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Drawing on an accountability framework developed for social enterprise organizations (SEOs), this paper examines the annual report disclosure practices of SEOs in the United Kingdom in order to investigate the types of accountability disclosed by SEOs.

After developing a SEO database, and utilizing a bespoke document coding checklist, the annual reports of 129 SEOs were examined.

The results indicate that while SEOs would be expected to account in line with normative stakeholder theory, many do not provide constructive and voluntary accountability information to their stakeholders, at least through the annual report, and that their focus is on satisfying legal obligations.

In response to calls for research to better understand accountability in new organizational contexts, this paper makes two contributions: firstly, by extending prior accountability research in the NFP sector to consider organizational hybrids, it raises questions about organizational accountability and how it is discharged in situations where an organization operates as a business and yet is accountable for its social mission; secondly, assuming these organizations are driven by their business and social logics, the findings suggest that SEO accountability disclosure practices are inconsistent with the social objectives on which they are based.

This paper seeks to explore the way charity accountants understand, interpret and legitimate or delegitimate the introduction of accounting and reporting changes (embedded in the extant charity statement of recommended practice), before these are actually implemented.

Drawing on 21 semi-structured interviews with accountants in large UK and Republic of Ireland charities, the manner and extent to which forthcoming changes in charity accounting are legitimated (justified) or delegitimated (criticised) is explored.

Acceptance of accounting changes in the charity sector by formal regulation may not be necessary for future required adjustments to practice to be legitimated. Using interviews carried out before the implementation of required changes, the results suggest that other factors, such as national culture, identity and mimetic behaviours, may play a major role in the homogenisation and acceptance of accounting and reporting rules. In particular, it is argued that mimetic pressures can be much more influential than regulative pressures in legitimating change in the charity sector and are more likely to lead to the embedding of change.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it explores rhetoric and legitimation strategies used before changes are actually implemented. Second, it contributes to filling a gap in charities’ research related to intra-organisational legitimation of managerial and accounting changes, illustrating institutional-field identity at work to preserve shared organisational values and ideas. Finally, the research illuminates the importance of particular contextual pressures and individual legitimation arguments during accounting-change processes.

Using Dean's (2010) analytics of government, this research explores how regimes of governing practices are linked to the underlying policy rationalities in dealing with the UK government's COVID-19 testing policies as a strategy for governing at a distance, including how targets were set and operationalized.

This paper draws on the UK government's policy documents, other official publications (plans) and parliamentary discourse, together with publicly available media information related to its COVID-19 policies.

This research reveals that, with respect to the governance of COVID-19 in the UK, testing has the dual role of inscription for the government's performance and classification for the pandemic risks. The analysis illustrates that the central role of testing is as a technology for classification for identifying and monitoring the virus-related risks. Moreover, our discourse analysis suggests that initially COVID-19 testing was used by the UK government more for performance communication, with the classificatory role of testing and its performativity as a strategic device evolving and only being acknowledged by government gradually as the underlying testing infrastructure was developed.

This paper is based upon publicly available reports and other information of a single country's attempts to control COVID-19 over a relatively short period of time.

This paper provides a critical understanding of the role of (accounting) numbers in developing an effective government policy for governing COVID-19.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how localized (organization-level) actors of policy initiatives that are inspired by neoliberal ideologies use management accounting and control practices. Specifically, it addresses the operational stages of a case study Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract within the United Kingdom's (UK's) transport sector of roads for embedding government objectives in the underlying project road.

This paper adopts Dean's (2010) analytics of government to unpack the accounting-based control practices within the case study contract in order to articulate how, at the micro level, the government's objective of improving road-users' safety is enacted, modified and maintained through such regimes.

Drawing on a content-based analysis of UK government PFI policy and extensive case study-specific documents, together with interviews and observations, this research provides theoretical insights about how control practices, at a distance without direct intervention, function as forms of power for government for shaping the performance of the PFI contractor. The authors find that the public sector's accounting control regimes in the case study project have a constraining effect on “real partnership working” between the government and private contractors and on the private sector's incentive to innovate.

By analyzing a single road case study PFI contract, the findings may not be generalizable.

This paper provides significant theoretically informed insights about how public service delivery that is outsourced to private contractors is controlled by government at a distance within complex organizational arrangements (e.g. PFI).

Camera‐based colour measurement systems have application where it is difficult to apply a contact instrument, or where the contact instrument, because of its fixed lighting geometry, does not provide the necessary data. The paper describes the principles, procedures and precautions necessary for camera based colorimetry. Equations are presented to convert digitised R G and B values, which are system specific, into CIE X Y Z colour values, an international standard method of colour specification. It is reported that colours spaced equally in RGB values appear to have visual colour difference steps varying in size by as much as 30:1 through the different regions. The poorest colour resolution occurs for RGB values that represent dark or strongly coloured shades. At least ten bits per channel digitisation of RGB values is required to achieve a colour resolution similar to the human visual system for dark, intense shades.

This research explores the use of the internet, a mechanism that provides the opportunity to reach vast audiences efficiently and cost effectively, by United Kingdom (UK) charities to discharge accountability.

This research combines a content analysis of the web sites of large UK charities and semi-structured interviews with key charity personnel responsible for the formulation and dissemination of information to stakeholders.

The results indicate that, in most cases, charity web sites, as accountability mechanisms, appear to play a wide role, being directed at both upward and downward stakeholders. However, while the web sites are usually professionally created with appropriate web site presentation and page design, the discharge of fiduciary accountability via the internet is not universal.

