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Volume 63, Pages 1-76 (November 2017)

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Accounting, non-governmental organizations and civil society: The importance of nonprofit organizations to
understanding accounting, organizations and society
Matthew Hall, Brendan O'Dwyer
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Assembling international development: Accountability and the disarticulation of a social movement
Daniel E. Martinez, David J. Cooper
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Grassroots accountability promises in rights-based approaches to development: The role of transformative
monitoring and evaluation in NGOs
Susan O’Leary
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The interplay between ideological control and formal management control systems – A case study of a non-
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Kalle Kraus, Cecilia Kennergren, Amelie von Unge
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The expressive role of performance measurement systems: A field study of a mental health development project
Robert H. Chenhall, Matthew Hall, David Smith
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 EDITOR IN CHIEF
Keith Robson, HEC Paris, Paris, France
EDITORS
R.J. Bloomfield R. Krishnan M. Shields
Cornell University, Ithaca, USA Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
W.F. Chua P.B. Miller
University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia London School of Economics, London, UK H. Tan
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
C. Chapman M.E. Peecher
University of Bristol, Clifton, UK University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, USA
K. Trotman
D.J. Cooper M. Power University of New South Wales, Sydney,
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK Australia

EDITORIAL BOARD
C. Agoglia C. Free R. Libby K. Rennekamp
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA Cornell University, Ithaca, USA
Amherst, Massachusetts, USA New South Wales, Australia A.M. Lillis A. Richardson
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United Arab Emirates J. Roberts
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S. Anderson University of Maastricht, Maastricht, Carolina, USA
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K. Lukka
M. Annisette Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario,
C. Graham Turku School of Economics, Turku, Finland
York University, Toronto, Canada Canada
York University, Toronto, Canada V. Maas
Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, R. Samiolo
M. Artz J. Hales
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Frankfurt, Germany Georgia, USA D. MacKenzie K.L. Sedatole
R. Balakrishnan M. Hall University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA London School of Economics, London, UK M. Mahlendorf D. Smith
A. Bhimani J. Hammersley Frankfurt School, Frankfurt, Germany University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
London School of Economics, London, UK University of Georgia, Atlanta, USA B. Malsch G. Sprinkle
J. Birnberg L. Hannan Queens University, Canada, Kingston, Canada Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
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K. Towry
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, HEC Paris, Paris, France
B. Carruthers Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Urbana, USA A. Mennicken
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA J. Unerman
F. Hodge London School of Economics, London, UK
C. Carter Royal Holloway, University of London,
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, K. Merchant
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UK W.A. Van der Stede
V.B. Hoffman USA
C. Chen University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA London School of Economics, London, UK
M. Messner
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P. Hopkins Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck,
Champaign, Illinois, USA University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA Innsbruck, Austria
R. Chenhall J. Meyer E. Wang
M. Holzhacker
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Stanford University, Stanford, USA University of Massachusetts Amherst,
Michigan State University, Michigan, USA
C. Cho F. Moers Amherst, USA
C. Ittner
York University, Toronto, Canada University of Maastricht, Maastricht, M. Walker
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School,
J. Choi Philadelphia, USA Netherlands University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA D. Moser
J. Jollineau S.P. Walker
C. Cooper University of San Diego (USD), San Diego, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK California, USA J. Mouritsen Scotland, UK
C. Dambrin S. Jordan Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, B. White
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H.C. Dekker M. Nelson
K. Kadous M. Williamson
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S. Dikolli B. O’Dwyer Urbana, USA
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Netherlands
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Northwestern University, Evanston, USA M. Peecher
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Karlsruhe, Germany
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
J. Everett M. Kornberger Urbana, Illinois, USA J. Young
York University, Toronto, Canada EM Lyon, France N. Pollock University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,
J. Fisher J. Kuang University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, USA
Indiana University, Bloomington, USA Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, UK S. Young
T.J. Fogarty Georgia, USA P. Quattrone Lancaster University, Bailrigg, UK
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, D. Larcker University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, M. Zimbelman
USA Stanford University, Stanford, USA UK Brigham Young University, Provo, USA

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 Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 1–5

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Accounting, Organizations and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aos

Accounting, non-governmental organizations and civil society: The T

importance of nonprofit organizations to understanding accounting,
organizations and society
Matthew Halla,∗, Brendan O'Dwyerb,c
a
Monash Business School, Monash University, Australia
b
Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
c
University of Amsterdam Business School, The Netherlands

1. Introduction brief examples suggest, our understanding of accounting, organizations

This introductory essay sets the scene for the four papers in this
Special Issue by illustrating how greater attention to non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and non-profit organizations can enhance our
understanding of accounting, organizations and society.1 These orga-
nizations are highly diverse and confront a multitude of accounting,
management and governance challenges that are likely to resonate in
organizational settings more broadly.2 For example, some look similar
to typical corporate organizations, adopting the same structures, sys-
tems of governance, and accounting and reporting practices. Others
closely resemble and at times are indistinguishable from classic gov-
ernment bureaucracies. Thus, we should not draw too stark a distinc-
tion between organizations categorised into certain sectors, particularly
given the increasing diversity in organizational forms (e.g., Jay, 2013;
Miller, Kurunmäki, & O’Leary, 2008; Nicholls, 2009; Unerman &
O'Dwyer, 2006a; Wry & York, 2017) and organizations operating across
traditional sector divides.
Importantly, the non-profit or non-governmental character of NGOs
can provide a fruitful context for increasing our understanding of a
broad range of issues of concern to accounting scholars. Analogous to
the selection of cases in field research, we argue that much can be
learned about accounting and organising from examining the poten-
tially atypical, unusual, or extreme contexts that can arise in NGOs. As
Miller (1998) has argued, accounting can be most interesting at its
margins because that is where we can see new calculative practices
emerge and potentially become part of the everyday repertoire of ac-
counting. For example, in the NGO context, we have recently seen the
emergence of accounting techniques aimed at combining measures of
economic and social value, such as ‘blended value’ accounting in
community interest organizations (Nicholls, 2009) and social return on
investment in social enterprises (Hall, Millo, & Barman, 2015). As these
and society can be enriched through closer attention to and analysis of
the contexts and characteristics of NGOs.
Interesting characteristics of NGOs include a dominance of social
motives, values and goals over financial ones, a diversity of stake-
holders, and an action-oriented rather than an administrative culture
(Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2017b). Typically, the purpose of NGOs is not
to produce a profit but is focused on social goals, be it poverty reduc-
tion, community development, sustainability, or health and social care.
As a consequence, there is no institutionalised bottom-line like profit
with which to evaluate the performance of NGOs. In addition, the
mission of NGOs is typically directed at a particular group of clients or
beneficiaries, such as a local community of individuals with particular
health or social needs. This means measures of effectiveness and impact
necessarily involve assessing how the organization has impacted on
those groups, which also raises issues concerning the contribution the
NGO has made to those outcomes. The measurement challenges arising
in these contexts are not specific to NGOs but have implications for all
firms with different objectives and rationales. This can include firms
explicitly addressing multiple purposes, such as those pursuing a shared
value approach, family firms, mutuals and cooperatives, and social
enterprises, as well as any organization seeking to address multiple
objectives, such as making a profit whilst also furthering positive social
impacts, sustainability, corporate philanthropy or community invest-
ment concerns.
NGOs typically have no obvious primary stakeholder. Often it is
claimed, typically by NGOs themselves, that beneficiaries or the client
groups they seek to serve are the primary stakeholder. Yet providers of
funds, such as donors, loom large in most NGOs, along with many other
central stakeholders, such as volunteers, staff, regulators, governments,
and other NGOs with which they work in partnership. NGOs thus often
face the challenge of trying to meet the multiple and potentially

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: matthew.hall2@monash.edu (M. Hall), brendan.odwyer@manchester.ac.uk, b.g.d.odwyer@uva.nl (B. O'Dwyer).
1
When we refer to non-profit organizations, we are referring to organizations outside the public/government sector who do not have profit generation as their primary goal.
2
We acknowledge there are significant definitional issues surrounding the nature of an NGO. We do not dwell in depth on these issues here but our implicit categorisation encapsulates
a broad range of organizations. For a more refined discussion of these definitional issues and their implications for NGO accounting and accountability, see Unerman and O'Dwyer (2006a,
2006b) and Vakil (1997).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2017.11.001
Received 9 November 2017; Accepted 10 November 2017
Available online 13 December 2017
0361-3682/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Hall, B. O'Dwyer
conflicting accountability demands from its diversity of stakeholders.
Again, although potentially more prominent in NGO contexts, for-profit
firms are also increasingly addressing the needs of multiple constituents
(Mitchell, Van Buren, Greenwood, & Freeman, 2015) whether adopting
a more explicit stakeholder or shared value approach (Kramer & Porter,
2011) or facing pressure from customers, regulators or even share-
holders themselves to address a multitude of objectives. Thus, NGOs’
experiences in dealing with the challenges of multiple stakeholders are
likely to resonate more broadly.
NGOs can also be characterised by a focus on values such as justice,
equity, empowerment, human rights, or community solidarity. In fact,
these values are often central to the work of NGOs, forming their
founding cornerstones where people attempt to live out these values
through participation in such organizations. NGOs often have a com-
plex workforce, with a combination of paid and unpaid workers, both at
the boardroom level and at the local charity shop. The centrality of core
values including extensive volunteering means many people involved in
NGOs have a strong desire to be directly involved in helping clients and
beneficiaries, sometimes referred to as a culture of action (Lewis, 2014).
In these contexts, management and other administrative activities in-
cluding accounting tend to be viewed at best as a distraction from ‘real’
activities or at worst a waste of time and money (Agyemang, O'Dwyer,
Unerman, & Awumbila, 2017). Relatedly, there can be strong resistance
or even outright rejection of attempts to use basic accounting proce-
dures as part of attempts to operate NGOs like a ‘business’ (Chenhall,
Hall, & Smith, 2010; Hall, 2017). Again, although potentially more
prominent in NGOs, many organizations can face contexts where values
are important, where organizational participants are likely to have a
mix of motives, and where there may be resistance to and/or lack of
understanding of accounting and control practices.
NGOs are also important to a full understanding of accounting, or-
ganizations and society because they are economically and socially
significant players in their own right. Across Europe, the USA, the UK,
Australia, and developing economies such as India and Tanzania, NGOs
are significant economic players, employing millions of people, con-
tributing substantially to GDP, and engaging significant numbers of
volunteers.3 And although economic size and scale is one indicator of
the importance of NGOs, they are also centrally involved in addressing
important societal problems. Across many issues such as poverty, social
exclusion, mental illness, education, human rights, disaster relief, cli-
mate change and environmental degradation, NGOs are engaged in
running essential programs and support services, providing new models
for service delivery, and advocating for and raising awareness of ex-
cluded and underrepresented groups. Although not without their critics
(Wright, 2012), NGOs are also increasingly playing a leading role in the
operation and delivery of a wide variety of government programs
3
For example, in Europe, the NGO sector engages an estimated 28.3 million full-time
equivalent workers, accounting for nearly 13% of the European workforce, making it the
third largest employer, lagging only manufacturing and trade, and five times greater than
the financial services industry. In the US, recent data shows NGOs accounted for 9.2% of
all wages and salaries, and in 2015 reported USD$2.26 trillion in revenues and over USD
$5 trillion in total assets, making up USD$905 million (or 5.4%) of GDP. This economic
significance is also mirrored in the UK, where NGOs have an estimated combined annual
income of 197.8 billion pounds, and employ 2.3 million people or 7% of the total UK
workforce, more than the NHS and the same as the construction industry. In Australia,
NGOs contributed AUD$43 billion to GDP in 2006-7, employed almost 1 million people,
and attracted around 4.5 million volunteers. Although the data is less systematic, NGOs
are also economically significant in emerging and developing economies. For example, in
India, there are over 16 million volunteers with the volunteer work valued at USD$1356
million, and in Tanzania there are over 2 million volunteers, with total private philan-
thropy accounting for 3.8% GDP. And contrary to the typical idea that NGOs' income is
derived from donations and gifts, data shows that in Europe most of the income of NGOs
(57%) is derived from private fees (e.g., memberships) and sales, with 34% from gov-
ernment and only 8% from private philanthropy. Similarly, in the US, most of NGOs'
income is derived from fees for services and goods (72%), with other sources being pri-
vate donations (13%) and government grants (8%). For further details, see Productivity
Commission (2010), NCVO (2017), Salamon and Sokolowski (2016), McKeever (2015)
and Lester, Salamon, Sokolowski, and Associates (2004).
2
Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 1–5
including housing, homecare, disability and mental health services.
NGOs are also central to many of our most enjoyable pastimes, such as
cultural and community organizations, sporting clubs, and many ac-
tivities across the arts including music, theatre, dance and fine art.
More broadly, we can see the study of NGOs as an important example of
a need for research to move beyond studying predominately large for-
profit businesses or government departments. This links with the
emergence of a greater focus on diversity in organizational forms, such
as mutuals and cooperatives, family firms (Prencipe, Bar-Yosef, &
Dekker, 2014), social enterprises (Hall et al., 2015), and cultural
(Jeacle, 2012), sporting (Andon & Free, 2012) and platform organiza-
tions (Kornberger, Pflueger, & Mouritsen, 2017).
In the following three sections, we reflect briefly on a small selec-
tion of themes underlying the four papers in this Special Issue. These
themes comprise: the connection between values and beliefs and con-
trol and accountability; the link between control, accountability and
transformation; and the role of stakeholder engagement in control and
accountability processes. We proceed to illustrate how these themes
offer future empirical and theoretical research directions for accounting
and accountability research in the NGO/non-profit organization do-
main and in organizations more generally.
2. Control and the connection to values and beliefs
The association between values and beliefs and control pervades all
four papers, albeit in distinct ways. Chenhall, Hall, and Smith (2017a)
seek to understand how performance management systems (PMSs) can
adopt an expressive role by incorporating the viewpoints of employees.
This assigns agency to employees who are seen to influence the design
of a PMS in a way that allows them to express their individual values. A
sense of ‘felt responsibility’ (O'Leary, 2017; O'Dwyer and Boomsma,
2015) among employees is embedded in the PMS by facilitating ac-
cessibility and playfulness in employee engagement processes. This
creates a form of ‘workplace democracy’ where employees participate
in processes of organizing, decision making, and governance. Kraus,
Kennergren, and von Unge (2017) also illustrate how existing ‘em-
ployee’ values can be incorporated in a PMS (or management control
system (MCS)). However, in their case this arises through a form of
‘manipulation’ relying on ideological control which targets (or enacts)
as opposed to embraces employees' attitudes. While Kraus et al. (2017)
and Chenhall et al. (2017a) operate at the organizational level,
Martinez and Cooper (2017) concentrate on the meso-level. They de-
monstrate how the values driving diverse ‘social movements’ can be
threatened by the necessity to embrace the accountability requirements
of, what they refer to as, ‘the international aid assemblage’. O'Leary
(2017) outlines how values and beliefs attached to transforming ben-
eficiaries' lives through empowerment (first generation transformation)
and emancipation (second generation transformation)) were embedded
in the design of accountability mechanisms. For O'Leary, these me-
chanisms, even those of a so-called conventional nature, offered a re-
sponse to macro-societal issues whereby a promise underpinned by
certain beliefs surrounding sustainable outcomes for beneficiaries was
enacted.
3. Accountability, control and transformation
The entities studied in all four papers have an explicit change
agenda focused on improving the lives of key beneficiaries (albeit the
beneficiaries in Martinez and Cooper (2017) are broadly specified). The
values and beliefs alluded to above are embedded in these change
agendas. But, to what extent do the various accountability and control
mechanisms enable the desired transformations? O'Leary (2017) spe-
cifies a role for ‘conventional’ accountability mechanisms in assessing
and enabling the transformation of beneficiaries' lives. Chenhall et al.
(2017a) and Kraus et al. (2017) also view formal PMSs and MCSs as
assisting in improving beneficiaries' lives, not only in tracking changes
M. Hall, B. O'Dwyer
in beneficiary outcomes but also in registering and expressing the sig-
nificance of beneficiaries as part of the overall MCS. In contrast, the
social movements in Martinez and Cooper (2017) disregard the capa-
city for conventional accountability requirements (and their associated
inscriptions) to enable their broader social change agenda (the ‘second
generation’ transformation O'Leary (2017) alludes to). They find that
the accountability requirements favoured by international aid agencies
disarticulated the social movement thereby disabling as opposed to en-
abling the movement to accomplish desired societal change.
4. Stakeholder engagement in accounting practices
All four papers address the role of stakeholder engagement in the
development and operation of accounting practices, particularly bene-
ficiaries/end users and employees. However, only in O'Leary (2017),
and to a lesser extent in Chenhall et al. (2017a), do beneficiaries play a
central role in the development of accounting and accountability me-
chanisms. For O'Leary (2017), beneficiaries are central to the ac-
countability mechanisms as this allows for the expression of values and
beliefs underpinning the NGOs' work within the mechanisms. In parti-
cular, involvement of beneficiaries in accountability practices is fun-
damental to the way in which they can generate transformative
learning opportunities. In Chenhall et al. (2017a), the role of mental
health patients is understandably less significant in the PMS, but efforts
are made to incorporate some role for them in order to align the PMS
with the values and beliefs of certain employees. While Kraus et al.
(2017) do not unveil a key role for poor patients in the MCS in Med-
iOrg, the operation of ideological control aligns the patients' ‘presumed’
needs and perceptions with key aspects of the MCS in the minds of the
doctors and nurses. However, as Kraus et al. (2017) also acknowledge,
they do not consider the adverse effects of ideological control on ben-
eficiaries, especially those patients whose illnesses fall outside the
newly approved programmes. In Martinez and Cooper (2017) the ulti-
mate beneficiary is largely absent or unconsidered, which connects to
the apparent lack of reflection on accounting for the wider impacts of
the social movement's activities. Similarly, although social movement
activists are involved with accounting practices, it is precisely this in-
volvement, or administrative burden, they reject.
5. Elaborating on the special issue paper themes
The Special Issue papers offer numerous opportunities for future
research to extend and develop many of the key themes and concepts
they unveil. In this section, we consider how some of the themes we
have unpicked from the papers could be developed further.
The typically extensive involvement of employees in decision
making processes in NGOs provides an advantageous setting for fur-
thering understanding of the role of employee participation in MCSs.
For example, as the ‘employee’ input in developing a PMS in Chenhall
et al. (2017a) is unrelentingly positive, it would be illuminating to
explore situations where accessibility and playfulness can act to antag-
onise employees who sense they are being ‘seduced’ into believing they
have considerable input into the development of a PMS. Future research
could explore areas where expressive PMSs actually entrench existing
coercive PMSs as opposed to exposing them to employee influence.
Furthermore, research could examine the precise processes through
which ideological talk attains influence, especially in contexts where
employees may reject or not fully cooperate with various forms of
ideological control (Kraus et al., 2017). Chenhall et al.’s (2017a) work
could also be extended to examine in more depth the consequences of
the development of expressive PMSs. What changes does this form of
PMS engender? How, in contexts where NGOs are ‘administratively
overburdened’ (see: Martinez & Cooper, 2017), can there be a role for
playfulness and accessibility? Future work should also offer enhanced
clarity on the distinction between employee opinions and values and
beliefs. Are we to conclude that opinions are always representative of
3
Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 1–5
values and beliefs? Even if this is so, the mechanisms through which
this occurred in the development of the PMS in Chenhall et al. (2017a)
require unpacking. Moreover, does involving employees in PMS de-
velopment facilitate the automatic expression of values and beliefs?
Future research could tease this issue out more, especially where there
may be some underlying employee fear of reprisal for expressing beliefs
inconsistent with a preferred PMS, or where the values and beliefs of
different employees collide in the development of PMSs.
The centrality of values in NGOs provides a particularly salient
context in which to understand more about relations between ac-
counting and the passions and feelings of individuals (Boedker & Chua,
2013; Hall, 2016). For example, what emotions are experienced by
individuals in administratively overburdened NGOs and how might this
influence their responses to increasing demands from funders? How
might the generation of emotions like shame or guilt play a role in
developing conformance with program and broader organizational
objectives? And what feelings might arise in beneficiaries when pro-
mises are not enacted in accountability practices and how might this
influence the operation of development programs premised on trans-
forming individuals? More generally, how do the rituals, ideological
talk or playfulness embedded in particular MCS practices influence the
type and range of emotions experienced by employees in organizations?
The diversity of constituents involved in NGOs provides an oppor-
tunity to further our understanding of the role of accounting in ad-
dressing the multiple and conflicting demands of stakeholders. In par-
ticular, this can be advanced through enhanced study of the
interactions between funders (of all types) and social movements in the
emergence of control and accountability processes. The work of
O'Dwyer and Boomsma (2015) shows how these interactions can be
fluid and bestow influence on ‘intelligent’/strategic NGOs who steer
accountability requirements to suit their needs, something the social
movements in Martinez and Cooper (2017) were disinclined to do.
Control mechanisms seem crucial to large scale collective movements
who need to coordinate actions and accountability. Some have large
administrative infrastructures and also need to cope with issues of
control and accountability that align with missions and visions. But
how do these control mechanisms evolve in these contexts and what are
their effects? The need for coordination and control of diversity is
hinted at in the fragile ‘unnatural’ alliances alluded to by Martinez and
Cooper (2017) where consortiums are formed for convenience purposes
to gain funding. But how is the campaigning and activist focus of NGOs
and social movements sustained in the presence of MCSs more aligned
with funding requirements? Building on O'Leary (2017), future research
could also examine what happens when harmony between conventional
and empowering accountability mechanisms is hampered by external
funders' insistence on prioritising accounting and accountability tech-
niques offering only lip-service to complying with rights-based ideals.
Does this always lead NGO actors to reject the systems imposed by
funders? How can NGOs develop systems with their own agendas and
interests to the fore, albeit in contexts where external funder reporting
requirements are present and important? It would also be informative
to investigate what scope NGO management have to mould conven-
tional external funder requirements in a manner allowing them to adopt
participatory approaches facilitating beneficiary involvement in ac-
countability processes (see, Agyemang et al., 2017).
Stakeholder participation and engagement in accounting practices is
a vexed issue for NGOs, which also has wider resonance for a range of
accounting practices, including social and environmental accounting,
CSR, and integrated reporting, for example.4 This is partly because
participation itself can vary widely, ranging from consultation with
stakeholders such as beneficiaries and employees, to more robust forms
of participation, where stakeholders may hold veto rights over
4
In particular, see the ‘Accounting for Stakeholders’ special issue of the Journal of
Management Studies (2015), 52(7).
M. Hall, B. O'Dwyer
important decisions and even take prime responsibility for designing
and operating programs and practices for themselves (see O’Leary’s
(2017) discussion of rights-based approaches to development). It is also
because participation as a means to transform authority structures and
empower excluded groups has been seriously challenged because it
ignores or downplays the existing socioeconomic inequalities shaping
the capacity of stakeholders to engage meaningfully in participatory
processes (Lee, McQuarrie, & Walker, 2015). An especially important
issue is how different stakeholders can utilize particular accounting
technologies and what those technologies do to stakeholders' capacity
to express different kinds of meaning (c.f., Deetz, 1992). For example,
to what extent do stakeholders have equal access to participation in
accounting practices, and to what extent are they being provided with
the opportunities to acquire the capacities necessary to engage fully
with those particular practices? How can the construction and pro-
duction of reporting formats be opened up for participation and debate
(c.f., Deetz, 1992), such as beneficiaries or employees developing in-
dicators and success criteria (Chenhall et al., 2013; O'Leary, 2017).
How can more diverse forms of representation, such as stories and in-
dividual accounts, be included in accounting practices and with what
consequences?
Finally, our understanding of accounting for the broader social
impacts of organizations can be furthered through examining how and
why NGOs account for the ultimate impacts of their programs (e.g.,
Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014). For example, how, if at all, do NGOs deal
with issues of attribution, where the contribution of their programs to
beneficiary outcomes may vary markedly, from potentially small or
even marginal influences (e.g., a small NGO working as part of larger
program), to potentially large and consequential contributions (e.g., a
lead NGO working in a local area for extended periods of time)? Such
issues are likely to be even more complicated in situations where NGOs
work in partnership with other NGOs, governments or even the for-
profit sector, where efforts to disentangle who did what and with effects
may be difficult to discern. And how might an inability to measure
impacts in complex social programs push NGOs (and organizations
more generally) towards safer projects where impacts are more tangible
and thus easier to account for?
6. Conclusion
NGOs and other non-profits are immensely important organizations
both socially and economically. They are driven by diverse motives
frequently underpinned by value-sets that can occasionally cause con-
troversy (see: Unerman & O'Dwyer, 2006a, 2006b). They are inherently
complex entities given the assorted stakeholders they serve, their di-
verse organizational structures, their combination of voluntary and
paid employees, their reliance on diverse funding sources, and the
complex issues they seek to address, ranging from alleviating poverty
and social exclusion to promoting human rights, religious beliefs and
specific ideologies. This complexity influences how they are controlled
and held to account for their actions and impacts. Given their perva-
siveness and influence on wider society, we contend that these orga-
nizations should not be considered as some sort of ‘other’ that is less
‘worthy’ of study than conventional profit-oriented organizations. In
particular, we have argued that embracing the different characteristics
and frequently unusual or atypical contexts evident in NGOs provides
accounting scholars with a productive path towards enhancing our
understanding of the relationship between accounting, organizations
and society.
We have elaborated on a number of key themes associated with
control and accountability in NGOs and non-profits embedded in the
four Special Issue papers. These comprise the connection between va-
lues and beliefs and control and accountability, the link between con-
trol, accountability and transformation, and the role of stakeholder
engagement in control and accountability processes. These themes all
offer a better understanding of the practice, meanings and implications
4
Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 1–5
of accounting and accountability both in the non-government/non-
profit sector and in organizations more generally. They have enabled us
to propose future theoretical and empirical research directions which
could enrich our knowledge of how accounting emerges and operates in
diverse organizational contexts with significant societal impacts. As we
have only focused on a small selection of themes, we invite you to
engage fully with the four Special Issue papers and respond positively to
our suggestion to draw on and develop their insights and themes fur-
ther.
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 Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Accounting, Organizations and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aos

