IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v25y2014i3p197-209.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Accounting, ethics and human existence: Lightly unbearable, heavily kitsch

Author

Listed:
  • Boyce, Gordon

Abstract

This paper offers a critical examination of the interrelationship between accounting, ethics, and the question of the meaning of human existence. Starting with a critique of the approach, data and method in Everett & Tremblay (2014), I broadly consider how different approaches to ethics and morality within capitalist markets play out. Drawing on the work of Milan Kundera, and briefly considering perspectives on the WorldCom fraud, I consider how the themes of lightness, weight, and kitsch are emblematic of many approaches to ethics within accounting.

Suggested Citation

  • Boyce, Gordon, 2014. "Accounting, ethics and human existence: Lightly unbearable, heavily kitsch," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 197-209.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:25:y:2014:i:3:p:197-209
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2013.10.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235413001032
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2013.10.001?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. Gordon Boyce & Susan Greer & Bill Blair & Cindy Davids, 2012. "Expanding the Horizons of Accounting Education: Incorporating Social and Critical Perspectives," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 47-74, April.
    2. Burrell Nickell, Erin & Roberts, Robin W., 2014. "Organizational legitimacy, conflict, and hypocrisy: An alternative view of the role of internal auditing," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 217-221.
    3. Everett, Jeff & Tremblay, Marie-Soleil, 2014. "Ethics and internal audit: Moral will and moral skill in a heteronomous field," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 181-196.
    4. Boyce, Gordon & Greer, Susan, 2013. "More than imagination: Making social and critical accounting real," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 105-112.
    5. Lehman, Glen, 2014. "Moral will, accounting and the phronemos," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 210-216.
    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. Lucian Cernușca & Bogdan Cosmin Gomoi, 2015. "A professional accountants and managers’ point of view on elaborating and grounding the accounting policies," Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, University of Petrosani, Romania, vol. 15(1), pages 59-70.
    2. Everett, Jeff & Tremblay, Marie-Soleil, 2014. "On hypocrisy, the phronemos, and kitsch: A reply to our commentators," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 222-225.
    3. Panagiotis M. Kyriakogkonas, 2017. "Exploring the Usefulness of Codes of Ethics in the Postmodern Era through Transmodernism: Evidence from an Internal Audit Professional Body," Eastern European Business and Economics Journal, Eastern European Business and Economics Studies Centre, vol. 3(3), pages 223-244.
    4. Francois Steyn & Kosheek Sewchurran, 2021. "Towards a Grainier Understanding of How to Encourage Morally Responsible Leadership Through the Development of Phronesis: A Typology of Managerial Phronesis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(4), pages 673-695, May.
    5. Dillard, Jesse & Vinnari, Eija, 2017. "A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 88-109.
    6. Burrell Nickell, Erin & Roberts, Robin W., 2014. "Organizational legitimacy, conflict, and hypocrisy: An alternative view of the role of internal auditing," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 217-221.
    7. Herbei (Mot) Ioana & Cernusca Lucian, 2015. "Perceptions Regarding Treatments And Creative Accounting Policies," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 2, pages 173-187, April.

    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. Dillard, Jesse & Vinnari, Eija, 2017. "A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 88-109.
    2. Ballantine, Joan & Boyce, Gordon & Stoner, Greg, 2024. "A critical review of AI in accounting education: Threat and opportunity," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Aresu, Simone & Monfardini, Patrizio, 2023. "Oppressed by consumerism: The emancipatory role of household accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    4. Frémeaux, Sandrine & Puyou, François-Régis & Michelson, Grant, 2020. "Beyond accountants as technocrats: A common good perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 67.
    5. Mélanie Roussy & Alexandre Perron, 2018. "New Perspectives in Internal Audit Research: A Structured Literature Review," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), pages 345-385, September.
    6. Everett, Jeff & Tremblay, Marie-Soleil, 2014. "On hypocrisy, the phronemos, and kitsch: A reply to our commentators," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 222-225.
    7. Walker, Stephen P., 2017. "Accountants and the pursuit of the national interest: A study of role conflict during the First World War," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 8-25.
    8. Nordin, Ingrid Gustafsson, 2023. "Narratives of internal audit: The Sisyphean work of becoming “independent”," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    9. Burrell Nickell, Erin & Roberts, Robin W., 2014. "Organizational legitimacy, conflict, and hypocrisy: An alternative view of the role of internal auditing," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 217-221.
    10. Panagiotis M. Kyriakogkonas, 2017. "Exploring the Usefulness of Codes of Ethics in the Postmodern Era through Transmodernism: Evidence from an Internal Audit Professional Body," Eastern European Business and Economics Journal, Eastern European Business and Economics Studies Centre, vol. 3(3), pages 223-244.
    11. Islam, Muhammad Azizul & Deegan, Craig & Haque, Shamima, 2021. "Corporate human rights performance and moral power: A study of retail MNCs’ supply chains in Bangladesh," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Ocampo-Gómez, Elizabeth & Ortega-Guerrero, Juan C., 2013. "Expanding the perspective and knowledge of the accounting curriculum and pedagogy in other locations: The case of Mexico," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 145-153.
    13. Isabel Z. Wang & Neil Fargher, 2017. "The effects of tone at the top and coordination with external auditors on internal auditors’ fraud risk assessments," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(4), pages 1177-1202, December.
    14. David Andrés Camargo Mayorga & Jennifer Lorena Gómez Contreras, 2019. "Opportunities And Challenges Of The Incorporation Of Information Technologies And Communication (Ict) In Accounting Education," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 13(1), pages 232-239.
    15. Pincus, Karen V. & Stout, David E. & Sorensen, James E. & Stocks, Kevin D. & Lawson, Raef A., 2017. "Forces for change in higher education and implications for the accounting academy," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-18.
    16. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Watson, Stephanie F., 2013. "Accounting education literature review (2010–2012)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 107-161.
    17. Mélanie Roussy & Michelle Rodrigue, 2018. "Internal Audit: Is the ‘Third Line of Defense’ Effective as a Form of Governance? An Exploratory Study of the Impression Management Techniques Chief Audit Executives Use in Their Annual Accountability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 853-869, September.
    18. Mohannad Obeid Al Shbail, 2018. "The Effect of Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict on Dysfunctional Audit Behaviour: Evidence from Jordan," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 17-25, July.
    19. Lehman, Cheryl R., 2013. "Knowing the unknowable and contested terrains in accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 136-144.
    20. Mel Timpson & Leopold Bayerlein, 2021. "Accreditation without Impact: The Case of Accreditation by Professional Accounting Bodies in Australia," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 31(1), pages 22-34, March.

    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:25:y:2014:i:3:p:197-209. 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.