive of the transformation of accounting. This dissertation aims to improve multi-level understanding of accounting and accountability within the field of social services. Focusing on Indias Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), one of the worlds largest social services programs, I examine the role of accounting in accountability practices and change processes at macro, meso and micro levels. Current social services literature, straddling public, private and third sectors, reveals accounting-accountability research to be underexplored (Bracci & Llewellyn, 2012) and conspicuously lacking in diversity of research sites, yet undergoing significant change (Ebrahim, 2003; Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2004; Llewellyn, 1997; Walz & Ramachandran, 2011). This facilitates a unique set of observations and understandings as program delivery and implementation evolve. This dissertation specifically uses Bourdieus notions of field, habitus and capitals, also linking to literatures on management control systems, budgeting, routines and sense-making. Following the unfolding of MGNREGS over eight years, I raise two main research questions: How are accounting practices and artifacts intentionally enlisted in MGNERGS towards notions of accountability across multiple levels of program governance? What role do accounting practices in MGNREGS play in larger organizational and social change processes? I examine accountings enlistment in an enabling role to frame and diffuse accountability and program structure on a macro level; in a strategical role, to construct accountability at the meso level; and in a learning and sense-making role to implement accountability at the micro level, where the programs accounting and accountability practices intersect with rural villages. My analysis argues that accounting can be mobilized towards emergent change processes both within public organizations and wider social practices to impact the daily lives of underprivileged rural citizens. In MGNREGS, accounting as an organizational and social practice is not only shaped by organizational objectives but also in turn shapes these objectives and the fields material structure, players, powers, logics and habitus. Accounting practices are, thus, an important part of the ordering, (re)organizing and multi-level change processes in the field of social services in India

Law School Announcements 2023-2024

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Federal Register

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Long-term urban resilience – a policy framework

Urbanisation, technical development and climate change have brought the resilience of cities into the sphere of public debate. This and the continued trend of seeing cities as drivers of a country’s fate in the face of uncertainty has in turn made understanding factors that influence outcomes of urban policy even more relevant for academic research and policy-making. However, urban resilience policy is a complex and quickly evolving field characterised by significant challenges associated with urban governance systems, political pressures, uncertain and emergent nature of threats, speed of change and the level of complexity of long-lived networks that form cities. Additionally, resilience literature often lacks a focus on practical implications for urban resilience policy planning, development and implementation that can help policy-makers prioritise action and inform their decisions. This thesis presents a multi-method qualitative research design and aims to help develop a better understanding of practical approaches to long-term resilience-building policy development and implementation at the metropolitan scale across city networks that share a common understanding of urban resilience-building and strive towards it. The research provides a practical framework that can be used to analyse urban resilience policy development and implementation across city networks. The Long-term Urban Resilience Policy Action (LURPA) framework allows to study the state of multiple dimensions and areas of interventions that may influence the long-term implementation of urban resilience policies for metropolitan areas at different levels of governance. Other tools included in the framework allow to visualise complex interrelations that illustrate how policies are implemented. This type of research is needed to help policy-makers identify gaps and opportunities to improve the urban resilience policy over the long-term and to facilitate comprehensive and systematic research for policy learning. The framework was applied to two case studies (Melbourne and Glasgow) which provided specific insight into how some contextual elements that form intrinsic and extrinsic context of cities can hinder or enable the long-term implementation of urban resilience policy in metropolitan areas. Finally, this research also offers a discussion of potential implications of different governance, political, financial, information and reflexivity models for the Australian context