Assembling international development: Accountability and the

disarticulation of a social movement
Daniel E. Martinez a, *, David J. Cooper b
a
HEC Paris, Department of Accounting and Management Control, 1 rue de la Liberation, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France
b
School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2R6, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper examines how international development funding and accountability requirements are
Received 29 July 2013 implicated in the so-called disarticulation of a social movement. Based on field studies in Guatemala and
Received in revised form El Salvador, we show and explain the way accountability requirements, which encompass management
10 January 2017
and accounting, legal, and financial technologies, constitute the field of international development
Accepted 10 February 2017
Available online 17 April 2017
through the regulation of heterogeneous social movement organizations. We highlight how account-
ability enables a form of governance that makes possible the emergence of entities (with specific at-
tributes), while restricting others. Our analysis has implications for governmentality studies that have
Keywords:
Accountability
examined the interrelation of assemblages by analyzing how these interrelations are operationalized at
Social movements the field level through the Deleuze-and-Guattari-inspired processes of territorialization, coding, and
International development overcoding.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Governmentality
Assemblages

I left the country soon after my brother was disappeared by the
military.1That was in 1980 and government repression had escalated,
forcing a number of us involved in the movement to cross the border
into Mexico as political refugees. There, I started to work with other
exiled activists to aid communities caught in the middle of the war.
We sent our first funding proposal to an organization in Holland
with close ties to the church. The proposal included a description of the
problems, the objectives we expected to achieve, the activities to carry
out, and an explanation of how it would be evaluated. It also included
a budget, which was quite general, not very specific, like these days.
For example, a line item would be for food and we would write that
$10,000 worth of food was needed, same for clothes and medicine. Of
course, we had to justify the expenses with receipts, whenever we
could get them. The budget was a page long. In total the proposal was
five pages and it took no more than 15 days for the funds to be
deposited into a bank account that one of the priests opened in his
DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2017.02.001.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: martinez@hec.fr (D.E. Martinez).
1
In Guatemala, the Commission for Historical Clarification estimates that over
200,000 persons were disappeared or killed during the 36-year war. The document
notes: “State forces and related paramilitary groups were responsible for 93% of the
violations documented” (Historical Clarification Commission, 1999).
name for us to use. This is nothing like our current proposals, which are
much longer and denser with technical and financial information. The
agencies also knew we could not provide the most detailed and
transparent paperwork because we were facing a humanitarian crisis.
We were refugees and did not have the documentation to start an NGO
or open a bank account. What we did have was the support of a few
priests and the support of international NGOs with offices in Mexico.
The precarious situation in which we worked meant that it was of
fundamental importance that we established relationships based on
mutual trust, that there be a commonality in values and principles. We
were all engaged in the same movement, locally and internationally, to
promote social change. The personnel in the aid agencies and inter-
national NGOs that we worked with showed a political commitment to
the cause and they provided financial support for that cause. They
knew that their administrative requirements could not always be met
because of the war. When representatives from international organi-
zations were able to visit and monitor a project, they would observe
the conditions of the communities in which we worked and the lack of
administrative infrastructure. The monitors did not count in great
detail the amount of bags of corn purchased or see whether everything
was there. It was not the overarching preoccupation and they would
not hassle us too much about the receipts: That they were missing, not
in the proper format or order, that the signature was not legible, and so

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2017.02.002
0361-3682/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
on. There was more understanding, more flexibility.
This understanding is also reflected in the way financial trans-
actions were managed. The money had to be wire-transferred by in-
ternational donors into our bank accounts. At first we used banks in
Mexico, but we ran into some trouble with the accounts. We needed
our accounts in US dollars and the Mexican government did not allow
that at the time. The banks in our home country were too risky because
the military was auditing internationally funded accounts. The best
option at the time was to open accounts in Panama because their
banks operated in dollars and were less regulated. But that meant that
one of us would have to go and collect those funds once we got
confirmation that the funds were transferred.
On a few occasions I had to take that dreadful trip. It meant taking
the bus to Panama to retrieve the funds, we are talking tens of thou-
sands of dollars in cash, and make my way back to Mexico on another
bus. That also meant that we had dollars in our safe that needed to be
converted into Mexican pesos and then into Guatemalan quetzals. We
could not depend on banks for this either; that meant someone had to
take cash to the border and exchange it at black market rates. It was
unreasonable to expect a receipt from a black market transaction. But
funders knew. They noticed that we did not use the official exchange
rate in our financial reports. We also worked a lot with cash, which
meant that we seldom provided bank statements.
So here again is the element of trust. When I was given the order to
take those trips to Panama it meant that they trusted my political
commitment; the same way they trusted the person responsible for the
exchange rate; the same way that international funders trusted our
organization with the funds it provided; and that we trusted that they
would not give intelligence to the military or anyone that could put us
and the communities in danger. The funders trusted that every dollar
would be used to the best of our abilities to improve the situation of the
communities. It would not make sense to risk our lives, to build a
reputation based on our commitment to the struggle, and then throw
all that away by embezzling a few dollars or by not doing the best
project we could with the conditions we were working in. If something
were to go awry with the funds, well, it was more than an adminis-
trative penalty, it was a political one.
1. Introduction
Antonio2 provides an account of the accountability relations
between non-formalized grassroots organizations and European
and North American international funders during the war.3 It
highlights how “solidarity,” “trust,” “a commonality in values and
principles,” and a sense that they “were all engaged in the same
movement” 4 underpinned funding and accountability relations
between grassroots organizations and their funders.
To be clear, Antonio’s account is not the portrayal of a golden era.
2 which grassroots organizations and guerrillas could carry out their
This is a composite character based on interviews with three NGO workers’
experiences with international development and the social movement since the
war. This composite character provides an ethnographic account that protects the
identity of specific interviewees and helps to make the case more vivid (for similar
approaches see Rottenburg (2009) and Dugdale (1999)).
3
Both countries were engulfed in an internal armed struggle that pitted their
military-led governments against various left-wing guerrilla organizations. This is
developed in section 3.
4
Referring to the social movement in the singular was a common way for in-
terviewees to refer to the historical social movementda way of characterizing a
social movement with origins in the war. Currently, there are various social
movements (e.g., campesino, labour, feminist movements) and we are not sug-
gesting that they are acting as a singular entity. Like our interviewees, we reserve
the singular use to refer to the historical social movement that is at the centre of
our study.
7
It indicates how an organization avoided capture by governments
(which often meant torture, disappearance, or death) and how it
operated in adverse conditions. Antonio provides us, rather, with a
particular experience of a social movement and highlights three
important features. First, its components: International NGOs and
funding agencies, non-formalized grassroots organizations, refu-
gees, and priestsdeach with its own mode of political intervention.
Second, the relations between the social movement and funding
agencies, characterized by lenient legal and accounting re-
quirements and the use of an underground economy to avoid banks
and the military. Finally, Antonio articulates a unifying political
aspiration, a “commonality in values and principles,” that kept the
disparate components of the movement together. This aspiration is
not restricted to the past, though, as it permeates organizations
operating in the increasingly technical and professionalized world
of international development. It is a “politics of affirmation”
(Braidotti, 2011, p. 6) that informs their critique of international
development and the articulation of alternative modes of
accountability and political intervention.
Antonio’s narrative offers a starting point to examine how
grassroots organizations and the broader social movement that
they were “all engaged in” have been altered. Our study was
initially prompted by interviewees’ concern over the changes they
experienced since the war. As a Guatemalan community organizer
noted: “International development has been able to do what the
military was not able to do during the war: Disarticulate the social
movement.” Another interviewee active in organizing communities
during the war, and now an NGO project coordinator, similarly
noted: “There are grassroots organizations, movements that have
been disarticulated due to economic influence, due to money. But
above all, because they have become NGOized.” These, like other
accounts (see also Morales Lo
pez & B

pez,
a Tiul, 2009; Morales Lo
2010; Roy, 2004; Alvarez, 1999, 2009), sensitize us to the power-
ful effects of international development’s accountability re-
quirements on social movements.
The study of this so-called disarticulation was also motivated by
our understanding of how accountability requirements enable the
formation of a governable field by regulating its component parts,
their relations, and political aspirations. Previous studies indicate
that accounting and accountability technologies are implicated in
bringing a governable field into being (Miller & O’Leary, 1987;
Miller, 1990; Preston, 2006; Rahaman, Neu, & Everett, 2010). Less
has been written on how this bringing into being limits and regu-
lates other entities. This prompted us to study not only how
“complexes” of rationales and practices mesh together, intersect,
and are constitutive of one another (Miller, 1990), but also the
processes through which one complex gives way to another.
We address these understandings through a field study con-
ducted in Guatemala and El Salvador; each one engulfed in its own
internal war until left-wing guerrillas and the state signed peace
accords in the 1990s. The accords marked the beginning of a
reconstruction process: The formation of state institutions through
political programme as political parties, labour unions, and NGOs.
International development work became one way through which
these actors could intervene in the process of reconstruction. We
argue that accountability requirements, which encompass man-
agement and accounting, legal, and financial technologies, played
an important role in the formation and continued maintenance of
international development as a space for social movement orga-
nizations to intervene but to also be intervened and constituted as
proper developmental actors.
Studying how social movement organizations became compo-
nents of this field of development intervention, though, also
exposed us to how bringing something into being has
8 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
disarticulating effects. To help us think about this we enlist Deleuze
and Guattari’s notion of “assemblage” and their processes of
territorialization, coding, and overcoding. Through these processes
we trace how the international development assemblage comes
into being by acquiring particular content from the social move-
ment assemblage and by giving this content an expression, an
emerging identity.
These processes provide us with greater focus into how assem-
blages intersect. Unlike Miller’s examination of the “programmatic
dimensions of power/knowledge” (1990, 334), we focus on the
technologies of governance that enable intersections and their dis-
articulating effects. We describe the formation of an important
assemblage in the region (international development) whose for-
mation regulates the political and accountability connections with,
and even the survival of, another assemblage (the social movement).
That is, we show how an assemblage is constituted out of the
organizational and aspirational components of an increasingly dis-
articulated other. To disarticulate is not just that the social move-
ment loses organizations to the international development
assemblage, but also that these organizations’ political aspirations
are rearticulated in the service of international development.
This is important because it highlights how a heterogeneous mix
of formalized and non-formalized organizations became project-
implementing NGOs. After all, we have learned that accountability
requirements have effects on NGOs accountability to different
stakeholders, on their capitals, and their professionalization
(Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2010; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008). But
these studies have been conducted at the organizational level. Our
account extends their findings by considering the effect these re-
quirements have on how these NGOs become parts of an emerging
assemblage. The significance is that we learn that changes in
accountability requirements enable organizations, such as non-
formalized grassroots organizations, to acquire certain features,
become “proper” project implementing NGOs, as they make their
way into the field of international development. This requires us to
analyze how a confluence of accountability requirements contained
in registration forms, funding proposals, and monitoring reports are
implicated in transforming the organizations and the field of re-
lations into another governable composition.5
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Section two
situates our study in the accountability literature that discusses its
constitutive power, including the power to constitute a governable
field of actors. We introduce Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts to
help us analyze some of the processes through which this happens.
Section three explains our research methods. This is followed by
two sections that describe the processes through which funding
and accountability requirements compose the international
development assemblage out of the social movement’s compo-
nents. Finally, section six concludes with a discussion of the study’s
implications.
2. Accountability and the assembly of a field of governance
Our point of departure is that accountability is a “constituent” of
a type of governance (Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, p. 30; Quattrone,
5
This is not to say that there is no resistance or agency. Organizations do contest
some of these transformative pressures. We encountered organizations that choose
not to submit proposals to some international agencies as a form of protest. Others
engage in administrative strategies to finance politically charged projects that
would otherwise not get funded by leaking funds out of international development
into the social movement. The latter are “invisible” strategies or what interviewees
called “manoeuvres” or “tricks” that enable them to operate and contribute to both
assemblages. We intend to develop on these in a subsequent paper (see also Li,
2007, p. 264).
2004). The power of accountability as a tool of governance is that
it has “significant consequences for the entities held to account,”
including the possibility that new entities are “brought into being”
(Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, p. 58). Governmentality studies,
together with Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts, provide us with
valuable tools to examine how accountability brings a certain field
“into being.”
The governmentality literature has mobilized multiple concepts
to describe a dynamic composition of heterogeneous parts and
power relations. Miller (1990), for instance, studies accounting and
the state as two distinct but mutually constitutive complexes of
practices and rationales. We too are interested in examining “how
changes in the constitutive components of one complex make
possible the emergence, articulation or transformation of the
other” (Miller, 1990, p. 316). Whereas Miller studies the vision that
programme architects have about the way society ought to function
and the calculative technologies that intervene to constitute the
population as a self-governing entity, we want to examine these
intersections as experienced by the subjects of governance. And
while we have learned that accounting and accountability tech-
nologies are implicated in governing through the constitution and
arrangement of actors in a particular field (see Neu, Ocampo,
Graham, & Heincke, 2006; Rahaman et al., 2010), we still do not
know how they intervene in assembling a field of governance by
disarticulating another. Focusing on governmental interventions in
relation to “actual” organizations provides us with a better view
into how these organizations are transformed, as they are absorbed
into an assemblage while regulating their relations to the assem-
blage from which they came.6
We enlist another set of concepts to study the relation between
assemblages. We define the social movement and international
development as “assemblages” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), which
shares the same intuition as concepts in the governmentality
literature such as complex, constellations, fields, and networks. Our
use, though, makes more explicit a form of governing that “operates
by stratification” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 433): a process
through which components of the social movement assemblage are
subsumed into the assemblage of international development.
Accordingly, we conceptualize social movements as “expansive,
heterogeneous and polycentric discursive fields of action […]
constructed, continuously reinvented and shaped by distinctive
political cultures and power distributions” (Escobar & Osterweil,
2010, pp. 195e6). The heterogeneous and dynamic social move-
ment assemblage of our study has undergone and continues to
undergo a series of transformations as its parts are enveloped into
the emerging assemblage of international development. Interna-
tional development, unlike the social movement, is a stratified
assemblage: A “vertical, hierarchized aggregate” whereby compo-
nents of “very diverse points of order, geographic, ethnic, linguistic,
moral, economic, technological particularities” are made to “reso-
nate” with one another by acquiring linked characteristics (Deleuze
& Guattari, 1987, p. 433). This aggregate is formed through the
regulation of these diverse components:
In retaining given elements, it necessarily cuts off their relations
with other elements, which become exterior, it inhibits, it slows
down, or controls those relations … it isolates itself from the
remainder of the network, even if in order to do so it must exert
6
Rather than a study of programmers’ aspirations, this is a study of the “messy
consequences of programmes” (Li, 2007, p. 28). This is not to say that this renders a
more “realist” account; programmes have effects, many of them unintended (Miller,
1990), and we document some of these messy consequences, some of the possible
stances that subjects take amidst these programmatic rules.
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20 9

