Literature and Insights Editorial

Citation

Evans, S. (2022), "Literature and Insights Editorial", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 1182-1183. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2022-151

What can you see now?

I have remarked before, and with no special claim to originality, that I find this journal's theme of accountability to be one of its most appealing and valuable aspects. Revealing vital social truths to people in a timely way is essential if they are to have a chance of making informed and meaningful change. There are things that none of us should shirk.

I am sermonising, are not I? But, how do we most effectively incline people to see the harm occurring all around them in so many forms so that they might then act to counter it? Maybe it takes several different approaches, some gentler than others but able to get deep inside their heads.

A good start is to have both the “right” information and the “right” outlook. Effective storytelling is one of the tools we have to affect outlook. It can place key issues in a narrative structure where the action is familiar, for instance. Lee Parker and I did this years ago in our book, Balancing Act: The Creative Writing Pathway to Understanding Accounting, (shameless self-promotion) where we combined prose fiction with questions about business for MBA students.

Similarly, poetry can offer a new way of seeing, whether through plain language or metaphor, both holding part of the world still for a moment and asking us to dwell on it. Those ideas of looking and of stillness can be evident in academic material, of course, but I am going to put my literary hat on right now.

There is a form of walking meditation that might come more naturally to some people than others, especially with the common emphasis on exercise. It involves breaking the walk into segments and at each brief stop making sure to dwell on something in the natural environment. No set purpose or outcome is required; just the intention to look. You will know the saying, “Stop and smell the roses”, and it fits perfectly here. Very small things can matter a great deal, both in themselves and as a door to meditating on the big stuff.

In that spirit, we have two poems by Lelys Maddock. Her first, “SOS: Accountability 2021 September” embraces a moment of recognising particularly affecting natural beauty and also how vulnerable that is. The second one, “All things great and small” has her recollecting a meeting with a ladybird in her garden as she focused not only on that tiny creature in its own right but also contemplated destruction of the natural environment. It refers at the end to 2021, when it was written. Sadly, of course, its relevance endures.

I like to think that such encounters and the mindset that goes with them will encourage a more critical and positive approach to caring for our planet.

Your own creative contributions can be submitted via ScholarOne (see below), and your email correspondence is always welcome, of course, at: steve.evans@flinders.edu.au.

Literary editor

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) welcomes submissions of both research papers and creative writing. Creative writing in the form of poetry and short prose pieces is edited for the Literature and Insights Section only and does not undergo the refereeing procedures required for all research papers published in the main body of AAAJ.

Author guidelines for contributions to this section of the journal can be found at: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=aaaj.