This research focuses on large UK charities. This, together with the nature of the items captured by the content analysis checklist and the semi-structured interviews, inevitably affects its generalisability.

Accepting that charities have a duty to account to their stakeholders, and that the input of accounting practitioners is vital in this process, this research extends our understanding of how the internet is employed by charities to fulfil this duty.

The charity sector has grown extensively in size and prominence in recent years and policymakers have come to embrace the role that charities play in societal development. This paper provides a crucial insight into the discharge of accountability by charities through the internet.

Social enterprise organisations (SEOs) operate across the boundaries of the public, private and not‐for‐profit (NFP) sectors in delivering public services and competing for resources and legitimacy. While there is a rich literature on accountability in the private and public sectors, together with the wider NFP sector, SEOs have received comparatively little attention and remain a relatively under‐researched organisational form. Drawing on accountability, legitimacy and user‐needs theories, the purpose of this paper is to develop a practical framework which can be used to explore how accountability within SEOs is constructed and discharged.

This paper draws on user‐needs, accountability, legitimacy and impression management theories expounded in relation to the private, public and NFP sectors.

A framework to better understand how accountability can be discharged by SEOs is developed and discussed.

While a framework for better understanding SEO accountability is presented, it is not empirically tested. However, the framework has the potential to facilitate a deeper appreciation of the theory and practice of accountability within SEOs and, notwithstanding the inherent difficulties in measuring and managing accountability, could be used to stimulate practitioner involvement.

As little is known about the current extent of SEO information disclosure or accountability relationships, the framework could be used to assess the discharge of accountability by SEOs, with the findings informing future developments. This should provide useful insights into internal processes and organisational views on accountability bases and mechanisms and can then be used to inform the debate on how SEOs can best discharge their duty to account.

Understanding the nature of SEO accountability reporting has important implications for those involved in advancing the SEO agenda. At a time of public sector cutbacks, and with the government searching for new and more effective ways of delivering services, the role of SEOs in this process is likely to receive greater attention and scrutiny.

SEOs have grown extensively in size and prominence in recent years and policymakers have come to embrace the role that they play in societal development. This paper responds to a gap in the theoretical literature and contributes to the debate by developing a framework which can be empirically tested. Moreover, it can be used to prompt practitioner involvement and facilitate a better understanding of the complex issues surrounding accounting and accountability in this under‐researched area.

Participation is the active involvement of children and young people in decision-making regarding issues that affect their lives. It is crucial in the context of child protection and welfare systems and how they respond to the needs of children and young people. The purpose of this paper is to report on the evaluation of child and family participation in an early intervention and prevention programme implemented by the Irish Child and Family Agency. It provides an analysis of a comprehensive, “whole organization” approach to understand how participation is embedded in policy and practice.

This paper reports on a comparative qualitative case study of the perspectives of managers and practitioners about participation practice, identifying the facilitators and barriers, as well as their perspectives of the sustainability of participation within the agency and its partners. The authors draw on two complementary, theoretically informed studies evaluating participatory practice within the Agency using qualitative interviews with participants.

Overall, managers and practitioners had a positive attitude towards participation and identified examples of best practices. Facilitators included training, access to resources and the quality of relationships. Challenges for meaningful participation remain, such as the need to engage, hard to reach populations. Differences were identified regarding how embedded and sustainable participation was.

This paper provides a critical understanding of participation in practice and how to embed a culture of participation in child protection and welfare.

Crises of any type have become an integral part of business activity and responses to them could make the difference between survival and failure. This applies in particular to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Taking the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as a starting point, this study aims to investigate how Peruvian SMEs have been coping with COVID-19 so far. Based on that a conceptual framework is proposed which highlights the practice of SMEs trying to deal with a new type of crisis.

The study is based on an exploratory qualitative research design involving 25 semi-structured interviews conducted in Peruvian SMEs.

The findings demonstrate how the Peruvian firms studied to adapt to the new situation and initiate responses to increasing the chance of survival. Furthermore, the role of the companies’ decision-makers, as well as the role of crisis management and other related approaches in the companies are shown.

The paper expands the underdeveloped body of knowledge regarding crisis management in Latin America in general and crisis management in SMEs by providing insight into how Peruvian SMEs perceive and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings presented in this paper have implications for both managers and managerial staff of SMEs but also for the people in charge of the curricula at universities and other teaching-focused institutes.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study of crisis management on the impacts of COVID-19 with a dedicated focus on SMEs from Latin America. It provides fresh insight into current reactions to the Pandemic.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how different accountability practices might be observed in the annual reports of non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh. The study further aims to understand whether such accountability disclosures support NGO legitimacy in Bangladesh and if so, in what form.

To fulfil this objective, a content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of 24 selected leading NGOs operating in Bangladesh. The data were then analysed through the not-for-profit accountability framework of Dhanani and Connolly (2012). Theoretical constructs of legitimacy were further mobilised to corroborate the evidence.

It was found that NGOs operating in Bangladesh discharged all four types of accountability, i.e., strategic, fiduciary, financial and procedural (Dhanani and Connolly, 2012) through annual reports. The findings further suggested that carrying out these accountabilities supported the legitimation process of NGOs. Moreover, we found that NGOs took care of the needs of both primary and secondary stakeholders although they widely used self-laudatory positively charged words to disclose information about their accountabilities.

The study contributes to the limited accounting research on the public disclosures of NGOs and not-for-profit firms particularly in emerging economy settings. Also, we contribute to the limited research on the accountability-legitimacy link of NGOs evident in public disclosures like annual reports.