even stricter controls over its relations with that remainder. view into how a field of actors and their relations come together, we
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, 433; emphasis ours) employ additional concepts to make sense of how one type of
assemblage is constituted out of another. Through stratification
processes we learn how boundaries are defined, parts are made
To stratify an assemblage is to hierarchically aggregate diverse
coherent as they acquire certain features, and their relations are
components and make them cohere and give them an orderdit
controlled and “cut off” from the assemblage from which they come
disarticulates by regulating, by cutting off their relations to what is
from. This cutting off makes the social movement something
now “exterior.”
exterior, which is central to its disarticulation.
This stratification involves the interrelated processes of terri-
torialization, coding, and overcoding. Territorialization demarcates
3. Research methodology
the content of an assemblage. It is a process that includes a degree
of filtering and the establishment of boundaries to make possible
3.1. The field of Guatemala and El Salvador
that “proper” organizations are included in the emerging aggre-
gate. This is not simply a physical space, but rather, a calculative
Our field study takes place in Guatemala and El Salvador. Both
space (Miller & Power, 2013). Coding involves arranging the as-
countries were engulfed in an internal armed struggle that deci-
semblage’s content into “more or less uniform layers” (DeLanda,
mated many facets of the countries’ political, social, and economic
2000) by complying with funding agencies’ (more or less) homo-
infrastructure, with deleterious effects on the population at large,
geneous administrative categories. At stake are organizations’
particularly in the area of human rights. Guatemala and El Salvador
structure (legally and administratively as a type of NGO) and mode
experienced 36 and 12 years of conflict, respectively, that pitted the
of development intervention (as noted with the prevalence of the
military-led government against various left wing guerrilla armies
project management). Although organizations become adminis-
that eventually unified as the Guatemalan National Revolutionary
tratively similar, this is not another story of isomorphism
Unity (UNRG, by its Spanish acronym) and the Farabundo Martí
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), they are also differentiated: Funders
National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador. During the war, the
require organizations to specialize and intervene in specific agency-
social movement, broadly composed of guerrilla armies, student,
mandated programmatic and geographic areas. Territorialization
labour and campesino [peasant] organizations, churches, human
and coding, in other words, is what gives an assemblage its
rights organizations, and international solidarity organizations,
particular content.
was driven underground. NGO-like entities were closely linked
Overcoding is a process of establishing functional relations, of
with the social movement. They were, however, as we learned
binding components together to constitute a whole. In our empir-
though Antonio, often not formalized (legalized) as NGOs because
ical site, cementing relations among organizations is achieved in
their work was mainly clandestine and at times based in neigh-
part by (a) administratively overwhelming organizations, requiring
bouring countries, working with exiled and internally displaced
them to focus on their relationship of accountability with funders;
populations.
(b) requiring specific forms of inscriptions such as receipts and
The signing of the peace accords in the 1990s led to the for-
invoices, establishing fixed administrative paths among organiza-
mation of a series of institutions that, on paper, at least, enabled
tions; and (c) altering flows of funds, encouraging administrative
guerrillas and grassroots elements of the social movement to
and financial alliances among NGOs and between NGOs and their
continue their political struggle through these institutions. This
local governments. Through these, the more or less similar content
gave rise to not only the formalization of guerrillas into political
is “made to work in a ‘functional structure’” (Bonta & Protevi, 2004,
parties, but also the formalization of grassroots organizations into
p. 83). The assemblage exerts its force, its expression, a quality, onto
NGOs. With the signing of the Accords, Guatemala and El Salvador
its components as “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
witnessed an NGO boom.8 The Accords were an important part of
and is able to exert focused systematic behaviour” (Bonta & Protevi,
the incorporation of those “outside” into the state and the regulated
2004, p. 37).7
field of international development.9
Individually, these three processes may seem familiar. Prior
International and domestic development NGOs played an active
literature indicates that accounting technologies both filter and es-
role in the process of reconstructing Guatemala and El Salvador
tablishes boundaries thereby creating an inside and outside (Miller
during and after the war as aid agencies provided technical training
& Power, 2013; Mouritsen & Thrane, 2006; Neu, Everett, Rahaman, &
and funds to domestic NGOs. The signing of the Accords marked a
Martinez, 2013), make organizations isomorphic (DiMaggio &
transition for many organizations, a transition that is at the centre
Powell, 1983), and alter their relation to one another as they are
of our study.
unified as a network (Rahaman et al., 2010). But, by placing these
processes side-by-side we learn how these individual processes
3.2. Field study and analysis
overlap and reinforce each other as parts of a larger process of
constituting a governable assemblage in the name of “developing”
We undertook two field trips in 2010 and 2011 to El Salvador
or improving the wellbeing of a region (Li, 2007). This provides a
view into how the different accountability requirements, legal re-
quirements, and funding flows intervene in the different processes 8
Exact figures are difficult to access. One study estimates that there are
to dispose these populations to intervene in their own development,
approximately 3000 NGOs in Guatemala (Foro de Coordinaciones de ONG de
not as the social movement Antonio envisioned, but as an assem- Guatemala, 2012, 103).
blage of professionalized and technically competent NGOs. 9
International development includes government agencies of OECD countries
To conclude, while governmentality studies provide us with a that administer foreign aid programs to developing countries; examples include the
United States Agency for International Development and the Spanish Agency for
International Cooperation. We focus on funds that originate from these state-
funding agencies. In most cases though agencies transfer funds to local NGOs
7
Deleuze and Guattari (1987), reflect on the “double articulation,” a dual process, through either multilateral agencies, such as the United Nations Development
implicated in the process of stratification. We adapted it, in a schematic way, as Programme, and the World Bank, and/or international NGOs such as Oxfam, CARE,
interventions that give the assemblage its “content” (mainly through territoriali- and Trocaire. Our empirical focus is on local NGOs that operate in Guatemala and El
zation and coding) and interventions that give it an “expression” (mainly through Salvador and receive grants from bilateral and multilateral government agencies
overcoding). and international NGOs, as well as from their local states.
10 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
and Guatemaladinvolving 7 weeks in El Salvador and 7 weeks in
Guatemala.10 The first field trip permitted us to get insight into
what were the management devices used, how they were used, and
their effects. Our initial interviews also focused on the field’s
characteristics and on identifying the pressing issues faced by the
participants. These areas of interest were explored in more detail
through subsequent interviews. 38 interviews were conducted
during the first visit and 24 during the second, involving 20 local
NGOs, 2 non-incorporated organizations,11 1 municipal govern-
ment, 8 international NGOs, 10 funding agencies (6 bilateral and 4
multilateral), and 2 consulting firms (see appendix A). Participants
include managers, community organizers and technicians, ac-
countants and administrators, consultants, civil servants, and social
justice activists. All but five were digitally recorded. The interviews
provided sufficient material to address our conceptual concerns.
We took particular interest in NGO workers and grassroots ac-
tivists that had experience that date to the war. They provided
valuable perspectives into the social movement’s history. We also
thought important to identify personnel in NGOs that do not see
themselves as part of the social justice movement that dates to the
war.12 They provided us with perspective on the field’s profes-
sionalization. These interviews helped us track some of the changes
experienced in the field over the years. Weaving together the past
with current practices was a recurrent theme in our interviews and
we seek to reflect on this in this study. This weaving was often done
through the notion of social movement. Interviewees repeatedly
referred to the historical social movement as a field of organiza-
tional and political relations and as that under threat of disarticu-
lation. This is a partial and historically contingent notion of the
social movement, and one integral to the discussion on interna-
tional development and the centrality of accountability
requirements.
Participants were asked for documents that illustrated the re-
ports and management tools commonly used in their organiza-
tions. Formal documentation provides a view into projects and how
requirements are enacted at the organizational and operational
level (Jensen & Winthereik, 2013). Most of the organizations pro-
vided copies or allowed photographs of a project’s monitoring re-
ports, work plans, annual financial reports, position papers,
budgets, etc. (in total 1500 pages of documents were photo-
graphed). Together with documents downloaded from NGOs’ and
funding agencies’ websites (including: annual reports, promotional
material, financial statements, etc.), these inscriptions gave us a
visual representation of the major templates (such as the Logical
Framework, budgets, and operational plans) that are part of the
legal, accounting, project management, and financial requirements
used to manage internationally funded projects.
We also observed how projects were operationalized in the field
by attending project-related activities and workshops. These visits
enabled us to observe how the project, as a mode of development
intervention, was enacted and later accounted for by the techni-
cians and accountants. We also observed meetings among project
10
One of the authors also spent six months between 2004 and 2005 in Guatemala
as part of a previous research project with an organization with close connections
to the social movement and international development. This provided us with some
of the initial contacts and insights into the field, which inform the current study.
11
Volunteer-based “activist” organizations/collectives that resist incorporating as
an NGO.
12
This is a matter of degree. While we got some insight into the extent of these
NGOs’ connections with the grassroots social movement from reading their web-
sites and published materials, the following were also assessed during the in-
terviews: the practices and discourses (extent to which they communicate with
activist organizations, mode of interventions such as rallies, and their vocabulary on
the state, capitalism, class, management, accountability, and gender).
coordinators and technicians in one of the NGOs, which helped us
understand how accountability is performed.
While empirically informed, the aim of the data collection
process, and the methodological considerations that informed it, is
to enable us to tell a convincing and theoretically informed story
that reflects some of the transformations (and ambiguities) of the
fields we studied. Our methodological approach is not to “represent
the world as it is or what it means, but to survey and map its
tendencies” (Holland, 2013, p. 37). In this regard we provide one
account (Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, p. 256; De Laet & Mol, 2000) of
the requirements and some of the effects they have. The technol-
ogies and the effects that we identified in the field were among the
more discussed and stressed among the interviewees. We weave
them in as examples to address an empirical concern, that of
disarticulation, which was itself motivated by the interviewees’
concerns over what they were experiencing, and to address our
theoretical concern over how compositions are constituted.
4. Administrative codes: territorializing and coding
components
Antonio’s remarks at the beginning of this article stress his or-
ganization’s avoidance of the repressive Guatemalan state and the
banks. This implicated working as clandestine organizations. Their
funders, their “solidarity” partners, as Antonio put it, were sensitive
to these conditions. Their administrative code did not “channel and
block” (Deleuze, 1990, p. 19) important financial and political flows.
Although legal requirements, management by objectives, budgets,
and project design and performance measurement systems were
part of the aid agencies’ tool kit, they were not rigorously applied.
For instance, his was a grassroots organization that operated
without a formalized legal structure and professionalized staff. The
financial flows, while subject to funders’ and banks’ administrative
code (e.g. requirements for receipts, signatures, banks statements,
etc.), often required their decoding and flight into other assem-
blages (e.g. an underground network and black market to move
funds) facilitated by the use of cash that left little trace. Another
instance of the extent to which agencies applied their administra-
tive code is notable in the records sent by Antonio’s organization:
Project proposals and monitoring reports were flexible in detail and
format. Funders “would not hassle us too much about the receipts:
That they were missing” or they would “not count in great detail
the amount of bags of corn purchased or see whether everything
was there.” The mode of intervention was the provision of services
through a “project,” but the intervention was also about building
political and solidarity connections not only with aid agencies and
international NGOs but, importantly, also with beneficiaries and
the “movement” at large. The point is that funders were perceived
as having “more understanding, more flexibility” of the political
and humanitarian situation and as such their administrative re-
quirements did not threaten the diversity of the social movement’s
organizational forms and modes of intervention.
For Antonio, funders’ international development accountability
requirements previously coexisted with social movement’s princi-
ples of solidarity and trust. Boundaries were blurreddcertainly the
military governments of El Salvador and Guatemala had difficulties
making the distinction, often equating international development
with revolutionary activity.13 Social movement organizations
collaborated with international NGOs that provided aid agency
funds to finance their local struggles.
13
A director for a European international NGO in El Salvador commented: “NGOs
have been perceived negatively by previous governments. They categorized all
NGOs as communists [guerrillas].”
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
In the following, Antonio describes how this space was altered
by giving an account of how his organization is absorbed into the
international development assemblage.
Administrative requirements started to change in the late 1980s.
We were encouraged to formalize the NGO and show the proper
documentation and organizational structure, such as having an ex-
ecutive director and board of directors. Funding agencies also asked us
to hire an accountant since we had a volunteer with no formal ac-
counting training keeping the books. Even the reports changed as the
budgets had to be more detailed by including the number of items we
were going to purchase. Around that time international agencies also
started to check our books. We were all shocked the first time this
happened as this guy suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, walked in,
shook my hand, acknowledged the administrator and the accountant
with a nod, and asked us to leave him alone with the books for an hour.
I was furious! “This bastard, what does he think he is doing?” I wanted
to kick him out. We were accustomed to another dynamic; at least
some chitchat about the political situation, life in exile, or whatever,
and then get onto business. This was different. It was cold. Add to that,
what came across was an arrogant attitude that marked the difference
between the have and the have-nots, giving them certain rights over
us. No sensibility to the political struggle we were engaged in. So I
called the agency to ask them what was going on and they told me that
he was just going to check the books, that he was very good at what he
did, and that he did not talk about politics. At that moment I was made
aware of the impending changes. In retrospect, not all bad of course.
This was in 1986e87, and as an organization we decided to go
along with these changes and we took that leap with the agencies.
They for instance started to train the accountant and administrator on
proper reporting and controls. Our staff also received technical
training and they were expected to have a higher level of academic
preparation. They demanded more from us and there were occasions
where projects or disbursements were not approved because the re-
ports were not clear enough. Our work became more technically and
administratively demanding.
Then the personnel we knew at the international organizations
started to change. They had new people, who were not familiar with
our name, our past … like that guy who wanted to check our books:
They did not talk about the political struggle. They started to introduce
more technocrats, which is the current situation. It is not that tech-
nocrats are the problem, what I lament is that there is a political
emptiness. Everything is transparent now, which is not bad, but the
political element of our relation is missing.
This account of how Antonio’s organization becomes adminis-
tratively regulated through a number of international aid agencies’
accountability requirements sets the stage for understanding how
social movement organizations are territorialized and coded into
the international development assemblage.
4.1. Territorialization: creating boundaries
As Antonio’s narrative unfolds, the funder’s administrative code
becomes more formalized and pronounced, and so does the
distinction between international development and the social
movement. Aid-providing states started changing the nature of
their development agencies, what Antonio noted as agency staff
becoming more technocratic or “neoliberalized” (see also Wallace,
2009). They subordinate an accountability based on patchy evi-
dence, solidarity and trust to an administrative code that for
Antonio is “transparent” and “technocratic.” The introduction of
hierarchical accountability (Ebrahim, 2005; Roberts, 1996) gives
international development its content through the processes of
11
territorialization and coding.
Antonio realized that there was a boundary territorializing the
space. To continue accessing funding, his organization took a “leap”
into the funding agencies’ emerging administrative space by
registering as an NGO and complying with administration re-
quirements. This included letting the funder audit the books and
hiring a proper accountant, and not making “politics” a necessary
feature of the relationship. These requirements give the composi-
tion its boundaries by filtering organizations (who do not meet the
requirements). Thus, some organizations did not “take the leap”
because they did not have the administrative knowhow or political
inclination to formalize their structure and linkages with interna-
tional funders (we will discuss later the case of a youth-based
activist organization).
We can get a further sense of how this territorial boundary is
maintained by examining some current requirements. These re-
quirements include registration forms (such as the EuropeAid Po-
tential Applicant Data Online Registration, or PADOR),14 which have
to be completed before the organization submits funding pro-
posals. Other forms require organizations to include project specific
criteria. These are part of a complex of “formal” documents that
help produce developmental reality and are ubiquitous in the field
(Jensen & Winthereik, 2013, p. 94). A municipal civil servant in El
Salvador, who once helped grassroots organizations access inter-
national funding, noted that the PADOR form makes visible some
administrative and legal requirements, but it also, and in a more
subtle way, tests the administrative capacity to complete the form.
The civil servant continued, referring to a small municipality:
They are small, with no specialist in international development
and with a very small budget, which means that they are not
required by law to prepare financial statements. So then, how
are they going to prepare the financial statements that the
PADOR requires? The audit reports? Who is going to complete
the form?
Unable to successfully register with PADOR, this municipality,
like the other grassroots organizations he once worked for, was not
able pass through one of the first filters: it cannot operate in the
administrative space.
The effect was highlighted in one of our first interviews. A
director and project manager with 18 years of experience with a
European NGO in El Salvador was having difficulties securing
funding for organizations that were once able to do so. He
pointed out that project proposals are too demanding for the
populations he worked with: “It can take them months to com-
plete it. I can do it. You can do it. But the organization of
campesinos, they may eventually be able to do it, but why
complicate things for them?”
This is not to say that interviewees were dismissive of re-
quirements. For the civil servant, the requirements “add a technical
component and forces us to evaluate what we are doing.” But they
also contain “the rules” that mark the requirements for entry. The
civil servant clearly articulates the boundary: “international
development funding, in general terms, has become a privileged
circle made up of those who know and are able to meet all the rules,
the forms, and all that stuff”.
The point is that the boundaries have become more explicit.
Being part of this “privileged circle” not only requires
14
PADOR is “a database managed by EuropeAid and contains information about
organizations applying for grants of the European Commission in the field of
external assistance” (http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/work/onlineservices/pador/
index_en.htm).
12 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
administrative capacity (hence the large numbers of workshops
helping organizations to develop this capacity), but also a certain
type of political discourse. This political element became evident to
us during a conversation with a Guatemalan youth-based grass-
roots organization that has refused international development
agencies’ offers to take the “leap.” As one of the organization’s ac-
tivists noted, taking this leap required: “Totally changing one’s
discourse [discurso]. For example, we had a slogan that was not
very conciliatory at a time when international funders were pro-
moting reconciliation after the peace accords.” Whereas entry for
the small municipality and the campesino organization was con-
ditional on their form-filling abilities, for the youth-grassroots or-
ganization, it was on their capacity to accommodate a specific
political tone. These are connected. The forms administratively
suggest the demarcation of a political space.
The overlap that Antonio documented, whereby social move-
ment and international development organizations “were all
engaged in the same movement,” has been intersected by a
boundary.15 This political and administrative boundary does not
necessarily imply the social movement’s disarticulation. But, it does
have disarticulating effects when the territorial boundary is rein-
forced by emphasizing distinctions between what is a part of the
new assemblage and what is notdthereby marking the social
movement’s components as the “outside” or “remainder.”
4.2. Coding the organizations’ form and mode of intervention
Organizations are not only exposed to requirements as they
contemplate whether to enter the assemblage of international
development or not; these requirements, mainly for those
committed to entering, are transformative: They give the emerging
composition a particular type of content. This constitutive element
is what we call coding, the moment when funder requirements
interact with organizations to make them administratively
coherent units. Coding also illustrates that territorialization is not
only about exclusion, but selected inclusion, making the territori-
alized grassroots components susceptible to alterations in their
governance and administrative structure and mode of development
intervention. The following describes how organizations are altered
as they are positioned within the territorialized space. These in-
terventions are more “internal” to organizations. They have,
though, assemblage-level implications: to govern the assemblage is
to constitute its content along a code.
4.2.1. Organizational form: becoming an NGO
In terms of organizational form, Antonio noted the effects of
these requirements when his organization was “encouraged to
formalize the NGO and show the proper documentation and
structure, such as having an executive director and board of di-
rectors.” Requirements can be gathered from the aforementioned
PADOR and funding forms, including providing information on:
whether they are incorporated as an NGO; to what extent the
board of directors is involved in the organization; whether they
15
This boundary is not impermeable. There are overflows. Through our field study
we learned of NGOs channelling international development funds to social move-
ment organizations through all sorts of administrative manoeuvres. These “hybrid”
organizations work between social movement and international development, but
are finding it increasingly difficult to do so (Alvarez, 1999).
16
There are also governance and fiscal requirements set by the Guatemalan and El
Salvadorian governments that organizations have to comply with to be legally
recognized as an NGO. The Guatemalan Ley de Organizaciones no Gubernamentales
para el Desarrollo and its equivalent in El Salvador, for instance, decree among other
things: a particular definition of NGO, adherence to a set of accounting and tax
principles, and the formation of a board of directors and a general assembly.
have an account for each project, number of accounts, currency,
signing authority; where petty cash is kept, rules for its use, who
administers it; accounting personnel’s capacity; extent to which
financial reports are audited; taxes paid; and financial
sustainability.16
Organizations are required to adhere to these legal and
administrative principles to access funding. Funding agencies also
help organizations meet these requirements, thereby facilitating
their inclusion into the assemblage. The project coordinator for a
bilateral development agency remembers: “Two years ago, in one
of our lasts visits [to a community], we were horrified to be
informed that one of the organizations we were starting to work
with did not have legal status and that they would not pass the
audit.” In such a situation “we had to help the organization get their
legal status. We had not spoken with them for many years … they
were people that came from the war, they were part of the
resistance.”
Other, already “legalized” organizations, require adjusting their
organizational form to position themselves in the assemblage. A
labour union and a rural advocacy organization in Guatemala offer
striking examples. The labour union’s director recounts: “We
realized in 2000 that it was necessary to create a technical unit to
lend support to the [labour] movement … we should broaden the
trade union’s efforts by creating this technical unit.” The technical
unit is constituted as an NGO, enabling the union to access new
funds. A Guatemalan consultant familiar with the case noted that
the labour union “simply did it because they have to survive.” An
NGO worker also familiar with the case noted this sort of funding
has “torn the labour union in two”: One part for international
development and the other for the labour movement. She went on
to say that the union’s structure and its accountability to its due-
paying membership were segmented, “torn,” and so was its ca-
pacity to voice the grassroots’ aspirations. Similarly, a campesino
community association with a mission statement to access land
and “class struggle” received financial support from an interna-
tional NGO to create a technical unit, an NGO. While enabling
access to much-needed funds, it also, as one of its organizers
noted, imposed “conditions that undermines some of the work we
have done” as the funder’s development objectives are closely
aligned with the “neoliberal state policies” often critiqued by the
association’s membership.
These examples show how funders’ administrative re-
quirements provide the codes for organizations to change their
governance structure. An NGO worker in Guatemala, noted that at
this point, “the NGOization of the social movement begins.”
Grassroots organizations, formalized or not, are rearticulated as one
type of formalized organization, an NGO, positioned in the inter-
national development assemblage. Significantly, for the labour
union and the rural advocacy organization, as the quotes suggest,
this change also affected their mode of accountability and political
intervention. In the following section we explore the changes in
mode of accountability and intervention through an analysis of the
development project.
4.2.2. Mode of development intervention: the project
Project-level requirements are another form of administrative
standardization. Projects are the primary form of development
intervention; as the director of an international NGO in El Salvador
comments, they “allow us to execute our programmes. We execute
our programmes through the projects.” For a project coordinator at
a Guatemalan NGO: “All social organizations manage international
development projects. We became project designers and
executers.”
The significance of NGOs formulating their interventions
through projects is that it makes their intervention
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
administratively controllable. Project management and accounting
devices17 are used to make projects appear coherent with funding
agencies’ development models and goals. The executive director of
a Guatemalan association of local development NGOs commented:
“Let’s just say that the thinking was different 5 or 10 years ago. Now,
the majority of [aid] agencies have clearly defined their own ob-
jectives. So one has to go and present proposals that fit with those
objectives.” NGOs align their development projects to these ob-
jectives through agency-mandated “methodologies” such as the
Logical Framework and results- and activity-based budgets
(Martinez & Cooper, 2014).
The effects of these requirements are significant and far-
reaching. The Logical Framework’s methodology facilitates the
design of projects that can be readily measured, such as building
infrastructure (Ebrahim, 2005). This view is shared across many of
the organizations we interviewed. For the director of a large in-
ternational NGO:
The Logical Framework is good for constructing buildings and
classrooms, training teachers and things like that. But it is
limited when it comes to capacity building: Engaging with the
community to promote an active citizenry. … For me, it is a tool
that is not very useful for political advocacy where you want to
promote behavioural changes.
Further, a project designer and coordinator at a popular-
education NGO in El Salvador described how the Logical Frame-
work “robs you of the energy and creativity needed for the strug-
gle.” In effect, she notes that: “These are projects that do not
challenge anything … they are not conceived as a means to orga-
nize people towards the formulation of certain demands, but rather
to meet basic local needs, and that is it. There is no political
perspective.”
This does not mean that the aspiration to intervene politically is
completely blocked or disarticulated; it is rather redirected towards
the funder’s goals. These project-level requirements “contribute to
giving form to new versions of the political” (Jensen & Winthereik,
2013, p. 83). We can start to see how disarticulating the social
movement is about articulating a different version of the “political.”
In such settings the political is rearticulated in ways made
possible through funder project management requirements. This
became quite explicit for an NGO working with internally displaced
communities in Northern Guatemala. The director informed us that
one of his funder’s project requirements opened new opportunities
for political intervention:
There is an entry point, because before the political was seen as
that person, a leftist, promoting full-on revolution. But now, all
those political spaces that do not appear to be visible to them,
are there; for example, it is now about governance, democratic
processes, the strengthening of local governments. These make
a number of opportunities [to intervene] available … it is now a
matter of finding that political component.
Agencies have created spaces for a different type of political
intervention. These “political spaces” are made visible through the
project’s general objectives, such as “strengthening of local gov-
ernments” which NGOs operationalize, through the Logical
Framework, into a series of concrete activities. Interventions are
17
These include: Logical Frameworks, budgets for the project and for each of the
activities and results, project timetables, project approval letters, overview of
project activities, mechanisms for the internal evaluation of the project, and as-
sessments of the sustainability of the project.
13
made measureable, tangible, and practical. This is also linked to the
perception among interviewees of little project diversity. This
became apparent to the project coordinator at a Guatemalan NGO:
“There were, without exaggerating, six or seven NGOs working in
the same community … and we were doing the same thing!”
Ferguson (1994), similarly notes that, “many aspects of ‘develop-
ment’ interventions remain remarkably uniform and standardized
from place to place” (258). Thus, while international development
requirements have depoliticized and standardized interventions
(Ebrahim, 2005), we suggest that requirements redefine the scope
of political intervention. To disarticulate the social movement is to
rearticulate its aspiration for political change in a way that is useful
for the international development assemblagedthat is, within its
administratively allotted “political spaces.” To disarticulate, though,
is to also relegate that which does not comply (“leftist, promoting
full-on revolution”) to the outside (with the remaining components
of Antonio’s social movement).
4.3. Creating difference within the assemblage
So far we have documented how coding alters the assemblage’s
content by targeting an organization’s form and mode of devel-
opmental and political intervention. Although organizations accu-
mulate similarities, coding is also a process whereby organizations
are differentiated by placing them in an order. This is noticeable in
the way the asymmetric relationship between the funders and
NGOs becomes more explicit. As Antonio points out, the changes in
requirements “marked the difference between the have and the
have-nots, giving them certain rights over us.” The administrative
and accountability requirements that differentiate funder and
funded also introduce differentiation amongst the funded organi-
zations by arranging them into specialized segments. Differences
are instilled within the territorialized space.
Funding forms and templates make explicit the requirement
that an NGO position itself into a specialized segment, thereby
marking the distinctions among the NGOs themselves. By the 1990s
aid agencies encouraged the segmentation of international devel-
opment in Guatemala and El Salvador into programmatic (e.g. local
economic development, small business, infrastructure, health,
gender, the environment) and geographic sectors (e.g. regions,
provinces, cities). Governments and aid agencies emphasized
managing for results and setting long-term targets for NGOs by
requiring the development of strategic plans, which required them
to define and focus on their areas of specialization.
For a project designer in an El Salvadorian NGO, making their area
of specialization explicit to the agencies means: “We cannot, for
example, ask an agency to finance a water project. We do not have the
ability to implement these types of projects.” Similarly, the director
and project manager at an international NGO with offices in El Sal-
vador noted: “Our funder (a bilateral agency) asks us to specialize in a
determined sector. That is what they promote. If you construct
houses, then only ask to finance houses. And with that there is a loss
of organizational diversity.” For the director of a Guatemalan asso-
ciation of development organizations, the effect of this segmentation
is that: “There is no longer an integration of the different develop-
ment processes in a holistic manner. The one that specializes in
micro-credit does not have time to chat with those working in agri-
culture or in education.” In other words, organizations are arranged
according to specializations.18 These distinctions are managed ac-
cording to expertise, affecting the assemblage’s “organizational
18
We do not want to give the impression that organizations rigidly adhere to the
segments. Some NGOs adapt to shifting agency priorities by changing their area of
specialization.
14 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
diversity” and the type of “integration” needed to execute more
“holistic” development projects. Antonio’s social movement, one in
which “We were all engaged in the same movement” has been
segmented into arrangements based on specialization.
To summarize, components of the war-era social movement
have been enrolled into the emerging international development
assemblage. This enrolment is made possible through shifts in the
notion of accountability: From trust and solidarity to an increas-
ingly formalized administrative code, where, as Power (1997) ob-
serves, different conceptions of trust are produced through
procedures, expertise, and calculations. To operationalize the
enrolment, legal-administrative requirements and accounting and
project management technologies are introduced. These territori-
alize the field and code organizations, thereby giving the emerging
assemblage its content. Our analysis indicates how the agencies’
legal and administrative requirements establish boundaries around
the emerging assemblage, thereby filtering the components that
can gain entryda space of tolerated variations is formed. Compo-
nents are also exposed to legal and project administrative re-
quirements that make them coherent (in organizational form and
mode of development intervention) while also differentiated along
geographic and technical areas of specializationdthereby “orga-
nizing differences according to a hierarchical scale” (Braidotti, 2011,
p. 28).19 The organizational and aspirational components of this
social movement are confronted with a scenario where they either
adapt to the new assemblage’s territory and code or are relegated to
the “outside.” Becoming external is central to the process of
disarticulation. In the following section we discuss how this is
intensified as relations among these territorialized and coded
components are unified, giving the assemblage its expression.
5. Overcoding: regulating relations and reinforcing
boundaries
Relations among the territorialized and coded components are
established and cemented together through overcoding, discour-
aging connections with anything beyond the territorial boundaries.
The disarticulating effects of administrative requirements are made
more apparent at this stage. We show this by emphasizing, first,
how overwhelming NGOs with administrative requirements directs
their attention toward a hierarchical relationship of accountability
with funding agencies. While this is extensively discussed in the
literature on government reforms and NGOs (Oakes, Townley, &
Cooper, 1998; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008), we stress how it un-
dermines the capacity to get involved in other relations. Second, we
highlight that requiring specific forms of documentation enables
connections with organizations able to produce “proper” records,
while preventing others. Third, we show that changing financial
flows alters the funding landscape, encouraging competition and
financially motivated relations among NGOs and increasing their
proximity to their local governments. These accountability and
financial requirements reinforce the territorializing and coding
processes and enable relations that give the international devel-
opment assemblage its expression, whereby a whole emerges and
exerts a conduct on its partsda conduct that restricts NGOs’ rela-
tion to the social movement.
19
While similar to Hwang and Powell’s argument that: “foundations are playing a
critical role as carriers of modernity in the non-profits field, rendering a hetero-
geneous mix of organizations more similar” (2009, 293), our emphasis is to show
the way similarities are accumulated and differences are enabled and managed as
an integral part of a larger process of constituting this particular type of assem-
blage. Both similarity and difference are regulated (for more on difference amongst
repetition or variation amongst stability see Deleuze (1994) and Aroles & McLean
(2016)).
5.1. The administratively inundated NGO
Much of an NGO’s operations depend on international funding
and on providing “proper” accounts. Increases in funding re-
quirements have had the effect of requiring NGOs to allocate more
resources (such as time and money) to meet them. This has been
intensified as timeframes have been shortened,20 requiring more
project submissions. Resources are spent submitting proposals
more often while demanding the organization to simultaneously
manage more projects. When asked to what extent they formulate
projects, the director of an international NGO in El Salvador com-
mented: “24 h a day, 365 days a year. This is a project factory.” This
sentiment was also expressed by the director of an El Salvadorian
NGO that provides education services:
We are investing a lot more time formulating projects. We now
submit 20 to 30 per cent more proposals. Also, the proposal is
more demanding, from the design to other administrative re-
quirements … today an agency sends you a list of 25 different
annexes to be included in the proposal.
This is not restricted to the application process. More elaborate
proposals also mean that aid agencies require more elaborate
interim monitoring and final evaluation reports. It is becoming
commonplace for the budgets included in the proposal to include a
detailed cost breakdown of the project’s activities21 and these must
be periodically reported according to a funding agency’s results and
timeframe.
These administrative requirements have the effect of directing
NGOs’ attention toward their relation of accountability with fund-
ing agencies rather than making connections with developmental
and political issues associated with their grassroots activism. The
project coordinator at one Guatemalan NGO commented:
International agencies have forced us into all of that [adminis-
trative work]. So the work we did with advocacy, activism, I’ve
had to put that aside and be dedicated to better accountability.
Look, for a project, 75% goes into administrative work.
While requirements encourage a focus on administrative and
financial accountability to funders (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008),
they leave the impression that “advocacy, activism” are beyond the
boundaries of international development.
Overwhelming NGOs and directing their connections towards
funders reinforces the territorializing and coding effects of re-
quirements. Handling a set of standardized templates and pro-
cedures requires a considerable amount of resources and discipline,
which further discourages NGOs from exploring other forms of
political interventions. This is similar to Oakes et al.’s (1998) anal-
ysis of how the introduction of business plans in publicly funded
organizations increases the time managers allocated to revenue-
generating activities, undermining the organizations’ social and
cultural capitals (see also, Ebrahim, 2002).
5.2. Changes in record requirements
While overwhelming NGOs with requirements directs their
20
According to the director of an El Salvadorian NGO: “There were agencies that
approved projects for six or even ten years. … Now the agencies are saying they are
not committing funds to projects over two years.”
21
For instance, project activities previously might include a budget line of $100
for promotional t-shirts. Now, budgets require specifying the number of t-shirts to
be purchased (for example, 50 t-shirts at $2 each).
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
gaze towards funders’ accountability requirements, seemingly
mundane records such as invoices and receipts carve “fixed paths”
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 387) that regulate relations among
organizations and reinforce the assemblage’s administrative
boundaries. In what follows we analyze how the requirement to
produce inscriptions discourages certain types of financial trans-
actions. It also encourages community associations to formalize in
order to provide services and proper receipts to NGOs.
Invoices and receipts inscribe financial transactions and are an
important part of NGOs’ accountability practices and reports. These
documents are bound by various rules: some funders require them
in a certain order and with particular seals, some accept photo-
copies while others want originals, some accept till/cash receipts
while others require more formalized receipts, which include tax
identification numbers.22
The requirement for invoices and receipts also enables and
blocks financial transactions that have direct implications on who
can participate and on connections within the international
development assemblage.23 For instance, the requirement has
discouraged connections with organizations that cannot meet the
evidential criteria. NGOs often contract small businesses outside of
the community to provide a service that they would prefer to be
done by the community where the intervention is taking place. For
example, the youth activist organization mentioned previously
points out “we work in communities where people cannot usually
provide them [documents].” The youth organization is also not able
to provide their services to allied local development NGOs that
receive aid monies because they cannot provide formalized
receipts.
An El Salvadorian civil servant whose office received interna-
tional funding for a local community project noted that the
requirement for proper invoices and receipts is frustrating because
it discourages community members from organizing and building
their own community hall. For him an effect is that “the objective of
having the community being involved in its own development is
lost in red tape.” Another interviewee, from an international NGO in
Guatemala, similarly suggested that the development potential of a
construction project was not achieved: “It could have been con-
structed using people from the community. Using a private com-
pany promoted the construction of roofs, but not community
development. I am interested in forty community members
partaking and learning so that they can have sources of income.”
The quotes illustrate that the requirement for particular types of
documentation discourages grassroots and community organiza-
tions from intervening around the project, or at least alters their
type of involvement. These inscriptions do, however, create an
administrative space that facilitates cooperation with organiza-
tions, such as businesses, who are able to provide proper invoices
and receipts (further discussed in the following section).
Documentation, such as receipts and invoices, help systematize
connections among administratively consistent organizations
(NGOs, business, the state), while restricting financial connections
with organizations that do not meet the requirements (i.e. grass-
roots social movement organizations). This sort of criteria for
“proper” financial records serves to identify the international
development assemblage’s boundaries and strengthens the finan-
cial ties among organizations in the assemblage. It also, however,
22
The emphasis on invoices and receipts is linked to government initiatives to
regulate the informal economy. As the state formalizes the economy, international
agencies are better able to enforce stricter receipt and invoicing policies since more
businesses are able to provide proper documentations for transactions with NGOs.
23
The role of paper trails in enabling and discourages certain forms of account-
ability (especially combating or facilitating fraud) is discussed in Neu et al. (2013).
15
serves to exclude organizations that do not meet the requirements.
5.3. Changes in funding flows
Changes in funding flows since the 2000s have also altered re-
lations among the assemblage’s components through changes in
international agencies’ funding priorities in Guatemala and El Sal-
vador and through the shift to direct government support whereby
aid is provided to governments for them to disburse. These changes
had an impact on organizations’ financial and political connections.
That is, they increased both financial uncertainty and competition
and alliances among NGOs; they also prompted financial exchanges
between NGOs and governments, which jeopardized the former’s
autonomy.
NGOs have been affected by the reduction of funds entering the
region (see Appendix B).24 A Guatemalan NGO that works in the
area of human rights witnessed a significant reduction of staff from
20 to 4. Reductions have increased tensions among NGOs and
increased competition among them. For the director of one NGO:
“There are fewer resources from international agencies and
increasingly the project approval process is more competitive.”
Competition has also intensified as international NGOs register and
set up offices in the region, effectively competing with local NGOs
for the same pool of resources (see also Agg, 2006). The project
coordinator for a Guatemalan NGO referred to relations among
NGOs as increasingly “protective” and “territorial” given the
competition. Reduced financial resources enable a certain expres-
sion to emerge: the assemblage is developing a technical-
administrative and competitive identity that instils a competitive
dynamic among the assemblage’s content.
International agencies have encouraged the formation of “con-
sortiums,” alliances among project-implementing organizations.
While a means for NGOs to work together toward a common goal,
these have been criticized as alliances mainly based on accessing
funds. A project technician for a Guatemalan rural development
NGO observed:
Often organizations form consortiums and remain divided as
they execute the same project. There is the “if we unite we have
funds” mentality among some organizations and we think that
it should not be only about accessing resources. As an organi-
zation we have to ask ourselves: “What common vision do we
have with the others?” Because we have learned from this
experience that if each organization is doing its own thing, the
consortium does not work. The agencies are making it quite
clear though: “there are no funds unless you unite as a
consortium.”
Her comments not only reveal a cautious stance towards these
funding opportunities and the fragility of some of the alliances, but
also the opportunistic approach to access funds. Some consortiums
do create fruitful connections among organizations (including for-
profit enterprises) that were “once not part of our group of
allies.” But, as the project coordinator for a Guatemalan NGO noted,
NGOs with different political backgrounds and relations to com-
munities are grouped together in these “unnatural alliances …
forced by the funding agencies.” Political and historical differences
24
This reduction may be explained by changes in funders’ development priorities.
For example, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
no longer includes Guatemala and El Salvador as priorities. Another explanation
may be related to the financial crisis: “This decline represented nearly USD 2.3
billion in real terms and mostly affected countries in Central America” (OECD,
2012).
16 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
(for instance, based on NGOs’ historical affiliation with guerrilla
organizations during the war) are administratively overcoded
through consortiums. For the project coordinator, consortiums
oblige these organizations:
To sit at the same table, and that gets complicated in our com-
munity [of organizations]. We have had a similar trajectory, but
we are connected in different ways. One connection is with the
revolutionary organization that one belonged to during the war.
This type of connection has had its own segmenting effects.
NGOs with historical linkages to revolutionary groups would still
find themselves, on occasion, operating along the rebel groups’
historical geographic areas:
That happened a lot when we worked in the northern region of
the country, which was a FAR (in English: Rebel Armed Forces)
area, and there were many [NGOs] with historical connections
to them that worked there. But we were an organization that
belonged to the ORPA (Revolutionary Organization of the People
in Arms). We would get asked in the North: “What are you doing
here? ORPA operates in between the highlands and the coast.”
For her, consortiums put these NGOs “at the same table,” over-
coding some of the historical guerrilla affiliations that existed
among organizations. Disarticulation in this regard is also about
subsuming relations that date back to the war by superimposing
technical and administrative codes.
Financial uncertainty has been created through funding
agencies that provide direct support to the Guatemalan and El
Salvadorian governments. NGOs send proposals to government
offices that manage the funds. Although this is intended to
strengthen the state, there have also been concerns about the
implication of working for the government. For a Guatemalan NGO
project coordinator:
The agencies are now telling us: “We are strengthening your
government through budgetary support.” So they tell us to go to
the government ministry responsible for those projects and we
end up being subcontracted by them … we become employees
of the government. Our role as autonomous organizations
disappears.
The budgetary support approach situates the NGO closer to local
components of the state it once directly resisted during the war.
The feeling of working “for the state” is especially disconcerting for
NGOs with a connection to the social movement’s political struggle
in the war.25
In this section we analyzed the way accountability requirements
and changes in funding flows cement relations among the assem-
blage’s components. We have identified three interrelated ways in
which these overcoding processes seem to happen: Inundating
NGOs in administrative work, requiring organizations to “properly”
inscribe transactions, and changing funding flows. Whereas terri-
torialization and coding creates assemblage-level boundaries and
alters the organization’s form and interventions through legal and
project management and accounting technologies, these over-
coding processes reinforce the territorial boundaries by encour-
aging the newly included content to direct their accountability
25
An administrator for a Guatemalan NGO investigating human rights violations
during the war expressed concern about submitting proposals to the government
because the NGO is preparing court cases against officials and military personnel
that continue to have close linkages with the government.
relations within such boundaries by administratively over-
whelming and regulating financial flows. Social movement prac-
tices are discouraged within the international development
assemblage, as are connections to social movement organizations
that now lie outside it. Intervening in the assemblage’s content also
results in the contents’ (political and even historical) expression
being subsumed, and disarticulated, by the assemblage’s own
emerging expressiondit conveys a conduct to its component parts,
one that is increasingly competitive and financially motivated.
6. Discussion and conclusion
The starting motivation for this study has been to empirically
and conceptually examine a concern voiced by some of our in-
terviewees over the way funding agencies’ accountability re-
quirements are implicated in disarticulating the social justice
movement in Guatemala and El Salvador. As we embarked on this
study we learned that there was an important history being
mobilized among interviewees whose experiences with interna-
tional development date back to the war. We represent this col-
lective history through Antonio. His narrative portrays the social
movement as a historically specific assemblage with unclear
boundaries: As a dynamic and heterogeneous composition of
organizational forms, modes of intervention, and politically
informed commitments and accountability relations that at one
time co-existed with their funders’ own aspirations. This compo-
sition, though, is intervened and segmented. Funding agencies’
accountability requirements, which include a host of project
management, legal, and financial devices, intervene in specific
ways to create boundaries and compose international development
out of the social movement’s components by altering their form,
mode of intervention, and their financial and political relations.
Our analysis shows how a governable space is constituted out of
another. We describe how a boundary is created that allows se-
lective inclusion into this space by organizations able and willing to
comply with requirements. By taking this “leap” into the new ter-
ritory, previously non-formalized grassroots organizations are
transformed into NGOs with a “proper” governance structure and
project management expertise in a particular geographic and pro-
grammatic area of specialization. The formation of a territorialized
and coded content then enables the regulation of their relations,
which is done by administratively overwhelming, requiring the
provision of invoices and receipts, and changing the flow of funds
into the region. To study disarticulation, is to study how a space of
operation is created out of the components of another that is now
exterior.
Disarticulation, though, is also about regulating the aspiration to
forge connections to this exterior by directing this force towards
funders’ developmental goals. As we learned from Antonio, the
desire to “promote social change” based on an accountability of
“solidary and trust” still finds its way into current international
development discussions. This aspiration acts “as a creative force
that gives the ‘wretched of the earth,’ as Fanon put it, a head start
toward the world-historical task of envisaging alternative world
orders and more humane and sustainable social systems”
(Braidotti, 2011, p. 32). But “memories need imagination to
empower the actualization of virtual possibilities in the subject”
(Braidotti, 2011, p. 236). Imagination and experimentation, borne
out of necessity in the social movement during the war, however,
are confined within the legal, accounting, and administrative
boundaries of the international development assemblage. The
point is that these boundary-making accountability requirements
disarticulate the social movement by (a) altering its components
and their relations as they are plugged into another composition
and (b) channelling a force, the social movement’s political
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20
aspirations, into relations and goals that are technically and polit-
ically useful for the international development assemblage.
We are not suggesting that there are currently no social move-
ments in the region. Far from it (see Granovsky-Larsen, 2013). But
as the quotes by the two community organizers in the introduction
and Antonio’s narrative at the beginning of the article suggest, a
historically specific social movement has been disarticulated. We
do not comment on the extent to which this is the case, but our
account joins others, such as Morales Lo
pez (2010), that write: the
“disarticulation of the Central American social movement with the
characteristics of the previous decades, […] left a vacuum tempo-
rarily occupied by non-governmental organizations” (103, own
translation).26
What the preceding shows is how accountability requirements
bring both account givers and the assemblage in which they
operate “into being” as the international development assemblage
(Woolgar & Neyland, 2013, p. 58), but also how these requirements
restrict the social movement that made it out of the war from
operating, by disarticulating it. This has broad implications for the
study of how fields of governance are assembled.
The governmentality-inspired literature has mainly focussed on
how a complex of rationales and practices and a field of actors are
constituted (Miller, 1990; Miller & O’Leary, 1987; Neu et al., 2006;
Rahaman et al., 2010). Miller (1990) shows “how changes in the
constitutive components of one complex make possible the emer-
gence, articulation or transformation of the other” (316). This
observation prompted our microanalysis of how this dynamic is
articulated and experienced by actors in the field. The international
development and social movement assemblages are intersecting
and mutually constitutive. But by using a set of related concepts we
can explain how these once overlapping complexes are differenti-
ated and the accountability-driven processes through which one
assemblage gives way to another.
Processes of territorialization, coding, and overcoding demon-
strate how accountability is implicated in making a heterogeneous
mix of organizations administratively consistent as proper content,
through the formulation of territorial boundaries and the coding of
organizations’ form and their modes of development intervention.
The contents’ relations to one another are then regulated, cemen-
ted to form a unity, giving the assemblage an expressiondone
where the aggregate’s emerging identity (of dependence, compe-
tition, and financially-motivated and administratively-mediated
linkages) overcodes the contents’ political and historical expres-
sion. These processes, like the package of accountability re-
quirements, overlap, alter, and reinforce each other (i.e., overcoding
reinforces territorial boundaries). The significance is that these
processes enable us to study the way assemblages intersect with
one another. Specifically, how a governable assemblage comes into
being by subsuming parts from another and how relations between
the two are regulated.
In analyzing these assemblages, we learn that heterogeneous
grassroots organizations become project-implementing NGOs. In
so doing, we compliment organizational level studies on the effects
of funder requirements on NGOs and their beneficiaries (O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2008; O’Leary, 2016) by examining how requirements
alter not just organizations but also the field in which they operate.
This resonates with accountability studies which focus either on
the construction of the organization as an accountable self
(Messner, 2009; Roberts, 1991) or the construction of a broader
“accountability regime” (Mehrpouya, 2015); we, in contrast,
26
pez & B

For the specific case of Guatemala see Morales Lo a Tiul (2009). For other
accounts of disarticulation through the “NGOization” of social movements see
Alvarez (2009) and Roy (2004).
17
propose that these are interrelated by documenting how making
the organization accountable as project implementing NGO is part
of bringing the new governable assemblage of international
development into being. Importantly, while these studies have
analyzed a process of construction, for us, accountability is as much
about disarticulation as it is about construction.
The disarticulating aspect of accountability helps us address
calls for studies on how funding agencies’ funding and account-
ability requirements affect NGOs’ mission (O’Dwyer & Unerman,
2008) and how NGO’s “involvement in advocacy, political mobili-
zation or community engagement is dampened by widespread
adoption of evaluative metrics” (Hwang & Powell, 2009, p. 293). We
show how conditions are created where NGOs’ emancipatory as-
pirations and their objective of working with communities and
other components of the social movement are regulated. This ex-
tends other work critiquing how NGOs and grassroots organiza-
tions are “too close for comfort” with aid agencies, undermining
their innovativeness, flexibility, legitimacy, and accountability to
broader stakeholders (Edwards & Hulme, 1996; Ebrahim, 2005;
Mitlin, Hickey, & Bebbington, 2007). This also develops Alvarez’s
(1999) thesis that it has become increasingly more difficult for
NGOs to operate in both international development and the social
movement. We posit that these challenges are part of larger pro-
cesses, and as such, the effects are not restricted to international
development NGOs but also the social movement. This again shows
the benefit of examining assemblages in relation to one another; of
tracing where components parts come from, where they are going
to, and what are the effects of doing so.27
The project coordinator for an international funding agency,
reflecting on over 30 years of work in the region, noted:
The social movement’s capacity for autonomy in its finances and
directives has been lost. The project and the NGO has consumed
them and I think all of us involved in this have to assume that
responsibility and find a way to provide support without
inserting them in such dynamics.
While far from a rosy picture, the reflection provides inspiration
for this study and can do so for future studies. One question it elicits
is: what type of “support” can be provided to the social movement-
inspired organizations that are inserted in the international
development assemblage?
Although at some cost, plugging into the international devel-
opment assemblage has provided grassroots social movement or-
ganizations with the financial, political, and administrative
resources to continue some version of their work. Some of these
organizations develop strategies to contest these accountability
requirements and actualize their aspiration for social change. Li
(2007, 264) notes that there is acknowledgement that the expan-
sion of governance is met with contestation and division (e.g. Rose,
1999, p. 51), and yet there has been little attempt to explore how
contestation is manifested. And, while the focus of this study was
mainly on the way funding and accountability requirements
constitute international development out of social movement
components, it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at how the
social justice movement operates. That is, to what extent and how
are management and accounting devices implicated in social
movement assemblages “composed of innumerable elements that
remain different, one from the other, and yet communicate,
27
We suspect that our findings detailing international development’s relation to
the social movement are not restricted to international development in El Salvador
and Guatemala since state funding agency requirements are adapted by NGOs
seeking financial support throughout the developing world..
18 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20

collaborate, and act in common” (Hardt & Negri, 2004, p. 140)? This
would also offer a space for studies on the construction and oper-
ation of other forms of accountability that contest neo-liberal ver-
sions (Kamuf, 2007; McKernan & McPhail, 2012).
Acknowledgements
Este estudio fue posible gracias a las personas en Guatemala y El
Salvador que compartieron conmigo sus experiencias. Les agra-
dezco su generosidad, paciencia, e intere
s. This paper benefited
from comments by Afshin Mehrpouya, Simon Granovsky-Larsen,
Keith Robson, Jeremy Morales, Eija Vinnari, Kari Lukka, Darlene
Himick, Sebastian Becker, and the participants at the 2012 AOS
workshop on Accounting, Non-governmental Organizations and
Civil Society, the 2014 Critical Perspectives on Accounting Confer-
ence, the 2015 EIASM New Directions in Management Accounting
conference, and those at seminars at the Universities of Saskatch-
ewan, Canada, and Turku, Finland. We would like to give special
thanks to the editors and the reviewers for their suggestions and
guidance. This study was financed by the Social Science and Hu-
manities Research Council (SSHRC) grant number 410-2010-0379.
Appendix A. List of interviews conducted 2010-11

Domestic organizations

# Organization-type Persons interviewed Trip # Interview #

NGOs
1 Popular education SV Executive director 1 1, 40
2 Rural development SV Executive director/project planner 1,2 2, 44
Accountant 1 13
3 Urban development SV Project designer /technician 1 4
Administrator 1 5
4 Women’s/feminist SV Project designer/coordinator 1 6
5 Administrative support SV Executive director 1 7
6 Rural development SV Accountant 1 9
Regional manager 1 11
Regional administrator/accountant 1,2 15, 41
7 Popular education SV Accountant 1 12
Project coordinator/designer/technician 2 43
8 Women/feminist SV Project/programme coordinator/technician 1 16
9 Under process of incorporation GT Director/manager 1 18
10 Democratic governance GT Executive director 1 21
11 Rural development GT Project coordinator 1 22
Accountant/administrator 1 23
12 Human rights GT Administrator 1 26
13 Campesino rural GT Project technician 1 27
14 NGO coordination/support GT Project coordinator 1,2 30, 58
15 Youth and arts GT Director/manager 1 31
16 Democratic governance GT Director 1 32
17 Women/feminist GT Founder/director 1 36
18 Displaced communities GT Senior manager 1,2 35, 53
19 NGO coordination/support GT Director 1,2 37, 52
20 Ecology/Agriculture GT Manager 1 55

Non-incorporated organizations
1 Human rights/youth GT Community organizer 1 25
2 Human rights/campesino GT Community organizer 2 62

Municipal government
1 International development office SV Manager 1 10
2 Arts and culture SV Manager 1 14

Consultants
1 Consulting firm GT Junior consultant 1 20
2 Independent consultant GT Senior consultant 1 24, 27
3 Consulting firm GT Senior consultant 2 50
4 Independent consultant GT Senior consultant 2 57

International Organizations

# Headquarters Person interviewed Trip # Interview #

International NGOs
1 Europe SV Director and project manager 1,2 3, 39
2 Europe SV Accountant/ administrator 1 17
3 North America GT Managers 1 19
4 Europe GT Project coordinator 1,2 36, 61
5 North America SV Director 2 47
6 Europe GT Programme manager (evaluation) 2 54
7 Europe GT Administrator 2 56
8 North America GT Director 2 59

International funding agencies

1 European bilateral agency SV Project coordinator 1 8
 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20 19

(continued )

Domestic organizations

# Organization-type Persons interviewed Trip # Interview #

Project administrator 2 42
2 European bilateral agency GT Executive director 1 29
3 European bilateral agency GT Project coordinator 1 33
4 North American bilateral agency GT Director 2 38
5 European bilateral agency SV Project coordinator 2 45
6 Multilateral agency SV Programme coordinator 2 46
7 Multilateral agency GT Monitoring & evaluation specialist 2 48
8 North American bilateral agency GT Senior manager 2 49
9 Multilateral agency GT Technician 2 51
10 Multilateral agency GT Programme manager 2 60

Appendix B. Changes in international funding in the region

Fig. 1. International Funding to Support National NGOs: Guatemala.

Source: AidData.org using data from the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System. The chart is based on a total of 100 projects from 15 funding organizations for a total of $24.5 million
from 1995 to 2011.

Fig. 2. International Funding to Support National NGOs: El Salvador.

Source: AidData.org using data from the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System. The chart is based on a total of 62 projects from 11 funding organizations for a total of $16.7 million from
1995 to 2009.
20 D.E. Martinez, D.J. Cooper / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 6e20

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Accounting, Organizations and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aos

Grassroots accountability promises in rights-based approaches to

development: The role of transformative monitoring and evaluation in
NGOs
Susan O’Leary
Monash University, Department of Accounting, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The aim of this study is to investigate the rights-based approach to development and how its embedded
Received 31 May 2013 promise of self-determination is enacted in the accountability relationships between NGOs and their
Received in revised form beneficiaries. In doing so, the study seeks to highlight accountability as a process that enacts a specified
27 April 2016
promise. This occurs not simply in terms of promising to provide an account of conduct or behaviour;
Accepted 14 June 2016
instead the promise can stem from moral responsibilities, ones which have transformational and societal
Available online 1 July 2016
implications, and initiate strategic choices (for example, appropriate accounting practices) regarding the
enactment of this promise (Brown & Moore, 2001; Dubnick, 2005). This conceptualisation of account-
Keywords:
NGO accountability
ability is proposed as particularly relevant in the context of rights-based NGOs as this development
Transformative learning approach has important moral, societal and strategic implications for the manner in which NGOs are
Grassroots monitoring and evaluation accountable to their beneficiaries. The study uses insights from transformative learning theory (Mezirow,
1978) to understand how the promise of self-determination is enacted in these accountability re-
lationships. It presents two case studies of NGOs e RuralLife and Unison - who sought to transform their
target communities into active, engaged and self-determined citizens with the support of grassroots
accountability practices of monitoring and evaluation.
Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction needs. In contrast, the implementation of a rights-based approach

This paper discusses the role of NGO accountability in the rights-
based approach to development. This developmental approach
focuses on assisting developing communities to assert their rights
to self-determination and the fulfilment of political, civil, economic
and social rights. It specifies that an NGO’s beneficiaries must come
to see themselves as ‘rights claimers’ within the entire develop-
ment landscape, and not just in relation to NGO services. This dif-
fers from traditional needs-based approaches which view
development as a need or a gift, motivated by and derived from
charitable intentions and patronage relationships, rather than a
reflection on rights. Needs-based approaches focus on fulfilling, for
example, healthcare or educational needs, yet stop short of
addressing structural conditions and policies that could make
systematic change (Brett, 2003; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi,
2004). Here, NGOs become accountable to both their beneficiaries
and the provider of funds for the effective fulfillment of these
E-mail address: susan.oleary@monash.edu.
induces NGOs to re-consider the manner in which they are
accountable to their beneficiaries. Of particular relevance in this
endeavour is their responsibility to facilitate the embedded
promise of self-determination within the rights-based approach.
Through the conduct of two case studies of NGOs in rural India, this
study analyses how this promise manifests itself in the account-
ability relationships NGOs have with their beneficiaries. It dem-
onstrates how these NGOs, with the support of specific grassroots
accountability mechanisms relating to monitoring and evaluation,
sought to transform individuals within their target communities
into self-determined citizens, and, as a result, initiate grassroots-
driven change.
Within the NGO accountability literature, the term social
accountability is often used to describe the accountability re-
lationships that NGOs have with their beneficiaries (O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2007). These studies have highlighted this form of
accountability, particularly what is termed downward account-
ability, as an endeavour in which the beneficiaries of NGOs are
afforded opportunities to participate in development activity. This
has resonance with studies in the broader accounting literature

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2016.06.002
0361-3682/Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
22 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
which have demonstrated the ‘possibilities’ of accountability
beyond what is considered to be its narrow and limiting manifes-
tations in hierarchical e mostly principal-agent e relationships
(McKernan, 2012; Roberts, 1991, 2009). As part of this, the role of
accountability in rights-based approaches to development has
received some attention. This has involved several studies high-
lighting participatory practices - such as grassroots planning,
monitoring and response mechanisms - as tools which enable a
focus on empowerment and self-determination amongst an NGO’s
target community (Agyemang, Awumbila, Unerman, & O’Dwyer,
2009; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2010; Unerman & O’Dwyer, 2010;
2012). In this sense, participation is often portrayed as the modus
operandi of social (in particular, downward) accountability prac-
tices. Yet the participatory accountability mechanisms that aid
these objectives have been found to be problematic, particularly in
terms of the inability of beneficiaries to articulate their authentic
and true interests within them in a meaningful and coherent
manner (Jayasinghe & Wickramasinghe, 2011; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2010). In addition, how rights-based discourses and
principles impact the way accountability is enacted internally or at
a grassroots level within NGOs has received limited attention to
date. When the literature has focused on the ability of external
factors to shape NGO accountability practices, this has been in
relation to how external bodies (such as financial donors, govern-
ments or oversight bodies) have shaped accountability priorities
and practices within NGOs (Dixon, Ritchie, & Siwale, 2006;
Goddard & Assad, 2006; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008). This focus
has prevailed even in studies where the case NGO has instigated a
rights-based approach in their development activities (O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2010).
The aim of this study is to investigate the rights-based approach
to development and how its embedded promise of self-
determination is enacted in the accountability relationships be-
tween NGOs and their beneficiaries. It seeks to highlight the
complementary and expanded purposes of NGO accountability,
beyond simply participatory practices to ones that focus more
succinctly on the transformation of societal conditions. Drawing on
Brown and Moore (2001), the study highlights accountability
within these relationships as a process that contains a moral
imperative to act in a certain way and deliver on a particular
promise. This imperative does not just involve promising that
designated actors will provide an account of activity and behaviour
to interested parties; it also involves a commitment to effect a
meaningful change within a certain context and/or an undertaking
to achieve certain outcomes (Dubnick, 2005). Brown and Moore
(2001) highlight how accountability efforts of this kind initiate
strategic choices regarding how certain promises will be fulfilled
and how outcomes will be derived. In investigating this con-
ceptualisation of accountability in the context of rights-based
NGOs, this study examines how the promise of self-
determination firstly, impacts the manner in which NGOs
perceive accountability relationships with their beneficiaries and,
secondly, initiates strategic choices regarding how accountability
priorities within these relationships are fulfilled and materially
enacted in distinct patterns of accounting practice.
Overall, the study seeks to answer the following research
question: how do NGO accountability practices e and the ac-
counting tools embedded within them - support and facilitate the
self-determination of individuals and communities at the grassroots
level. The study also recognises the real and pervasive nature of
other accountability pressures that NGOs face, for example, the
priorities associated with maintaining steady streams of funding,
and ensuring organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Prior
literature has documented how these priorities frequently over-
shadow more socialising forms of accountability or can combine
with them in a holistic or adaptive manner (O’Dwyer & Boomsma,
2015; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008). This study also questions how
social accountability practices that focus on self-determination,
relate to the more strategic accountability priorities that exist
within NGOs.
Insights from transformative learning theory are employed to
understand how the promise of self-determination embedded in
grassroots accountability is enacted. The notion of transformative
learning, theorised initially by Mezirow (1978), constitutes a pro-
cess in which there is a paradigmatic shift in the world views or
‘meaning perspectives’ of individuals and communities (Clark &
Wilson, 1991; Collard & Law, 1989; Duveskog, Friis-Hansen, &
Taylor, 2011). It is a process in which individuals learn to recognise
their culturally induced dependency roles and, as a result, take
actions to overcome them. Expansions of Mezirow’s theory have
subsequently highlighted that transformative learning can take
many different forms in practice, with variations in the extent to
which wider socio-economic and political structures form part of
the transformative process (Clark & Wilson, 1991; Collard & Law,
1989). Within an NGO context in this study, this variation was
found to manifest itself in the differential approaches NGOs take to
rights-based processes which, to date, have been presented as a
mostly singular approach within the accounting literature. Findings
demonstrated how these differential approaches were supported
by patterns of grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices that
provided a variety of transformative learning opportunities. This
represents a unique theoretical framing in relation to monitoring
and evaluation practices, particularly in the context of NGOs. Pre-
vious literature in this area has focused on the use of these practices
internally within NGOs (Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2013, 2014) and
externally in accountability relationships with financial donors
(Goddard & Assad, 2006; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2007, 2008).
The proposed contribution of this study is twofold. First, it seeks
to add to the accounting literature that highlights the ‘possibilities’
of accountability by providing further insights into what these
possibilities might be. Specifically, it highlights the ability of
accountability to be conceptualised as a process which enacts a
specified promise; in particular, a promise which can have trans-
formational and societal implications (Brown & Moore, 2001).
Second, the study seeks to highlight the expanded purpose of social
accountability within NGOs in terms of its transformative potential
at the grassroots. In doing so, it links the promises embedded in
NGO accountability efforts to broader rights-based discourses and
values. It investigates how accountability mechanisms, specifically
those related to grassroots monitoring and evaluation, support
transformative learning within NGOs’ varied rights-based devel-
opment approaches. Therefore, it also extends the literature in
relation to monitoring and evaluation practices in NGOs by
demonstrating an expanded and unique purpose for these practices
at a grassroots and beneficiary level.
The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows: an overview of
how accountability in NGO settings has been conceptualised in
previous literature is provided, followed by a discussion of trans-
formative learning theory and alternative manifestations of rights-
based approaches. Research methods are outlined followed by
details of the case study findings. Finally, discussion of these find-
ings and concluding comments are made.
2. NGO accountability
In recent years, there has been an abundance of interest in the
accountability of NGOs (see for example, Agyemang, et al., 2009;
Awio, Northcott, & Lawrence, 2011; O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015;
O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2007, 2008). This literature mostly focuses
on the relationship between NGOs and donors of funds, a process
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
commonly referred to as upward accountability (Ebrahim, 2003;
Everett & Friesen, 2010; O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015). Typically
research in this area focuses on the problematic implications of this
form of accountability, in particular the fact that accounting tools,
such as performance appraisals and audits, are often only impor-
tant in terms of hierarchical oversight of NGO activity (Goddard &
Assad, 2006; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008). Several studies within
the broader accounting literature have attempted to understand
other possibilities for accountability practice beyond what is
considered to be these narrow and limiting manifestations (Cooper
& Johnston, 2012; Messner, 2009). These further ‘possibilities’ were
put forward by Roberts (1991) in his promotion of a more social-
ising form of accountability which can be stimulated by social
interaction outside formal hierarchical structures. Studies in this
area retain a conceptualisation of accountability as an account-
giving practice, yet demonstrate that this account can exist
beyond its manifestation in hierarchical principal-agent relation-
ships. It can be morally owed (Roberts, 2009), offered as a testi-
mony or a gift (McKernan, 2012), or, in an NGO context, focus on
how an NGO is contributing to society, with input from benefi-
ciaries and community stakeholders (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2007).
Within NGO accountability studies, downward accountability to
beneficiaries is posited as the main example of social forms of
accountability (Najam, 1996; O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015; O’Dwyer
& Unerman, 2008, 2007). This has been predominantly presented
as a participatory tool, with several studies investigating attempts
by NGOs to include the interests of grassroots communities within
the provision of accounts (Awio et al., 2011; Dixon et al., 2006;
O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2010). This can involve the dissemination of
findings to beneficiaries, the use of participatory reviews,
beneficiary-focused complaint and response mechanisms, stake-
holder focus groups, and social auditing practices (Agyemang et al.,
2009; Awio et al., 2011; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008, 2010). From an
organisational perspective, downward accountability practices
allow NGOs to become more responsive to the self-defined needs of
beneficiaries and improve the way in which aid is delivered
(Agyemang et al., 2009; Dixon et al., 2006; O’Dwyer & Unerman,
2008, 2010). Such benefits have been described as the ‘strategic’
or ‘populist’ benefits of downward accountability, insofar as they
provide NGOs with information to increase their efficiency and
effectiveness (Agyemang et al., 2009; Hickey & Mohan, 2004).
Despite these proposed benefits, the implementation of down-
ward accountability has been found to be fraught with complica-
tions. For example, several studies highlight how beneficiary input
is often used to inform NGO activity, but not to influence its
implementation (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008), or is merely used in
narrative form in upward accountability reports to donors
(Agyemang et al., 2009; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2010). Other studies
have found accountability practices to be hampered by the fact that
they are not translated or tailored to the needs of beneficiary
communities (Chew & Greer, 1997; Gibson, 2000; Jacobs, 2000). In
particular, several studies highlight a lack of engagement amongst
beneficiary communities (Agyemang et al., 2009; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2010), with findings indicating that beneficiaries are
often reluctant to question or criticise NGOs for fear of “biting the
hand that feeds them” (Unerman & O’Dwyer, 2010, p. 481).
Furthermore, Jayasinghe and Wickramasinghe (2011) find that
dominant actors within beneficiary communities often use partic-
ipatory processes to pursue their own agendas, thereby allowing
social relations to be reproduced under what was intended to be an
emancipatory process.
These studies indicate that participatory accountability mech-
anisms can be redundant when they are misaligned with the re-
alities of beneficiary communities, particularly when they neglect
the capabilities and embedded logics that beneficiaries possess,
23
and the power relations that shape them. In response, several
studies conclude that enhanced accounting practices are needed to
increase the level of participation within downward accountability
practice, hone the methodologies involved, and ensure they are
scaled up and diversified (for example, Agyemang et al., 2009). Yet
what has not been analysed is whether these increased opportu-
nities for participation will contribute to core components of
rights-based approaches to development or whether they will
simply reproduce or perpetuate, on a larger scale, the problems
highlighted in the literature above. Despite the focus of several
studies on the rights-based approach (Agyemang et al., 2009;
O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2010; Unerman & O’Dwyer, 2012), what is
lacking in their investigations is how increased opportunities for
participation (through downward accountability practices)
contribute (if it all) to the core promises of this development
approach.
Rights-based NGOs typically perceive themselves to be working
alongside rights holders rather than working on behalf of benefi-
ciaries, (Harris-Curtis, Marleyn, & Bakewell, 2005). This represents
a fundamentally different way of thinking about how an NGO is
accountable to its beneficiaries in comparison to the needs-based
approach where NGOs focus on service-delivery. In particular,
NGOs become accountable for the enactment of the self-
determination promise embedded within the rights-based
approach. This revised conceptualisation of accountability has
resonance with an understanding of accountability as a process that
facilitates the enactment of a specified promise; a promise that can
have “assumed transformational implications for the situation in
which it is applied” (Dubnick, 2005, p. 381). This is where:
an actor (whether an individual or an organization) is
“accountable” when that actor recognizes that it has made a
promise to do something and accepted a moral and legal re-
sponsibility to do its best to fulfil that promise (Brown & Moore,
2001, p. 570, emphasis added)
According to Brown and Moore (2001), the type of programme
an NGO implements (for example, service delivery, capacity
building, political advocacy or otherwise), and the legal, moral,
ethical and political promises embodied within this programme,
will have an important influence on accountability relationships
with particular stakeholders. They propose that viewing account-
ability as a promise necessitates that strategic choices are made
regarding the mechanisms that will facilitate the enactment of this
promise. This is of interest from an accounting perspective as
particular accounting practices can become an intrinsic part of the
accountability effort itself, supporting and facilitating the realisa-
tion of certain promises and responsibilities.
This study proposes that the relationship between NGO
accountability practice and the self-determination promise implied
in rights-based approaches has been under investigated in the
literature. As a result, it proposes a re-conceptualisation of
accountability, particularly in the context of rights-based NGOs, by
highlighting it as a process that enacts a specified promise. This
occurs not simply in terms of promising to provide an account of
conduct; instead the promise stems from moral responsibilities
which can have transformational and societal implications, and
initiate strategic choices (for example, appropriate accounting
practices) regarding the enactment of this promise (Brown &
Moore, 2001; Dubnick, 2005). The notion of transformation and
how it is enacted is explored in the next section.
3. Transformative learning
Undertaking a rights-based approach necessitates that NGOs
24 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
consider how the underlying components of this approach impact
the manner in which they administer development programmes
and how they influence accountability relationships with various
stakeholders (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). In particular,
the self-determination agenda of the rights-based approach in-
fluences the manner in which NGOs are accountable to their ben-
eficiaries. They are no longer simply accountable for the effective
roll-out of needs-based services; nor is participation in these ser-
vices a sufficient accountability tool. As highlighted by Mertens
(1999), organisational practices that allow the less powerful
active participation in, for example, planning and evaluation pro-
cesses, are essential elements of any credible social development
programme. However, the presence of these practices does not
necessarily mean that these participants will, in the process of
participation, be transformed and given the necessary tools for self-
determination. Therefore, although participation is a crucial
element of transformation, it is not necessarily conducive of
enhanced abilities for self-determination (Mertens, 1999). Self-
determination is considered to be:
…the ability to chart one’s own course in life …. [including] the
ability to identify and express needs, establish goals or expec-
tations and a plan of action to achieve them, identify resources,
make rational choices from various alternative courses of action,
take appropriate steps to pursue objectives, evaluate short-and
long-term results (including reassessing plans and expectations
and taking necessary detours), and persist in the pursuit of
those goals. It involves the total regulation of an individual’s
own life (Fetterman, 1994, p. 2).
Acquiring emancipatory knowledge of this kind is said to
involve a deeply transformative journey of critical questioning,
either of the self and/or the social systems in which one lives
(Cranton & Roy, 2003; Pettit & Musyoki, 2004). This process of
transformative learning represents for many NGO beneficiaries an
entirely new way of thinking about themselves and duty holders in
their communities, and their relative positions in relation to each
other. Drawing on critical theorists such as Habermas (1971, 1981)
and Freire (1970), it represents a distinctly constructivist
approach to human development. It assumes that meaning exists
within individuals based on their life experiences, which in turn,
provides the basis for established belief systems (Nazzari,
McAdams, & Roy, 2005). These belief systems will reproduce
particular patterns of action within communities which can be
continuously reinforced through shared cultural practices
(Duveskog et al., 2011). For example, in Jayasinghe and
Wickramasinghe’s (2011, p. 406) study of a Sri Lankan fishing
village, powerful fish merchants and local government officials
dictated socio-economic and political dynamics in the community.
The poor were accustomed to these structures and unconsciously
allowed them to perpetuate unchallenged. In this sense, cultural
and political logics were constantly reproduced and internalised.
In response to contexts of this kind, the concept of trans-
formative learning was first introduced by Mezirow (1990, p. 14),
who defined it as:
the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our
presuppositions have come to constrain the way we perceive,
understand, and feel about our world; of reformulating these
assumptions to permit a more inclusive, discriminating,
permeable, and integrative perspective; and of making de-
cisions or otherwise acting on these new understandings.
In contrast, non-transformative learning reinforces prevailing
structures of beliefs and adds to them with increased skills and
knowledge. For example, in an NGO context, opportunities for
participation may exist within the implementation of development
programmes, yet such opportunities are not cognisant of the ability
and capacities of individuals to engage within them in a way that
initiates transformative learning. In particular, these participatory
opportunities may not provide the opportunity for questioning the
validity of the assumptions that make up an individual’s worldview
(Kiely, Sandmann, & Truluck, 2004; Wilson & Kiely, 2002). In
contrast, transformative learning seeks to ensure that participation
brings about a change in individuals’ basic frames of reference and
creates the conditions for ‘perspective transformation’ or a shift in
world views. Transformative learning involves making sense of
experience yet is differentiated from everyday learning or non-
transformative learning as follows:
Normally, when we learn something, we attribute an old
meaning to a new experience …. In transformative learning,
however, we reinterpret the old experience (or a new one) from
a new set of expectations, thus giving a new meaning and
perspective to the old experience (Mezirow, 1991, p. 11).
Within the accounting literature, Saravanamuthu (2015) ex-
plores how transformative learning can be applied to undergrad-
uate accounting courses to instil a sustainability focus to students’
education. Transformative learning is also particularly suited to the
development contexts of NGOs in which radical change and self-
determination of societies and individuals are often sought
(Taylor, 2007). For example, Duveskog et al. (2011) examined
farmer field schools in Kenya, which used comparative experiments
and discovery-based activities that promoted participation, group
dialogue and critical reflection. These tools allowed farmers to not
only participate in new agricultural techniques but also to discuss
their preconceived beliefs in relation to the role of women in
farming, myths and taboos regarding crop failure, and links be-
tween the farmers’ quality of life and their perceptions of them-
selves, their lack of confidence and sense of fatalism. Perspective
transformation was evident in changes in how participants made
sense of farming practices and of their lives in general, resulting in
“an increase in confidence, greater individual agency, a stronger
work ethic and commitment to farming, an improved outlook on
life, and a greater emphasis on planning and analysis in farming”
(Duveskog et al., 2011, p. 1535). In this sense, ontological shifts
occur when participants “experience a change in their being in the
world including their forms of relatedness” (Lange, 2004, p. 137)
and epistemological shifts occur where participants change the
very form by which they construct their meaning (Kegan, 2000).
Several studies have sought to extend the boundaries of what
transformative learning actually entails. In doing so, a second
generation of transformative learning has emerged, one that is at
times more political in intent and also attuned to the contextual
influences and power dynamics at play within the transformative
process (Clark & Wilson, 1991; Merriam & Ntseane, 2008; Percy,
2005; Wilson & Kiely, 2002). Mezirow’s first generation theory
assumes an individual can be transformed through an inherently
psychological process of acknowledging and reassessing their
individualised “epistemic or psycho-cultural presuppositions”
(Mezirow, 1988, p. 226). This is thought to give too much attention
to the individual at the expense of understanding this individual as
being subsumed within a variety of historical and socio-cultural
contexts (Taylor, 2007). Second generation studies tend to incor-
porate, within the transformative learning process, a socio-political
or even radical critique. In doing so several studies have sought to
initiate a comprehensive theory of social change that is more
aligned with the critical ideologies of Habermas and Freire upon
which transformative theory is based (Collard & Law, 1989; Hart,
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
1990). Studies of this kind seek to address distortions in the
development of the individual and their community, yet the dis-
tortions are systemic distortions caused by oppressive conditions
and the acts of powerful others, and not a distortion of the indi-
vidual themselves. In this sense, second generation studies focus on
perspective transformations that are more attuned to a direct
criticism and engagement with economic, social, and political ar-
rangements, and the power they wield in particular contexts.
Bearing in mind the importance of context, however, second
generation studies do not necessarily suggest that Mezirow’s form
of perspective transformation is irrelevant. Instead they urge con-
siderations of the prevailing context in order to determine whether
transformative learning will be sought at an individual level or at a
broader socio-political level.1 Taylor (2007) discusses the need to
recognise the pedagogical entry points within which certain types
of transformative learning will be perceived as appropriate and
how these can be matched with tools that will support these
different types of learning environments. Tools such as the grass-
roots monitoring and evaluation practices of NGOs - that are
implemented in support of a self-determination agenda e often
share many of the same anticipated goals and outcomes as the
pedagogical tools associated with transformative learning. These
include the “application of problem-solving strategies, the pro-
motion of reflection and group dialogue, engagement of active
pedagogy rooted in cultural practices and the importance of
fostering initiatives among participants” (Taylor, Duveskog, & Friis-
Hansen, 2012, p. 726). Actions of this kind represent short- and
medium-term milestones within broader social goals of trans-
formation and self-determination. Achieving or mastering these e
for example, acquiring problem-solving skillse can be intrinsically
empowering, giving NGO beneficiaries and communities the “sense
that their agency is real and waiting to be galvanised” (Brookfield,
2012, p. 879).
This study examines the use of monitoring and evaluation
practices as elements of NGO accountability practice, and how they
support different patterns (either first or second generations) of
transformative learning. It seeks to investigate how the different
understandings attached to rights-based approaches to develop-
ment, in particular, can be supported by variations in the grassroots
monitoring and evaluation practices that support transformative
learning opportunities. These variations of rights-based approaches
are explored in the next section.
4. Rights-based approaches to development
Despite the fact that many NGOs today now view the rights-
based model as a superior approach to development, there has
been no single, universally agreed rights-based approach, although
there may be some consensus on its basic constituent elements
(Gready, 2009; UNHCR, 2001). NGOs that employ a focus on human
rights tend to do so to differing degrees of emphasis, scope and
content within their respective development programmes
(McInerney-Lankford & Sano, 2010). Although O’Dwyer and
Unerman (2010) acknowledge this point, the potential for multi-
ple manifestations of this approach to exist in practice has not been
considered or empirically investigated in the literature to date. It is
proposed here that understandings of transformative learning, as a
focus for the self-determination promises embedded in NGO
1
Several studies have asserted, for example, that individuals who have reached a
certain level of development and already possess characteristics such as self-
directedness, assertiveness, self-confidence and self-esteem will be more
amenable to the types of transformation promoted in second generation theories
(see for example, Lange, 2004).
25
accountability, can often be associated with how NGOs differen-
tially conceive their role within the rights-based development
landscape.
D’Hollander, Marx, and Wouters (2013) propose a typology of
the varied means through which human rights can be integrated
within development activity, spanning from rhetorical or non-
explicit endorsement of human rights through to a full and
meaningful focus on rights in a human rights-based approach. In
between, they propose variations of rights-based approaches
including human rights democracy programmes and human rights
mainstreaming approaches. Human rights democracy programmes
are frequently associated with efforts to increase democratic
governance within particular grassroots communities (WB/OECD,
2013). As a result, they are mainly focused on the realisation of
political and civil rights as opposed to economic, social and cultural
rights, although the fulfilment of this latter category of rights is
often promoted as a consequence of a more democratically gov-
erned society. This is often facilitated through building the capacity
of community organisations and civil society groups, providing
human rights training and education, and supporting reform of
legal and governmental institutions. This approach seeks inher-
ently political (second generation) transformative learning
amongst its participants, and service delivery of social pro-
grammes, for example, relating to health or education, does not
often feature as a core component of it (D’Hollander et al., 2013).
In contrast, the mainstreaming of human rights represents a
conscious effort on behalf of NGOs to comprehensively integrate
human rights principles into development work and enable a
broader consideration of their implications beyond the arena of
political governance. This frequently manifests itself in a concen-
tration on particular sub-groups of human rights such as women’s
or children’s rights to ensure they are afforded sufficient attention
within development activity. Examples include the normative and
conceptual mainstreaming of non-discrimination and gender
equality within health and education programmes (WB/OECD,
2013). Service-delivery can, therefore, be a core component of the
mainstreaming approach, yet it differs from charitable or need-
based development approaches insofar as the delivering of these
services are “intended to support the planning, management and
leadership of the poor and disenfranchised as protagonists and
active members of society” (Chapman, Miller, Soares, & Samuel,
2005, p. 35). Transformative learning here tends to be at a more
individual (first generation) level as participants become ‘pro-
tagonists’ of their own development within these service-based
initiatives.
D’Hollander et al. (2013) propose that the various approaches
can be viewed as a ‘policy menu’ or an overview of possible stra-
tegies NGOs can take with regards to human rights. There are many
NGOs that choose to focus on just one approach, often in recogni-
tion of the complementary work carried out by other NGOs, in
support of an overall rights-based approach to development. This
study, in seeking to examine the transformative learning potential
of the accountability practices embodied in these alternative ap-
proaches, demonstrates two NGO cases in which rights-based ap-
proaches took distinctly altered patterns of use. This is discussed in
the proceeding sections.
5. Research method
Case studies were conducted of two development projects (from
separate NGOs e RuralLife and Unison2) in rural villages in India.
2
These names are pseudonyms, by agreement with the organizations.
26 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
They were chosen due to their self-proclaimed focus on empow-
ering local communities through a deployment of rights in their
development initiatives. There was, however, differing degrees of
emphasis, scope and content in the deployment of the rights-based
approach within their respective development programmes.
RuralLife took a mainstreaming approach to rights with a particular
focus on women’s rights. Unison undertook a human democracy
approach which de-emphasised service delivery and instead
focused on creating politically active and engaged communities.
This led to corresponding variations in their grassroots account-
ability practices and the manner in which beneficiaries participated
in them.
The researcher spent four weeks in each of the NGOs’ target
communities and became immersed within the respective projects,
working daily in the NGO local offices, interviewing staff and
community members, and observing meetings and day-to-day
work practices within the NGO office and local community. The
researcher was accompanied by a translator at all times, who
clearly understood the aims, focus and potential lines of enquiry of
the research. The intention of the fieldwork was to get as close as
possible to the accountability practices of grassroots monitoring
and evaluation. It sought to examine the types of practices that
were implemented, as well as how they were used, interpreted and
acted upon, both by NGO staff and importantly the community.
Conversations with the community were conducted mostly on
an informal basis using a conversational and relaxed style of
questioning. This involved listening to accounts of their lives before
the development intervention and the changes the intervention
brought about both in tangible terms (increases in income, edu-
cation status, attainment of health services etc.), and intangible
terms (abilities to confront and demand change). The advice of
Mayoux (1998, p. 41) was taken into account, however, insofar as
participants of studies on empowerment may:
not know or recall the particular information required….may
also be unwilling to divulge information because of lack of time
and/or anticipation of the consequences…may overstate or
understate impacts…[and]changes in their lives.
Participants were not overwhelmed with long and complex lists
of questions, nor were short open-ended questions used, as re-
sponses to these tended to be short and vague, and as a result,
difficult to interpret (Mayoux, 1998). Instead, much of the richness
of the data came from a spontaneous and naturalistic approach of
engaging in unprompted conversations and observing interactions
between NGO staff and community members, and how various
accountability practices seemed to impact beneficiaries’ lives.
These documented observations totalled 65 and 54 typed pages for
RuralLife and Unison respectively.
Senior managers were also formally interviewed using a semi-
structured format: eleven in RuralLife and seven in Unison.3 They
ranged from approximately thirty minutes to two hours in length,
as detailed in Appendix 1. In RuralLife, not all of the interviews were
recorded at the request of interviewees, and as a result, detailed
notes were taken by the researcher. The on-site fieldwork was
complemented by weekly interactions (informal conversations,
and observations of meetings and day-to-day work practices) with
the developed country offices of the two NGOs over an 18-month
period. Finally, an extensive review of the NGOs’ documentation
3
The smaller number of interviewees in Unison reflected its smaller size.
However, the amount of interviews conducted represented theoretical saturation;
that is to the point where no additional category of relevance emerged from an
additional interview (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
was undertaken, including information that was both publicly
available (annual reports, website information and press releases)
and for internal use (strategic planning documents, project reports,
project guidelines, funding applications, policy directives, training
manuals, committee reports, minutes of meetings, internal memos,
and e-mail communications). This amounted to approximately 100
separate documents for RuralLife and 200 for Unison.
Analysis of the data took place over the entire 18-month data
collection period. During this time, categories of relevance began to
emerge. On completion of the field work, transcripts of interviews,
field notes, reflective memos and relevant documentation were
compiled into a research log for each respective NGO. Case study
analysis aimed to use this empirical study material in a process of
problematisation (Alvesson & Kӓrreman, 2007; Alvesson &
Sandberg, 2011). This method of analysis stimulates a dialogue
between theory, extant literature and empirical material. It ulti-
mately aims to uncover theoretically plausible propositions that
will challenge pre-understandings and expectations within the
prior literature (in this case within the field of NGO accountability).
The researcher, therefore, sought to encounter and construct
‘breakdowns’ in understanding within the empirical material.
These occurred when certain empirical findings or observations
could not be accounted for given the prevailing literature and
theoretical insights within the academic research on NGO
accountability.
Early on in the fieldwork this manifested itself in the fact that
the researcher observed that the underlying principles of
accountability practice (which impacted the types of accounting
practices used in these settings) were different to how they had
previously been conceptualised in the literature. Previous literature
had portrayed these practices as tools of beneficiary participation
or mechanisms of accountability between NGO and their benefi-
ciaries. This was observed to be only partially relevant to the
empirical context of NGO accountability within RuralLife and Uni-
son, ignoring or under-representing many of the multi-faceted
meanings contained within their accountability practices (Lukka
& Modell, 2010). It was observed that these practices were more
nuanced in nature as they additionally sought, in a variety of
different ways, to initiate transformative learning by virtue of their
use. Therefore, transformative learning theory (and variations of it
under various rights-based approaches to development) was found
to have a strong and consistent explanatory potential for the case
study’s observations and research themes. These themes were
subsequently built into narrative form, and were re-visited and re-
drafted several times to refine their descriptive and theoretically
important suppositions (Llewellyn, 1996; O’Sullivan & O’Dwyer,
2009).
6. Findings
This section discusses the two case study NGOs e RuralLife and
Unison e and the grassroots accountability practices employed by
them which sought to support transformative learning opportu-
nities within their target communities. Findings highlight how
understandings of transformative learning between the NGOs
differed, often substantially, depending on the core focus of the
NGO, the type of attention it afforded to rights in its development
efforts and the categories of rights that it focused on. RuralLife
adopted a human rights mainstreaming approach whereby
women’s rights, in particular, were infused into the organisation’s
development programmes. This also resulted in the creation of a
stand-alone programme with a specific focus on furthering
women’s rights on a number of key dimensions, most saliently
economic and social inclusion. Unison, in contrast, initiated a hu-
man rights democracy programme which sought to change the
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
contours of accountability in the broader socio-economic and po-
litical context of their target communities, and create active and
engaged citizens in the arena of democratic governance.
Findings show that the accounting practices embedded in
grassroots accountability practices within these NGOs e specif-
ically, in relation to monitoring and evaluation e differed in
emphasis and content in support of these alternative rights-based
approaches and the types of perspective transformations that
were sought as part of them. Additionally, the extent to which the
transformative purposes of these accountability practices com-
bined with their more strategic purposes were also found to differ
according to the approach the NGO took within the rights-based
landscape of development practice. These two cases will now be
elaborated on in greater detail.
6.1. RuralLife
RuralLife is a large development NGO, employing over two
hundred staff and a further one hundred volunteers. Its main
geographical focus is a large rural region of India which, despite
much of India’s economic growth in recent years, has not devel-
oped at a comparable rate. This has been due to the fact that basic
government services such as health, education, sanitation and
infrastructure have failed to reach the area; a common reality for
many rural and remote regions of India. Combined with a lack of job
opportunities, limited social services, monocrop cultivation, an
absence of industry and havoc caused by frequent natural disasters,
these realities render the people of this region extremely vulner-
able and economically unsecure. As described by the Programme
Co-Ordinator for Women’s Empowerment, they have to “fight for
their everyday existence”. Acute illiteracy means they often have
strong beliefs in destructive taboos, beliefs and practices, including
incidences of underage marriage, the payment of dowries4 and
reliance on unlicensed medical practitioners. Furthermore, many
are forced towards migration to metropolitan regions in search of
livelihood and employment. Often amongst these are children and
school drop-outs, thereby increasing the incidence of child labour.
As a result, RuralLife conducts development programmes on a
range of issues including health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hy-
giene, education, protection, livelihood, women’s empowerment,
the environment and disaster response. Its vision is empowerment
through the fulfilment of basic human rights and participation. It
undertakes a diverse range of development projects, including
building hospitals and schools, running health camps, and
providing agricultural training to rural farmers. One of the largest
development programmes is the Women’s Empowerment pro-
gramme, which focuses predominantly on micro-finance initia-
tives. It adopts a self-help group model - a common model for
micro-finance activity, particularly in India. This involves the
mobilisation and organisation of the community into hundreds of
self-help groups, which constitute small economically homoge-
neous groups of women. Micro-finance activity is the main focus of
these groups, with RuralLife initiating a range of activities within
them including capital formation through savings, loans to estab-
lish micro-enterprise, provision of emergency loans, and links with
other development initiatives of the organisation - all aimed at the
social development and empowerment of women. The programme
is closely linked to RuralLife’s livelihood programmes, which help
women derive use from the micro-finance opportunities by
4
The payment of dowries is considered to be a major contributor towards
violence against women in India. This can involve torture and harassment, domestic
violence, encouragement of suicide and, in extreme cases, bride burning, acid at-
tacks and murder.
27
developing viable and sustainable livelihood options to improve
their quality of life. In this manner, RuralLife provides technical
training and support in relation to micro-enterprise options such as
poultry farming, goat rearing, and vegetable cultivation. These
women’s empowerment initiatives are the main focus of discussion
in this section.
6.1.1. Mainstreaming of women’s rights
As highlighted above, there was a conscious effort within
RuralLife to integrate and mainstream specific human rights prin-
ciples and agendas within the organisation’s development work.
This manifested itself in an intense concentration on women’s
rights and gender equality, aimed at improving the position of
women in RuralLife’s target communities. This involved ensuring a
focus on women’s rights was afforded sufficient attention within
development projects whereby human rights principles of non-
discrimination and gender equality became part of the pre-
requisites and organising principles for many of RuralLife’s devel-
opment programmes. Additionally, part of this gender
mainstreaming approach involved focusing specifically on areas
where there were rights denials or indeed violations in relation to
women. This resulted in the instituting of specific development
interventions targeted at women that would fulfil a number of their
previously neglected or denied rights, and seek to remedy or pre-
vent rights violations against them. The Women’s Empowerment
programme constituted one such initiative. Although RuralLife had
previously been involved with programmes that benefitted
women, the creation of a separate programme based on women’s
empowerment and rights provided greater visibility and synergy
within the organisation on the importance of women’s rights.
The programme began in 1995 when it was observed that
women within RuralLife’s target communities were socially mar-
ginalised and as a result, extremely vulnerable. Several in-
terviewees attributed this to women being denied basic human
rights, with little or no access to healthcare and education, and no
ownership of land or livelihood opportunities. In particular, in-
terviewees highlighted the fact that women previously had no
opportunity to save money or obtain credit, due to the long dis-
tances they had to travel to the nearest bank. This was said to be
beyond the abilities of most women due to their responsibilities as
mothers and wives, and relatedly, the dominance of men at the
community and household level:
In the Indian context, the societal context is this: …. the problem
is capital intensive, because the financial control [is] in the hand
of the male partner of the family. So the woman partner totally
depends on their male partner. In case of a health hazard, for
example, there is no priority of the woman; the male partner is
the topmost priority of the family…this is the mega constraint of
our community [Regional Manager].
Inaccessibility and isolation from basic rights such as healthcare,
education and lines of credit were seen to maintain, and define as
normal, social practices such as child labour, underage marriage
and dowry obligations. Communities were inclined to such prac-
tices and belief systems that were counter-productive to the
fulfilment of the social and economic rights of women and children,
and made choices that were antithetical to the protection of these
rights. This was described by the Programme Co-ordinator for Ed-
ucation whilst reflecting on the causes of and solutions to child
labour:
Children often demand their educational materials from their
mother. So if the mother cannot fulfil this requirement, the child
can be discouraged from their education, they may drop out
28 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
from their education, they go outside for a job and they engage
in child labour. So if mother can fulfil their daily requirement of
education, then the education status of the family as well as the
society …can develop. If Mother has some money she can pro-
vide support for the children education [sic].
RuralLife strongly promoted the idea that if micro-finance fa-
cilities were provided to women, they would then have an oppor-
tunity to overcome perceived social-ills and rights violations,
financially contribute to their households and become involved in
the economic decision-making processes within them. As a result,
it was observed that self-help group meetings tended to centre on
discussions regarding savings accruals, loan disbursements and
repayments. The self-help group structure, therefore, as described
by the Programme Co-ordinator for Women’s Empowerment,
represented:
the platform to organise women for their empowerment and
rights fulfilment. And financial sustainability is one of the main
aspects of this. If they [women] are financially sustainable, they
can decide for their own [sic], for their health, the education of
their children …. and their united action towards developing
society.
In this sense, the overall intention of Rural Life’s Women’s
Empowerment programme, as part of its gender mainstreaming
and non-discrimination efforts, was to transform women into
economic citizens within their communities, capable of acting
independently and competently in relation to the management of
financing opportunities and also increasing their entrepreneurial
capabilities. This was described by the Programme Co-ordinator for
Livelihood, as follows:
We are particularly now focusing on the trade basis, production
units for financial independence, for generation of extra income
… the trade will be owned by the woman, and will be managed
and controlled by the woman. Because if the production or the
investment is controlled by the men, so then it will create a
problem again. We will become in the year 1994 [before the
start of the Women’s Empowerment programme] again where
women have no rights [sic].
RuralLife sought to transform culturally defined and entrenched
stereotypes relating to gender roles within the community. To do
so, it encouraged the transformation of individual meaning per-
spectives of women to take on enhanced roles in their households
and communities, roles they previously had deemed themselves to
be incapable of as they had been the purview of men only. Those
‘transformed’ by participation in the programme were considered
to be more self-reliant in terms of the opportunities available to
them to engage in economically productive activity. There was a
key emphasis on developing what various interviewees described
as “savings and entrepreneurial attitudes” amongst women, and by
extension, attitudes that were seen to be associated with the
attainment of increased economic rights, for example “health-
seeking attitudes”. This was done by creating capabilities amongst
women to assume leadership, financial management, and group
conflict-resolution roles within the community through their
participation in the self-help group process. The main aspects of
this participatory process are now discussed.
6.1.2. Participation in the Women’s empowerment programme
Participation in the Women’s Empowerment programme oper-
ated through a three-tier system of governance. The bottom tier
represented the self-help groups themselves. Multiple groups of
between ten and twenty women were formed in each village. A
cluster for each village was also formed, consisting of the elected
group leaders of each group. Finally, representatives from each
cluster were elected to a federation of which there were four in
total.
Each self-help group elected a group leader whose function was
to encourage and educate other group members on micro-finance
issues, record group resolutions, and maintain a ledger of group
loans, savings, interest, service charges and so forth. Participation in
these groups was voluntary, as was engagement with the micro-
finance activities; that is women did not have to join a self-help
group in order to participate in for example, RuralLife’s health
and education initiatives; nor was there a requirement that all
members of self-help groups had to avail of micro-finance oppor-
tunities. Indeed it was observed that many women joined self-help
groups for the social aspect of group membership or to receive
information on other RuralLife initiatives. Self-help group meetings
frequently represented a means of sharing stories and concerns
about their families, personal lives and community, and supporting
each other in times of difficulty. These included discussions related
to health, education, child-birth, water sanitation, domestic
violence as well as concerns regarding the productive use of loans
and savings. Many of these issues are culturally sensitive and, in the
absence of the self-help groups, women would rarely have an op-
portunity to discuss them. One self-help group member in
describing this social aspect of self-help group meetings, laughingly
and fondly recounted that: “we even discuss our family problems in
meetings, how we are, how we are with our husbands, our children, or
even our daughter-in-laws!” These discussions were highly valued
and fostered a high degree of team spirit, bonding, trust and social
capital, which made the ‘business’ side of the meetings significantly
easier.
RuralLife had limited interaction with the self-help groups
except on an ad-hoc basis, for example, where there was a problem
with loan repayment5 or where information regarding particular
RuralLife initiatives needed to be imparted. Any problems identi-
fied at the group level that could not be resolved were referred to
associated clusters and/or federations. Observations revealed that
this tended to happen on a regular basis with problems pertaining
to loan repayments dominating most cluster and federation
meetings. Whilst group leaders undertook bookkeeping functions
within their groups, final approval for the disbursement of a loan
and decisions regarding defaulters were decided upon and actioned
in the upper tiers of the self-help group structure. The federations,
in particular, held significant management authority with regards
to the lower tiers. They signed-off on all loans that were disbursed;
made all major decisions with regards to defaulters; and repre-
sented the ‘go-between’ for self-help groups and RuralLife (with
most of RuralLife’s interaction with self-help groups occurring
through the federation). As a result, whilst groups discussed
problems and administered the programme at a local level, they
5
RuralLife employed a group of women called Mobile Job Trainers to interact
with specific self-help groups. They described their weekly activities to the
researcher as assisting groups in ‘ledger posting’; ‘making a list of defaulters and
following up on their repayments’; ‘loan follow-up’; ‘attending group meetings’;
‘discuss repayment problems’; ‘discussing with defaulters about how they will
repay their loans’. Mobile Job Trainers work closely with the self-help group divi-
sion - the department within RuralLife that oversees the micro-finance programme.
Within this division there are four staff members (including a Branch Manager)
who conduct tasks such as financial disbursement of loans, maintenance of ac-
counts records and other financial administration tasks. One staff member works as
an overall co-ordinator for the entire micro-finance programme. She supervises the
self-help group division, and liaises with the federations and with individual
clusters and groups on an ad-hoc basis.
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
ultimately had little involvement with the Women’s Empowerment
programme’s core functioning at a broader level and had little
decision-making power with respect to the programme. Rather the
focus at the group level was the transformation of women into
economically self-determined and entrepreneurial citizens within
their households and communities. This was supported by various
grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices which promoted
reflection, problem-solving and transformative learning, as high-
lighted in the next section.
6.1.3. Process and outcome monitoring and evaluation practices
RuralLife delegated almost full responsibility to self-help groups
for the monitoring and evaluation of micro-finance activities.
Women were required to monitor within their groups adherence to
two rules in particular: firstly, immediate commencement of
monthly loan repayment instalments the month after a loan has
been taken out; and secondly, joint liability, whereby all group
members are precluded from accessing further loans, should a
single group member be in default, as per the following:
If one member defaults, the whole programme will be damaged,
the whole programme will be in loss, so the [group] takes
loaning members very seriously …. this is the dynamics
[Regional Manager].
These ‘dynamics’ created incentives for group members to
monitor each other’s loan take-up rates, repayment and savings
records, and use of micro-finance funds. In order to do so, both
process and outcome monitoring and evaluation exercises were
conducted within self-help groups. The process monitoring exer-
cises were mandated as a necessary component of involvement in
micro-finance initiatives. They were seen as essential in order to
sustain the programme, and, as a result, there was little flexibility in
terms of how these exercises were conducted. In contrast, however,
the outcome monitoring and evaluation exercises were more
informal in nature. While they were strongly encouraged by
RuralLife staff, they were not a mandated requirement of micro-
finance involvement. When they were instituted in groups, they
operated on a flexible basis with group members deciding on their
parameters and use.
Process monitoring took the form of self- and group-
performance measurement exercises. Much of these exercises
sought to reinforce the responsibilities embedded within the use of
finance, in terms of repayment abilities, savings accruals and pro-
ductive investment, as follows:
In relation to monitoring by the community, we …. place the
report before them and this [is] discussed. This is the economic
status of your self-help groups; what is the stage of your savings
and credit programme?; this is the amount you have saved, this
amount of money you have lent for several trades and this
amount of money you have earned as a service charge and this
amount of money you have to pay to the savings holder
[Regional Manager].
Process monitoring practices were introduced to RuralLife’s
Women’s Empowerment programme by an external micro-finance
consultant who used a common template of micro-finance man-
agement in India as the basis for the structure and administration of
the programme. As recounted during a group interview with Mo-
bile Job Trainers and the micro-finance Branch Manager, the
consultant focused mainly on training community members in
bookkeeping and the basics of micro-finance. These staff members
described how demonstrated techniques related to, for example,
29
organising the structure and agenda of self-help group meetings,
and gathering data and information on the timing and frequency of
loan repayments and savings deposits. Participants were shown in
a step-by-step manner how to record data, summarise and
manipulate it (total counts, percentages, ratios etc.) and interpret
the values (satisfactory or unsatisfactory performance) in order to
allow an analysis of micro-finance performance.
As observed during self-help group meetings, specific infor-
mation that was gathered within groups included records of loan
disbursals, savings, monthly repayment amounts, overdue pay-
ments, debit and credit balances of individual member and group
accounts, descriptions of loan usage, frequency of loan retrieval,
previous loan recovery ratios, and the capacity of group members
to pay loans due to savings accruals. This monitoring data was
manually recorded by group members in large ledger books, one for
each self-help group. The highlight figures for each group were also
displayed on white-boards in locations where self-help group
meetings took place. Observations of these meetings revealed that
the complexity of the collection and interpretation of this process
data tended to alter amongst participants, often with more complex
manipulation and interpretation completed by those with more
advanced educational backgrounds and literacy skills. To this end,
group members became akin to financial managers or accountants
within their communities. In particular, the group leader’s role was
one of financial management e recording loans and savings, and
bringing cash to and from RuralLife’s office:
We train the group leader in book-keeping, regulation keeping
and the management of groups. They are accountants, calcu-
lating credit, interest and so on. Their responsibility is to collect
savings and loan money, write records in the ledger and bring
the money to RuralLife’s offices [Women’s Empowerment Pro-
gramme Co-ordinator].
Outcome monitoring and evaluation within self-help groups
occurred at all educational and literacy levels, and sought to cap-
ture the achievements and nature of change that reflected the use
of micro-finance services. These outcomes included rich qualitative
assessments of changes in individual living conditions, social status
and levels of empowerment, as well as socio-economic impacts in
the community. While RuralLife strongly encouraged the conduct
of these assessments during self-help group meetings, groups were
afforded the ability to choose if and when such monitoring and
evaluation practices would occur, with no formal structures put in
place. Due to the fact that such outcomes are frequently slow
moving, however, and not sensitive to momentary change (in
contrast to measures that record whether a participant has repaid
their loan payments or not), they were frequently captured after a
sufficient period of time had passed following loan disbursal and
use, with the use of measurable indicators often de-emphasised.
Monitoring and evaluation exercises of this nature tended to be
informal, through observations of loan use and oral testimonies
during self-help group meetings, when members were asked to
give accounts of loan use and progress on repayments.
These processes allowed reflection on the outcomes derived
from participation within the Women’s Empowerment pro-
gramme, and the criteria that would indicate their presence. Ob-
servations of these meetings revealed that these discussions often
took the form of stories regarding women’s heightened abilities to
afford items such as school supplies for their children, health ser-
vices for family members or home improvements. The local rele-
vance of these success criteria were seen as important, given the
perceived inability of women to understand at a broader level the
development efforts of RuralLife and the aggregated impact of its
programmes, as per the following:
30 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
Self-help group members cannot explain the overall plan of the
organisation but they can explain the usefulness of their self-
help groups, how they mobilise money from different sources,
and how they spend this money for particular purposes and
uplifting of their communities [Regional Manager].
Conversations with women revealed that their own success
criteria became key indicators that allowed them to appraise the
Women’s Empowerment Programme using their own methods of
analysis. This allowed them to establish narratives that highlighted
the outcomes of the programme. The following observed ‘chain of
impact’ was typical of such impact evaluation discussions: the
provision of micro-finance to women allowed them to become
economically independent and competent, amass savings and
credit, engage in commercially productive enterprises, afford
school supplies for their children, therefore, allowing these chil-
dren to remain in education longer and avoiding involvement in
child labour or ‘early’ (underage) marriage.
Observations of self-help group meetings revealed that these
success criteria exercises tended to differ from group-to-group
depending on context and the specific benefits that group mem-
bers derived from the programme. For example, some groups, who
lived within flood prone areas, prioritised the ability to reinforce
their housing structures with corrugated iron as an indicator of
success; others, who lived in relatively small communities, high-
lighted the overall uplifting of economic conditions within these
communities with resultant decreases in dowry payment obliga-
tions between families. Many group members highlighted the
decreasing “necessity” of child labour and underage marriage
within their communities. Groups that were at relatively more
advanced stages of economic development tended to focus on their
abilities to educate their children beyond the primary stage of
schooling. Additionally, many groups identified indicators that
were less tangible in nature and instead gave weight to the
changing nature of household relationships. Examples included the
abilities of women to speak out and take action against alcoholism,
domestic violence or male absenteeism from the home.
6.1.4. Complementary strategic and transformative uses of
monitoring and evaluation exercises
The intention of both the process and outcome monitoring and
evaluation exercises within RuralLife were observed to have two
distinct, yet complementary purposes: firstly, these exercises were
important in terms of supporting transformative learning amongst
women. Secondly, they were necessary to demonstrate perfor-
mance and impact to interested parties both internally and exter-
nally to the organisation. They were also used by self-help groups to
manage and administer the micro-finance programme, and ensure
its sustainability. Both these purposes are now discussed in more
detail.
From a transformative learning perspective, RuralLife’s grass-
roots monitoring and evaluation exercises allowed women to
critically reflect on their positions within their households and
communities, and their individual abilities to self-determine their
own development paths. Self-monitoring provided individual par-
ticipants with the impetus to think entrepreneurially, develop
savings attitudes, manage micro-enterprises and ultimately
improve conditions in their homes and communities e activities all
previously unthinkable due to the male-dominated nature of so-
ciety, gender relations within it, and the lack of services and sup-
port from the government. Process indicators - for example,
repayment ratios - highlighted the conditions that were considered
necessary for the transformation of participants in this manner. By
allowing women within their self-help groups to measure progress
towards attaining these ratios, these indicators provided signals
with regards to the processes and goals women individually and
collectively needed to work towards in order to develop economic
competencies. These transformative learning exercises resulted in
women becoming what was described by many RuralLife staff as,
‘very vocal’ and ‘very committed’ to their future development tra-
jectories in comparison to their previous perceptions of them-
selves. Conversations between the women and the researcher
revealed that many women had strong individual perceptions of
themselves as active citizens capable of acting in an economic and
entrepreneurial manner. They frequently demonstrated and
explained this with reference to the amount of loans they had
successfully repaid, the success of their micro-enterprises, or the
amount of savings they had accrued.
Furthermore, the stories and chains of impact that were created
as part of outcome monitoring and evaluation exercises, provided
women with tangible evidence of the impact that effective partic-
ipation within the Women’s Empowerment programme was hav-
ing on their lives and the individual transformations it produced.
These accounts were described as “testimonies of hope and change”
in a handbook on the Women’s Empowerment programme, and
“symbols of change, symbols of empowerment, symbols of women’s
rights” by the Programme Co-ordinator for Women’s Empower-
ment. One elder self-help group member highlighted the impor-
tance of such outcome indicators in allowing an appreciation of the
gradual nature of change and the work that has still to be done:
Before 1993, 1994 [before the start of the Women’s Empower-
ment programme] or even ten years back, many of these out-
comes were not possible, now it is possible. In the year 1994, you
cannot imagine the situation, now the situation is better. Now
we have to go forward for a long time and change even more. At
least another ten years is required and then we will be able to
see and discuss even more outcomes.
Discussions of successful change of livelihoods amongst self-
help group members, and resulting ‘chains of impact’ also
allowed participants to trace the Women’s Empowerment pro-
gramme to its broader societal impacts. As the Regional Manager
noted, evaluating the development process in this way allowed:
a great opportunity for the women to create some importance
… women can raise their voice, women can place their demand,
women can place their requirement, women can place their
planning and participate in the whole evaluation and imple-
mentation process of development.
Furthermore, outcomes such as an overall uplifting of economic
conditions allowed women to question the need for dowries, child
labour and underage marriage, for example e all practices that
were seen as normal, or at least necessary, under their former
frames of reference. Therefore, outcome measures highlighted and
allowed an appreciation of alternatives to these practices and
process measures demonstrated the means of achieving them.
From an administrative or strategic point of view, the same
monitoring and evaluation exercises were necessary to demon-
strate progress towards RuralLife’s objective of mainstreaming a
focus on women’s rights and gender equity within development
efforts. Process indicators highlighted progress towards RuralLife’s
development goal of economic independence for women. Outcome
indicators revealed any socio-economic changes that were brought
about by virtue of this economic independence. This was high-
lighted by the numbers of women who became economically self-
reliant, indicated in terms of quantitative figures of loan uptake,
savings accruals and repayment records, and qualitatively, through
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
the use of case studies extracted from self-help group discussions
regarding women’s resultant productive capacities and socio-
economic outcomes. The information was principally used inter-
nally, to understand the scope and reach of the programme, and
also communicated externally, for example, to donors and the
public. This was given the fact that the information gathered, both
in terms of the process and outcomes of the micro-finance initia-
tives, aligned with the information needs of, for example, financial
donors. 6
The information gathered was also used by the self-help groups
to sustain the micro-finance programme. Monitoring data was used
within self-help groups to decide on future loan disbursals to their
members. Groups tracked records of loan repayments, and evalu-
ated effective and productive loan use (mostly indicated by suc-
cessful micro-enterprise). Consistent and reliable performers were
given preference in future loan disbursal. While self-help groups
were engaged in these types of activities, upper tiers in the micro-
finance governance structure e that is, the clusters and federations
e were more involved in the actual management of the pro-
gramme. They made the final decisions on loan disbursals,
defaulter status and conflict resolution. At the group level, the main
focus was on facilitating transformative learning. Over time,
women (mostly group leaders), who had mastered the more
administrative functions at a group level, could move into man-
agement at a cluster or federation level should they choose to do so.
As a result, they became more involved with accountability activ-
ities that were of a more strategic or administrative nature.
As mentioned previously, the social capital and trust that was
built up and harnessed in the self-help groups was important in
terms of ensuring that discussions regarding loan repayment and
use did not proceed in an acrimonious manner. However, this was
not always the case, as the use of group-assessment indicators also
had the potential to create difficulties in the community. Although
these monitoring practices and measures were administered
through extensive participation and leadership of women, they
required unquestioning compliance and enforcement in order to
ensure the sustainability of the micro-finance programme. As a
result, they were often imposed by women on each other in a
disciplinary and hierarchical manner through the various tiers of
micro-finance governance. Frequent conflict and controlling
behaviour within the self-help groups was observed by the
researcher, as the following conversation demonstrates:
Researcher: What happens when a group member defaults?
Self-help group leader: The rest of the group visit that woman’s
house unannounced many times and demand that she repay her
loan and motivate her to hand over the money.
This type of pressure, which women exerted on each other, was
not observed to always be the case, however. It was frequently
observed that some groups often granted a degree of flexibility in
loan repayment in the form of extended loan terms or members
helped each other out in times of financial difficulty. Despite some
difficulties, therefore, self-help group participants sought to ensure
that monitoring exercises had a degree of flexibility in terms of how
6
The micro-finance initiative was generally self-financing; that is, the savings
accrued within self-help groups provided monies for the loans disbursed. However,
the impact of the programme strongly related to the impact of other RuralLife
programmes which receive external financial funding (for example, livelihood
initiatives that allow women to derive use out of their micro-finance funds) and
also the impact of RuralLife overall as a development organisation. As a result,
financial donors were interested both in the process and outcomes of the micro-
finance programme.
31
they were administered or regarded at the grassroots level.
Importantly, these exercises were also observed to have other
purposes. These involved supporting the transformative learning of
women, particularly at a group level, and their perceptions of
themselves as economically competent and entrepreneurial actors.
6.2. Unison
Unison was founded in 1842 and set up a number of schools
which still run today. The organization’s area of activity, however,
has moved beyond the running of schools to address broader
educational needs and other pressing issues such as human traf-
ficking, income generation, empowerment of women, healthcare
and nutrition. In 2009 it launched its flagship development pro-
gramme entitled ‘Empowerment for Change’, which initially
focused on three villages. These villages were located within tea
gardens and the aim of the programme was to promote awareness
of and advocate for the socio-economic rights of the workers within
these tea gardens. These workers lived on and worked exclusively
for their respective tea gardens. They were completely dependent
on tea garden management for food, water, shelter, education,
health and sanitation. The provision of these socio-economic goods
was severely inadequate. Through a combination of corruption and
oppressive tactics, management often blocked the access of their
workers to many essential government entitlements and services,
for example, those pertaining to education and health. 7 According
to Unison staff, this was done to keep the workers ‘down-trodden’
and facing no other alternative (that could perhaps reveal itself
through the attainment of a proper education) willing to work in
the tea gardens in appalling conditions and for less than the min-
imum wage. Given their vulnerable and oppressed status, tea gar-
den workers, particularly women and children frequently fell
victim to human trafficking within neighbouring states and
countries.
The objectives of the Empowerment for Change programme
centred on empowering local communities to know, promote and
enact their rights related to education, health, nutrition and pro-
tection (from human traffickers). There was an emphasis on
fostering partnerships and dialogue between three key stake-
holders e communities, social service providers and local govern-
ment bodies - with an overall aim of “empowering communities so
that they can demand and access quality services from service
providers, and together work for sustainable development of their
health, nutrition and education status, and protection from do-
mestic violence and human traffickers”.8 This Empowerment for
Change programme will now be discussed in greater detail.
6.2.1. Human rights democracy focus
In contrast to the mainstreaming of human rights principles
within development programmes in RuralLife, Unison’s approach
was decidedly more political and confrontational in nature. Service
7
An example of such corruption manifested itself within the acquisition of Below
the Poverty Line benefits for tea garden workers. Attaining Below the Poverty Line
status affords benefits such as subsidised food and fuel in India. Within Unison’s
target community, the local government had delegated the implementation and
procurement of these benefits to tea garden management. As a result, discounts on
food and fuel were often paid as part of the workers’ daily wage, rather than
supplementary to it. For example, if a worker received 45 rupees a day in wages and
was entitled to a 10 rupee subsidy on a bag of rice, tea garden management payed
this worker 35 rupees in wages plus 10 rupees in ‘rations’. As the ration distribution
centre also fell under the management of the tea garden, that worker was then
charged full price when he/she went to purchase a bag of rice as he/she was
deemed to have already received the discount. For the most part, tea garden
workers did not realise that there is anything wrong with these tactics.
8
Source: Funding application for Empowerment for Change.
32 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
delivery, for example, did not feature as a core component of the
Empowerment for Change programme. Instead, the programme
sought to increase democratic governance and participation within
target communities, and hold powerful duty-bearers in the com-
munity e mainly, local government agencies - to account for the
rights of community members. The purpose of the programme was
to stimulate an ability amongst community members to challenge
and engage with these duty-holders. A lack of prior knowledge on
rights and entitlements, coupled with a lack of confidence and
determination e all a result of generations of oppression and sub-
jugation by powerful actors - was regarded by many interviewees
as being the primary inhibitor of the community’s ability to self-
determine its own development trajectory:
Before we went to the community, people didn’t want to talk,
they didn’t want to say anything about their problems…they
had a kind of fear in their hearts [Programme Co-ordinator].
Unison perceived a need to break this cycle of inaction. It con-
ducted mass education initiatives including frequent training and
capacity building workshops focused on building awareness of civil
liberties, rights, and government social service entitlements. These
aimed to inform participants of their rights, and how to attain and
protect them. This included instilling a focus on human rights
principles of fairness, equality, justice and tolerance - as well as
rights that are (in theory) protected under legislation e for
example, rights to education, healthcare and social welfare. Uni-
son’s Director described the effects of these education initiatives as
follows:
We’ve literally told the community these are your rights. So the
JSY9 for the mother and child, you know maternal and infant
mortality e so we tell them about their rights, so this is what the
government gives for institutional delivery, for deliveries
assisted by medical help. Ok now they know, but our commu-
nity volunteers then go and literally walk with them to the
health centre because ….you know they would be scared to go
to the health centre. And then when they get the money, and get
the benefits, then they know, then they’ll do it themselves.
Because you know even if they wanted to report a case of [hu-
man] trafficking, they would never go to the police station
themselves. You know, we have to hand-hold with one person at
least and then that one person will go to the police station and
realise there is no dracula or dragon at the end of the line.
These rights training initiatives were also coupled with efforts to
address the many corruptive and ineffective practices within local
government social welfare services through advocacy and activism
at the grassroots. Capacity building initiatives were instigated to lift
the confidence and awareness of community members of their
ability to constructively contribute to this process; that is to instil a
knowledge that “they are also important in their community, that
they are a part of it, that they can contribute to it and demand their
rights” (Programme Co-ordinator). Capacity building workshops
taught local communities what rights and advocacy mean, and the
tools and skills necessary to engage in it. Social analysis training
was conducted to generate awareness on the important position
9
Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe motherhood initiative by the government
which involves a conditional cash transfer to incentivise women of low socioeco-
nomic status to give birth in a health facility. The ultimate goal of the programme is
to reduce the number of maternal and neonatal deaths. After delivery in a gov-
ernment or accredited private health facility, eligible women receive 600 Indian
rupees (US$13$3).
people have in their communities, their potential to create change,
and the resources in the community to effect this change and
ensure its sustainability. This was described by the Director in
relation to a lack of health services in the community as follows:
There was a lack health facilities and there is still a lack of health
facilities. So we had the sensitisation programme, we taught
them how to speak in front of government officials. We literally
[laughing] did public speaking classes, you know? And then
they spoke and then they actually realised that they can demand
for a health-centre. Otherwise it was just lacking and they didn’t
even realise that they can demand. Now demanding for a
health-centre has come from them.
The involvement of the most marginalised community mem-
bers in the programme was encouraged, for example, through
festivals such as Women’s Day, door-to-door visits, pictorial
methods such as social maps and charts, and problem-solving
sessions following short movies, for example one on the traf-
ficking of a young girl. These initiatives and their impact were
described by a Field Supervisor whilst reflecting on a particular
community participant from a very isolated region:
She was trained about the government schemes. Before she did
not know about the schemes and she was trained in that…in the
training we give her idea on how to identify the rights cases
from the community. And how to link up the cases with the
relative [government] offices. Like, if we got a dropout student
we have to link with ICDS workers10, teachers, primary schools,
secondary schools. Like pregnant women, we have to link up
them with the hospital. And after that she was able to tell the
government about the needs of the community, she was actively
participating in the discussion of the problems, what was
happening, what was going to be done. So I think it is really a
good thing for us because after that we have got a lot of help
from the government people. So now we can say that ICDS su-
pervisors, whatever, they are all working with us now together.
Hence, the Empowerment for Change programme also focused
on the ability of local government agencies to deliver appropriate
services to respond to the communities’ rights claims. This involved
ensuring that duty-holders had the ability and desire to engage
with rights-holders in the community. Emphasis was placed on
building the capacities of local government workers for this type of
engagement, which previously did not form part of their work or
even realm of understanding. As such, Unison sought to foster and
build accountability relationships between these two parties, and
as a result, change the nature of democratic governance in the
community.
6.2.2. Participation in the Empowerment for Change programme
Unison’s beneficiaries participated in the Empowerment for
Change programme in one of three ways: as a community volun-
teer, a working committee member or a steering committee
member. All these roles were completely voluntary and mutually
supported each other. The cohort of volunteers undertook three
main activities at the village and household levels. Firstly, they
conducted ‘sensitization meetings’ within the community. These
10
Workers of the government’s ‘Integrated Child Development Scheme’ e a social
welfare scheme to tackle malnutrition and health problems in children below six
years of age and their mothers, through the provision in local centres of immuni-
zation, supplementary nutrition, health checkups, referral services, pre-school non
formal education, and nutrition and health information.
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
focused on, for example, highlighting the importance of education,
explaining the dangers of human trafficking, providing information
on government schemes for pregnant women, or demonstrating
how to fill out a police incident report in the case of domestic
violence. Secondly, volunteers provided support to community
members in their dealings with local government offices, including
help with attaining necessary documentation and completion of
forms. Thirdly, they used a ‘cohort register’ as a monitoring and
evaluation tool. It allowed them to compile data on social issues,
identify problems and plan activities accordingly.
Each volunteer had a responsibility to monitor approximately
twenty-five households and provide a report to the working and
steering committees. The working committee comprised of
twenty-one community volunteers. They held monthly meetings,
where they discussed any needs identified at the community level,
ongoing progress in addressing these needs, problems faced, and
future plans of action. Observed examples included the organisa-
tion of a signature campaign to support an advocacy initiative, ar-
ranging activities (e.g. celebration of International Women’s Day) to
engage the local community, or organising training workshops for
local volunteers or community members. The steering committee
comprised of twenty-three representatives from the local com-
munity, working committee, local government, non-governmental
organisations and service providers like school teachers or nurses.
It held joint meetings with the working committee every two
months, where issues identified at the community level were
shared and prioritized. It provided a platform for linking field issues
and concerns with authorities such as the local government or
various service providers.
Equality in participation was strongly promoted within these
three groupings of participants, with no one, irrespective of
educational, social or economic background, promoted as having
seniority or greater decision-making power than others. The tasks
programme participants performed were separated into two
distinct (yet overlapping) categories e participants that ‘do’ certain
tasks and participants that ‘go’ and follow up on these tasks with
other actors. For example, in relation to a particular advocacy
campaign:
“…the working committee are doing the mass petition, they are
identifying, with the community, their problems, what are the
solutions and what needs to be demanded. They are collecting
the signatures and organising the protest rallies. But the steering
committee e they are the ones that are going to the government
with the mass petition and saying what the community wants.”
[Project Co-ordinator].
In this sense, no hierarchy was perceived to exist; merely
different groupings of individuals with distinct roles and purposes.
Within all these groupings, also, a high degree of flexibility existed
in how grassroots activities were carried out. In particular, partic-
ipants were strongly encouraged to participate in determining how
the programme was monitored and evaluated. They were instru-
mental in designing and refining the cohort register to suit its
everyday implementation and usage. This was evident in obser-
vations of community meetings, where participants often com-
mented on reporting and documentation procedures, and how they
could be improved. Discussions frequently focused on how
different forms of information could be gathered so as to enhance
the usefulness of the cohort register. Throughout this process,
participants selected goals and indicators, and decided on tools and
sources of data. In this sense, many of the monitoring and evalua-
tion practices at the grassroots were instituted by the programme
participants themselves. These practices are discussed in the next
section.
33
6.2.3. Compliance monitoring and evaluation practices
The key monitoring and evaluation tool used within the
Empowerment for Change programme was the cohort register. It
was predominantly a survey tool yet also involved a social mapping
exercise, both of which were conducted by the cohort of commu-
nity volunteers. These tools mainly focused on measuring out-
comes that would be associated with local service providers and
government agencies complying with their rights obligations. The
cohort register covered a wide range of social issues, gathering
quantitative data on, for example, the incidence of institutional
delivery, child immunisation, attainment of Below the Poverty Line
benefits, and human trafficking and child labour cases. It also
included space for capturing qualitative data. This included note-
worthy aspects of socio-economic conditions, specific problems
identified, and courses of action suggested by the community and
volunteers. The functioning and use of the cohort register was
explained by a community volunteer as follows:
If we identified a particular … problem in the community, we
have to write it down. So that gives us a clearer picture, it is a
kind of document for us…because we also write down what our
recommendations and plans are…kind of suggestions, so we are
helping to plan the programme.
In its ability to survey needs and capacity gaps within the
community, the cohort register represented a fact-finding or
research tool insofar as the aim was to monitor the attainment of
certain services within the community. Explicit human rights
standards and legislated rights were used to set the parameters and
benchmarks of the register, and progress towards attaining these
rights were measured (for example, the number of children who
were enrolled in school or who had received vaccinations). This was
seen as instrumental in generating awareness of rights in the
community in terms of what community members were entitled to
and what was lacking from these entitlements. Reflecting on this a
Field supervisor highlighted the following:
They [women in the community] didn’t go for institutional de-
livery [before the Empowerment for Change programme]. They
not getting the immunisation [sic], not the polio, not the TB
medicines but now they are becoming aware and they also think
this is our need, health-centre is supposed to be in our com-
munity, transportation facilities are supposed to be in our
community so the [cohort] register is why they are becoming
alert.
In addition to the cohort register survey, social maps of the
villages were also created to highlight pictorially to community
members the situation in their villages with regard to social issues.
This was described by the Programme Co-ordinator:
The social map is for the whole village ….so [the] community
come to know, even the normal person, because you know this
person doesn’t know the problems in the community, they
never bothered, ok this child is not going to school, no problem.
They don’t know what is the importance of education so
because of the map it will help them also to understand what
actually we are trying to do.
Social mapping involved drawing ground maps of the local vil-
lages and tracing and mapping for example, pregnant mothers, new
born babies, school drop- outs, child labourers, and seasonal
migration. This information was mainly gathered through home
visits and one-on-one interaction. Mapping exercises provided
participants with a visualised monitoring tool, initially compiled of
34 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41

baseline data and then updated to reflect changes in the socio- community volunteer:
economic conditions of the communities. It allowed participants,
If a problem arises in the village, we say to community members
therefore, to compare ‘before-and-after’ conditions within the
- come for a meeting. So we might have a meeting about a recent
communities, for example, health and education conditions before
outbreak of malaria. Before people would not understand why
and after the attainment and roll-out of certain government
there was this outbreak and just come looking for medicine.
services.
Now they come and say, we are having all these outbreaks and
The data collected by participants in the cohort register during
we could prevent them by having a health centre or clean water
their household visits was summarised in Unison offices, compiled
facilities, let us do something about that.
into evaluation reports and translated into various local languages.
The initial report that was compiled in this manner constituted a
baseline survey, upon which subsequent evaluations were contin-
uously compared. All updated evaluation reports were provided to
6.2.4. Compliance indicators as a means of transformative learning
the working and steering committees on a continuous basis in or-
A key distinguishing feature of monitoring and evaluation at
der to inform them about what is happening at a micro-level of
Unison was that rather than conducting self-assessments of
analysis within the target communities. Their findings were used in
development progress (as in RuralLife), communities used tools
a process of continuous needs assessment by the committees
such as the cohort register to support assessments of how the
where any gaps or ineffective aspects of government services were
fulfilment of rights was experienced within their communities,
identified and steps taken to address them. Furthermore, commu-
what problems they encountered as a result and what courses of
nity evaluations were held on a periodic basis by inviting all par-
action could be taken. The purpose of such practices was not to
ticipants from the target communities to local planning meetings.
capture the process or outcomes of the programme. Information of
The aggregated evaluation reports produced by the Unison office
this kind was generally of interest to financial donors yet had little
were presented and discussed at these meetings. They provided
relevance to Unison’s approach to transformative learning, which
participants of the Empowerment for Change programme and local
sought political and confrontational change. This is not to suggest
community members with an ability to plan programme activities,
that monitoring and evaluation was not carried out for strategic
particularly in terms of providing a basis for directing advocacy of
purposes by Unison; that is for reporting to donors, for internal
local government agencies for the proper attainment of social ser-
reviews and so forth. Unison frequently carried out such exercises
vices and fulfilment of rights.
mainly by engaging independent assessors from their partner
According to Unison’s director, this led to an “explosion of
NGOs to evaluate their programmes. Dissimilar to RuralLife, infor-
knowledge and feedback” from the target communities. One
mation for these more strategic purposes was difficult to glean from
observed example of this involved the community advocating the
the grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices. Instead these
local government to register their health centre with the local
practices supported an appreciation of societal conditions within
medical board. This followed on from a finding from the cohort
the target community amongst members of this community, as
register that, although community members were attending the
described by the Project Coordinator:
health centre, they were not receiving quality medical care. This
was due to a lack of certified general practitioners working there As they [community volunteers] filled out the cohort register we
because the centre had not yet been registered. As a result, reasons got a lot of results like reducing drop-out children, reducing TB
behind the adverse health conditions of the community were [tuberculosis], reducing pregnant mother deaths. Because
linked to this basic administrative failure of the local government. before, [results were] not there. But nowadays…. [the register] is
Observations of community meetings showed that very specific kind of a record where you will get a result…. Before, if I know
issues tended to be prioritised for action within different target that a TB person is there, ok TB person is there, but now because
communities. For example, ensuring people had Below the Poverty of the cohort they have to go every time to follow up that house,
Line status was a priority in some, and adequate health facilities whether that man or woman is taking the medicine or not,
(inclusive of proper registration) or improved water supply in whether he is entitled to [government health] facilities or not so
others. it’s really a good idea.
Information collected by these evaluation reports and planning
meetings was also disseminated to local government bodies and
In comparison to both the strategic and transformative out-
service providers. This was done through a series of workshops,
comes derived from grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices
where gaps in service delivery were highlighted and the prioritised
in RuralLife, the cohort register operated solely as an instrument of
needs of each community were shared. It was observed that com-
transformative learning within the target villages. As an observed
munity volunteers led these meetings, voicing their concerns and
example, it was identified at a community meeting through infor-
outlining how best the needs of the community could be integrated
mation derived from the cohort register that school-going children
into the development plans of the local government and service
were returning home from school hungry and not receiving
providers. Reflecting on this, the Project Co-ordinator commented
adequate nutritional benefit from their mid-day meal. 11 It was
on the development of her role since the programme’s inception:
decided that the teachers and workers at this government school
For me, when I first went to the community, [community would benefit from learning how to properly cook a dish called
members] would not talk to people. Now my job is easy work! I kitchari which contained the appropriate iron, vitamin and proteins
don’t need to go to every government officer for them, I can send for school-age children. Reflecting on this in the context of the
them instead…now we invite government people to our overall Empowerment for Change programme, a community
workshops and meetings, and people come and speak up about volunteer described the following:
their problems in front of the government people.

In this sense, the transformative learning opportunities sup-
ported by the compliance monitoring and evaluation practices
were identified as key to social change, as described by a
11
The ‘Midday Meal Scheme’ is a government-funded meal programme designed
to improve the nutritional status of school-age children. The programme supplies
free lunches comprised of adequate nutritious foods on working days to children in
public primary schools.
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
Before [the Empowerment for Change programme], we always
shared our problems, always saying what was wrong. Now we
know that if there is a problem, there is also a solution and we
can advocate for it. So for example, we found that children were
not getting proper nutritional food in their mid-day meal from
public schools so instead of complaining and fighting with the
teachers, we went to the authorities and with Unison we
organised training for the teachers about proper nutrition for
kids… so some people [in the schools] didn’t know, so that’s
why we train [teachers], that ok nutrition is important for the
childrens [sic].
Therefore, grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices sup-
ported a collective change in meaning perspectives within the
community to allow understandings of the community’s role in
democratic governance and its involvement in deciding the pa-
rameters of social action. Unison staff frequently described the
“excitement” amongst the community as they saw evidence of
changes they were instrumental in bringing about. One local
community member commented:
Our whole thought pattern and standard of living has changed.
We have started thinking at a different level. Earlier we thought
it was not our responsibility to change our community e we
blamed the government. Once we learned the knowledge and
skill, we can go to the government office and get a good
response, and we now know that it is our responsibility to do so.
We can now plan for our future. We don’t have to look for
someone outside, we can sit and plan as a community and de-
mand our rights.
Therefore, measuring the compliance of duty-holders became a
means of enabling grassroots communities to engage with broader
level development efforts and powerful actors, often in a political
and confrontational sense. It provided community members with
an appreciation of the extent of rights violations within their
community, and their position within it as oppressed people. Par-
ticipants were encouraged to create collective understandings of
particular situations, critically deliberate which social services
were inadequate or missing from their communities, and make a
plan for advocacy for the future attainment of their rights to these
services. Furthermore, the simple act of collecting information of
this kind in the first place, signalled to both community members,
and those in positions of power, the importance of rights attain-
ment and equitable working relationships as a means of achieving
these rights.
7. Discussion
The aim of this paper was to question how NGO accountability
practices e and the accounting tools embedded in them e support
and facilitate the promise of self-determination embedded in the
rights-based approach to development. It investigated the moni-
toring and evaluation practices implemented at the grassroots level
of two NGOs e RuralLife and Unison - which instituted variations of
the rights-based approach within their development efforts. Find-
ings demonstrated how the promise of self-determination was an
implicit moral imperative of RuralLife and Unison’s rights-based
approaches to development. Furthermore, findings outlined how
these NGOs perceived a sense of accountability for the fulfilment of
this promise and this impacted a number of strategic choices they
made in terms of distinct patterns of accountability practice. Four
main discussion points emerge from these findings: firstly,
accountability was enacted to facilitate (rather than report on)
35
societal contributions; secondly, accountability for these societal
contributions emerged in the context of rights-based values and
discourse; thirdly, there was considerable divergence amongst the
case NGOs in relation to these transformative accountability pri-
orities and practices; finally, the more traditionally studied stra-
tegic forms of NGO accountability continued to persist in practice
and either combined with or became an extension of the trans-
formative accountability practices. Each of these discussion points
are now discussed in greater detail.
7.1. Accountability to facilitate and enable societal contribution
Authors such as Lindkvist and Llewellyn (2003) consider
accountability to be a demonstration of instrumentality and con-
trol, and, as such, distinct from the more encompassing concept of
responsibility which connotes morality and inner controls. Yet
other authors have attempted to close the conceptual distinction
between these two terms, and understand the possibilities of
accountability beyond what is considered to be previously narrow
definitions of it in terms of giving and receiving an account, or
exercising control. These further ‘possibilities’ of accountability
were put forward by Roberts (1991) in his discussion of more
socialising forms of accountability and have prompted many other
studies to further imagine what these possibilities might be (see for
example, Joannides, 2012; McKernan, 2012; O’Dwyer & Boomsma,
2015; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008; Roberts, 2009). By highlighting
accountability as a process that enacts a specified promise, findings
in this study add to this accounting literature which seeks to
highlight the ‘possibilities’ of accountability beyond its more
traditional account-giving, justification and control purposes.
Findings in RuralLife and Unison revealed that accountability to
beneficiaries was not just perceived to be a process of providing a
post-hoc account of NGO activity with the participation of benefi-
ciaries (Agyemang et al., 2009). Instead RuralLife and Unison
perceived themselves to be accountable for the enactment of
certain promises and outcomes within their target communities. In
particular, by invoking a rights-based approach to development,
these NGOs inherently promised their beneficiaries that partici-
pation in their development projects would lead to self-
determination amongst individuals and/or communities. Rural-
Life’s Women’s Empowerment Programme promised that it would
create leadership, financial management, and entrepreneurial ca-
pabilities amongst women and, by extension, attitudes that were
seen to be associated with the attainment of increased economic
rights, for example, health-seeking attitudes. RuralLife became
accountable to their beneficiaries for the attainment of these
mainstreaming objectives and for the individual transformation of
women into rights-holders. Unison’s Empowerment for Change
programme promised to create active and engaged citizens in the
arena of democratic governance as a response to their previously
oppressed positions as tea garden workers. It promised that target
communities would collectively achieve self-determination
through their active involvement in political advocacy
programmes.
In this sense, findings highlight that entering into an account-
ability relationship with another involves promising to fulfil certain
moral imperatives. As described by Brown and Moore (2001), this is
when an actor accepts a promise to do something and has accepted
a responsibility to fulfil it. By demonstrating this in the context of
rights-based NGOs and the self-determination promise of the right-
based approach, this study showed the conceptual distinction be-
tween this ontology of accountability and more traditionally
studied ontologies of accountability which demonstrate it as an
exercise in account-giving in a control and justification sense
(Mulgan, 2000; Roberts & Scapens, 1985). When RuralLife and
36 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
Unison sought to enact the promise of self-determination, this
became embedded in the accountability relationships they had
with their beneficiaries. Findings showed that accountability obli-
gations were not simply ‘discharged’ when RuralLife and Unison
provided an account of their actions to beneficiaries, or when
beneficiaries participated in needs assessments or evaluation of
NGO performance; they were satisfied when accountability was
enacted in a manner that related to the fulfilment of specified
promises, particularly those that had transformative intentions.
Brown and Moore (2001) also highlight how this form of
accountability initiates strategic choices regarding how certain
promises will be fulfilled. Findings in RuralLife and Unison revealed
that specific organisational practices, particularly process and
outcome monitoring and evaluation in RuralLife, and compliance
monitoring in Unison, became the material grounds for the self-
determination promises embedded within alternative rights-
based approaches. They are in contrast to more traditional
accountability practices which may have focused on account-giving
to powerful or interested others, or making organisational activities
more accessible, transparent and available. Instead the monitoring
and evaluation practices became a resource that the NGOs’ bene-
ficiaries could draw on in order to make sense of their societies,
their positions within them and their capacities for future change
(Roberts, 2009). This resonates strongly with transformative
learning, a process of perspective transformation in which we
become “critically aware of how and why our presuppositions have
come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel about
our world” (Mezirow, 1990, p. 14). In both RuralLife and Unison
grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices supported the
conditions needed for both the paradigmatic and ontological shifts
that are associated with perspective transformation (Kegan, 2000;
Lange, 2004). This study, therefore, demonstrates a new and unique
role for monitoring and evaluation within NGOs which to date have
been primarily investigated as a means of dispensing upward
accountability obligations (Goddard & Assad, 2006; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2007, 2008) or constituting internal control mecha-
nisms within NGOs (Chenhall et al., 2013, 2014). In contrast,
grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices were initiated by
RuralLife and Unison to facilitate a shift in the communities’
meanings perspectives. They allowed beneficiaries to attach
importance and meaning to core aspects of the NGO projects and to
critically appraise their involvement, and the involvement of
others, within these projects.
Conceptually this also extends the meaning of social or social-
ising forms of accountability. In an NGO context, social forms of
accountability in previous literature have been said to focus on how
an NGO is contributing to society at a broad level of analysis, often
with the input and participation of beneficiaries and community
stakeholders (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2007; Roberts, 1991). However,
irrespective of the actors involved and the broader societal impacts
that are accounted for, the focus of accountability in these studies is
on narrating or articulating an account of action and behaviour
(Lehman, 2007). This can involve, for example, participatory re-
views, stakeholder focus groups or social auditing practices
(Agyemang et al., 2009; Awio et al., 2011; O’Dwyer & Unerman,
2008, 2010). In contrast, findings in this study show that account-
ability practices, when seeking to enact specified promises, instead
focus on facilitating and enabling this societal contribution in the
first instance. This accountability focus of both case NGOs was not
found to be necessarily indicative of or consciously attributed to
strongly held viewpoints of particular actors, either internal or
external to the organisation (Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2014), but
rather more a ‘matter of course’ or ‘what is to be done’ given the
rights-based approach of the respective NGOs. This is discussed
further in the next section.
7.2. Accountability as a response to rights-based values and
discourse
Prior NGO accountability studies have highlighted the pro-
pensity for NGOs to voluntarily consider themselves responsible for
or accountable to certain values and motivations. Examples include
accountability to internal goals and aspirations (Najam, 1996),
identity accountability (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008) and felt
accountability regimes (O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015). These forms
of accountability are usually linked to the organisation’s internal
mission, vision and culture, or the values and beliefs of organisa-
tional members (Chenhall et al., 2014; Najam, 1996). They are in
contrast to imposed accountability obligations where NGOs are
required to instrumentally explain their actions and impact
through the language of justification (Roberts, 2001). This study
also demonstrates that NGOs can perceive a sense of felt re-
sponsibility, but this often is not just related to internal motiva-
tions; nor is it explicitly imposed by external others (O’Dwyer &
Boomsma, 2015). It is also related to a perceived sense of re-
sponsibility and accountability to beneficiaries to enact a certain
course of action that will fulfil the implicit promises made by
prevailing development discourses and ideologies.
In this sense, this study links the promises embedded in NGO
accountability efforts to broader rights-based discourses and
values, particularly those that seek self-determination as a funda-
mental goal of development activity. It contributes to the ac-
counting literature on NGO accountability in which studies (even
those with a rights-based focus) have mostly focused on partici-
pation as a focus for accountability practice without linking this to
self-determination agendas. Accountability mechanisms in these
prior studies tend to focus on participatory accounting practices
that identify beneficiary defined-needs, and promote ongoing
dialogue and consultation with beneficiaries with respect to how
these needs will be fulfilled (Agyemang et al., 2009; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2010). Yet as highlighted by Mertens (1999) while
participatory practices may be necessary for self-determination
outcomes, they are not necessarily conducive of them. Rao and
Kelleher (2005) describe the predominant priority of a rights-
based approach as the creation of communities that are active
and capable of achieving and advocating for their rights of their
own accord. This implies capacity building and transformative
learning, not merely participation as has been the focus of many
NGO accountability studies.
Findings in this study demonstrated how grassroots account-
ability practices can contribute to the fulfilment of the self-
determination values that are indicative of the rights-based
approach. This represents a different way of thinking about NGO
accountability mechanisms in contrast to prior literature. As can be
seen in both RuralLife and Unison, accounting tools, such as
grassroots monitoring and evaluation had transformative learning
purposes attached to them; an important element of the journey
towards the self-determination and transformation of societies
(Brookfield, 2012; Pettit & Musyoki, 2004). Although these prac-
tices frequently focused on ‘what is done’ (either at an individual or
societal level) the intention was to use this information to allow
beneficiaries to focus on ‘what is to be done’ in the future, partic-
ularly in relation to the long-term transformation of oppressive
circumstances, and more complex issues of social and political
change. Therefore, grassroots monitoring and evaluation was less
concerned with verifying that certain outcomes were being ach-
ieved or in the increased participation of beneficiaries within NGO
project governance (although this was a necessary condition).
Instead there was a greater focus on how these tools led to trans-
formative learning outcomes amongst beneficiaries by virtue of
their participation in them.
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
These practices were not incidental to the development effort
itself (in terms of reporting on it or enabling participation in it), but
rather came to represent the means in which the development
activity enfolded, and its moral imperative was fulfilled. Benefi-
ciaries became enthusiastically involved with the accountability
practices, not just because they were in a ‘take or leave it’ rela-
tionship with the NGO (Peruzzotti, 2006; Unerman & O’Dwyer,
2010; Uphoff, 1996) but because this involvement was a core
means of enabling self-determination and transformative learning
outcomes. These practices also contrast strongly, therefore, with
the participatory objectives of downward accountability which
have been found to be problematic in previous literature, particu-
larly in terms of their ability to allow or facilitate the authentic and
true interests of NGO beneficiaries to emerge in a coherent and
useful manner (Jayasinghe & Wickramasinghe, 2011; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2010). Findings in RuralLife and Unison indicated, how-
ever, that transformative learning was not a uniformly consistent
concept and had different meanings attached to it, particularly in
situations where NGOs conceived their roles within the rights-
based development landscape differently. This is discussed in the
next section.
7.3. Divergence in accountability priorities and practices
The types of transformative learning that were sought in
RuralLife and Unison were found to be quite different in terms of
the level of politicisation, and consideration of power dynamics,
employed within their rights-based approaches. Drawing on
different manifestations of transformative learning theory
(Mezirow, 1978; Taylor, 2007), this study highlighted how these
differences can be supported by grassroots accountability practices
that vary in content and scope. Specifically, the manner in which
monitoring and evaluation exercises were carried out in the NGOs
differed in terms of whether they were focusing on duty-bearer
compliance at the macro-level, as in Unison, or on the perfor-
mance of planned development change at the micro-level, as in
RuralLife.
Findings in RuralLife showed that process and outcome moni-
toring and evaluation allowed its beneficiaries to track, appreciate
and learn how individual transformations occurred and became
beneficial. This is consistent with first generation transformative
learning studies which propose individual transformative learning
as a guiding principle of self-determination (Mezirow, 1978). Indi-
vidual transformative learning is said to employ a depoliticised and
uncritical approach to transformation. Although oppressive,
corruptive and/or ineffective norms or institutions existed within
RuralLife’s target communities, the emphasis was to encourage an
understanding of how these realities impacted the meanings in-
dividuals attached to their own lives and experiences, and the ac-
tions they took in response to them (Hart, 1990). Process and
outcome monitoring and evaluation created a platform where
women could not only monitor the ‘mechanics’ of micro-finance
(i.e loan instalments, interest payments, repayment ratios) but
also come to appreciate the underlying rationale of micro-finance,
question their preconceived beliefs in relation to economic citi-
zenship for women, and ultimately link their quality of life to in-
dividual agency and perceptions of themselves as economic
citizens (Duveskog et al., 2011).
Findings also showed that some flexibility was exercised on a
day-to-day basis in terms of process monitoring targets, for
example, loan repayments and terms. This occurred when self-
help groups were willing to extend repayment periods and
amounts, and offer help to others in their group in times of
financial distress. In this sense, accountability practices became
altered and adjusted to every-day local purposes. The women’s
37
preference for this more community centred and collective
approach to development is perhaps indicative of their growing
self-determination as a result of RuralLife’s rights-based efforts,
and, paradoxically, a resulting resistance to its individualising
‘Western’ style of transformation and development (Jayasinghe &
Wickramasinghe, 2011; Taylor et al., 2012). Instead of using
accountability mechanisms to merely demonstrate their respon-
siveness to the logic of micro-finance and to ‘please’ RuralLife
(Cooper & Johnston, 2012), they used them to understand the
broader context of micro-finance and economic citizenship, and
what these meant in particular for their communities and those
within them (Mkabela, 2005; Ntseane, 2012). In this sense, they
were able to override the limitations and contradictions that can
be typical of accountability efforts based on moveable and
permeable promises such as self-determination, and were able to
transform them into their own context-driven possibilities
(Joannides, 2012).
Despite this, however, monitoring and evaluation practices
showed little evidence of addressing the wider policies and regu-
latory regimes that had perpetuated the underdevelopment of
women in RuralLife’s target communities. They did not initiate an
investigation or critique of these structural distortions or barriers
(for example, lack of social services provided by the government)
and did not encourage women to consider why they previously
considered themselves to be incapable of economic advancement.
Instead these practices only encouraged them to recognise this
previous perception of themselves, and as a result, become
economically active, and make decisions and behave in ways that
they would not have previously (Mezirow, 1990). Monitoring and
evaluation practices focused on individual performance measures
and targets which promoted individual agency, voluntarism and
reformism (Collard & Law, 1989).
Inglis’ (1997) distinction between empowerment and emanci-
pation is relevant here, where empowerment relates to the ca-
pacity to operate within existing social structures and
emancipation involves an ability to resist and challenge them.
RuralLife sought to increase the capacity of women and empower
them to work within existing societal structures on a more level
playing field. In contrast, Unison sought more emancipatory out-
comes in terms of encouraging beneficiaries to resist, challenge
and ultimately change oppressive societal structures and in-
stitutions. Its grassroots monitoring and evaluation practices were
linked, not to individual perspective transformations, but to
broader political and emancipatory agendas. The aim was to un-
derstand the individual within his or her socio-cultural and po-
litical context, and as a result, question and measure any
systematic and structural sources of inequality (Taylor, 2007). This
is consistent with second generation transformative learning
studies where the focus is on confronting systemic distortions
within oppressive societies in which the individual is a part (Clark
& Wilson, 1991; Collard & Law, 1989; Duveskog et al., 2011).
Therefore, the intention of the monitoring and evaluation practices
within Unison’s Empowerment for Change programme was to
initiate a fuller understanding of individuals’ experiences within
their historical and sociocultural contexts and, in the process,
foster a change in power dynamics within this community. Tools
such as the cohort register, social maps and evaluation reports
created a level of citizen and community-based monitoring and
evaluation, and increased public accountability within the target
communities.
Findings also revealed, however, that despite the transformative
learning intentions of RuralLife and Unison’s grassroots account-
ability practices, the more traditional ‘uses’ and understandings of
NGO accountability continued to have their place in practice. This is
discussed in the next section.
38 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
7.4. Combination with strategic accountability practices
Findings demonstrated that accountability efforts that enabled
transformative learning (in whatever form) amongst RuralLife and
Unison’s beneficiaries either co-existed or were an extension of
accountability efforts that focused on creating an account of
organisational action and behaviour. In Unison, information
generated by monitoring and evaluation practices was used to
engage with duty-holders and the powerful within the community.
The information was not used in a more strategic sense in terms of
providing information that would help to increase NGO effective-
ness, ensure the sustainability of the Empowerment for Change
programme or provide information to those that held hierarchical
power in funding and resourcing contexts e for example, financial
donors or internal management. Instead, Unison frequently gath-
ered information of this type by engaging independent assessors
from their partner NGOs to evaluate their programmes. These
separate exercises complemented the transformative monitoring
and evaluation practices that were used at the grassroots level. In
contrast, monitoring and evaluation practices in RuralLife’s
Women’s Empowerment programme were multidimensional as
they simultaneously adopted both a strategic and transformative
learning intent. They gathered information on the extent of micro-
finance performance in the community and supported a process of
critical reflection on this information by participants. The infor-
mation was used internally, to understand the scope and reach of
the programme, and communicated externally, for example, to
donors and the public. It was also used by the self-help groups to
decide on future finance activities of their members thereby sus-
taining the micro-finance programme in the long-term. However,
the gathering of this information also supported transformative
learning and a change in the meaning perspectives of women. The
transformative learning outcomes associated with these practices
often became an extension of their reporting and account-giving
usage, despite the fact that these more instrumental purposes at
times caused conflict at the grassroots.
Therefore, findings demonstrated that in some variations of the
rights-based approach, particularly those of a less political and
confrontational nature, both traditional account-giving and trans-
formative intentions and outcomes of accountability practice can
combine within a single grassroots tool. However, when rights-
based approaches become more political and confrontational in
nature, the traditional account-giving purposes may lose their
relevance at the grassroots. In these instances, separate account-
ability tools may need to be put in place to satisfy the more tradi-
tional account-giving obligations within NGOs. In this sense,
findings are presented and discussed here not as an attempt to
dismiss or reduce the emphasis on the traditional conceptualisa-
tions of accountability within NGOs that has frequently been the
focus of previous studies in this area (Dixon et al., 2006; Goddard &
Assad, 2006; O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015). Indeed, studies such has
O’Dwyer and Unerman (2010) have highlighted the importance and
persistence of these practices even in situations where rights-based
approaches to development are sought.
Other studies have highlighted how different forms of NGO
accountability can combine in a holistic, co-constructed or adaptive
manner (O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015; O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008).
Most of these studies have focused on demonstrating how hierar-
chical and functional accountability to financial donors and over-
sight bodies can co-exist alongside wider social efforts to be
accountable to individuals and communities impacted by an NGO’s
activities. This study also demonstrated how different types of NGO
accountability can combine or complement each other in practice.
Yet it introduced a further conceptualisation of NGO accountability
to this body of literature (one that enacts the promise of self-
determination) and demonstrated how it interacts with the more
traditional understandings of accountability in practice. Therefore,
findings demonstrated that the transformative learning intent that
can be imbued within grassroots monitoring and evaluation prac-
tices, in support of a rights-based approach, is often decidedly more
complex than critical reflection and self-determination objectives
alone.
Findings also showed that this combination of accountability
priorities differed across particular levels of stakeholder engage-
ment. In RuralLife, transformative learning, as a focus for account-
ability practice, was prioritised mainly at the group level of micro-
finance activity where beneficiaries had their initial interactions
with the Women’s Empowerment programme. Here, Mobile Job
Trainers employed by RuralLife supported the groups e mainly the
group leader e in any administrative tasks. Therefore, involvement
by women in accountability practices at a more strategic or
administrative level occurred only if they ‘graduated’ to higher
levels of engagement at a cluster of federation level. Management
and administration of the micro-finance programme (rather than
transformative learning) became the focus of the accountability
practices within the clusters and federations. In this sense, this
study also extends understandings of holistic or adaptive
accountability (O’Dwyer & Boomsma, 2015; O’Dwyer & Unerman,
2008) by demonstrating that a combination of different forms of
accountability does not occur uniformly across all levels of stake-
holder engagement, particularly e as highlighted in this study e
amongst different groups of beneficiaries.
8. Conclusion
This paper sought to present the complex and multidimensional
role that NGO accountability e and the practices embedded within
it e can play in the rights-based development process. It demon-
strated how the case study NGOs e RuralLife and Unison - in
seeking to be accountable to their beneficiaries, enacted rights-
based approaches as moral imperatives of their development ac-
tivities, and, as a result, initiated strategic choices in relation to
certain grassroots accountability mechanisms. In particular, find-
ings demonstrated that these NGOs, implicitly promised that their
development efforts would help beneficiaries achieve self-
determination outcomes e a cornerstone of the rights-based
approach e which would enable them to realise their funda-
mental human rights and reduce their dependence on external
help. As a result, RuralLife and Unison initiated grassroots moni-
toring and evaluation practices that attempted to transform the
basic frames of reference of their beneficiaries. Findings also
revealed that, despite the transformative learning intentions of
these accountability practices, the more traditional ‘uses’ and un-
derstandings of accountability continued to have their place in
practice.
The contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, by highlighting
accountability as a process that enacts a specified promise, it adds
to the accounting literature that seeks to consider accountability
beyond its more traditional account-giving, justification and con-
trol purposes. Findings demonstrated that accountability is not just
a particular type of responsibility or account-giving process; it can
be a response to a range of societal issues. This was shown to be of
interest from an accounting perspective as particular accounting
practices can become an intrinsic part of the accountability effort
itself by enabling the realisation of certain promises and re-
sponsibilities beyond the provision of accounts. Therefore, this
study proposes that in order to critically appraise accountability
efforts e and their associated accounting practices - the underlying
motivations and potentially transformative intentions of the actors
involved need to be understood, particularly in terms of how these
 S. O’Leary / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 21e41
contribute to and influence the overriding objectives embodied
within certain accountability relationships and the accounting
practices that facilitate these ‘promises’.
Secondly, this paper links the promises embedded in NGO
accountability efforts to broader rights-based discourses and
values, particularly those that seek self-determination as a funda-
mental goal of development activity. In this sense, it contributes to
the accounting literature on NGO accountability in which down-
ward accountability studies (even those with a rights-based focus)
have mostly focused on participation as an accountability practice
without linking this to self-determination outcomes. It is proposed
that findings in this study enable a deeper understanding of what
NGOs, particularly rights-based NGOs, are seeking to achieve, and
how they are seeking to achieve it through the use of specific
accountability e and associated accounting e practices.
RuralLife
Job title
Director
Head of programme development
Regional Manager (Rural)
Programme Co-ordinator e Women’s Empowerment
Programme Co-ordinator e Education
Programme Co-ordinator e Livelihood
1 Branch Manager and 2 Mobile Job Trainers (interviewed together)
Unison
Job title
Director
Programme Co-ordinator (‘Empowerment for Change’)
4 Field supervisors (interviewed together)
This study also has important implications for NGO and devel-
opment practitioners in terms of highlighting the potential prac-
tices (specifically those related to grassroots monitoring and
evaluation) that can facilitate or enable certain rights-based out-
comes. In this sense, findings highlighted an ‘accountability
toolbox’ that may be drawn on to inform the types of monitoring
and evaluation practices that may be appropriate given particular
development contexts, programmes and rights-based approaches.
In conclusion, it is hoped that future research will explore the
transformative potential of NGO accountability efforts further,
particularly in terms of how the different accounting practices
embedded within them support transformative outcomes in
different contexts. Other participatory practices beyond monitoring
and evaluation could be examined, for example, planning pro-
cesses, needs analysis, social auditing, budgeting and oversight
activities. Furthermore, different types of grassroots trans-
formations sought by NGOs as part of altered rights-based ap-
proaches could also be investigated, particularly in terms of how
specific accounting practices are supportive of them.
39
Acknowledgements
The helpful comments and suggestions of David Smith, Kim
Langfield-Smith, Paul Collier, Breda Sweeney and Ted O’Leary are
gratefully acknowledged, along with the participants of the Ac-
counting, Organizations and Society Workshop on Accounting,
Non-government Organizations and Civil Society, London,
December 2012; Management Accounting as Social and Organiza-
tional Practice Workshop, Copenhagen, April 2013; Monash Uni-
versity Forum for Management Accounting, Melbourne, November
2013; University of New South Wales seminar series, Sydney, May
2014; and New Directions in Management Accounting Conference,
Brussels, December 2014.
Appendix 1
Number of interviews Length of interview
1 1h
2 1h
1 h, 50 min
2 48 min
1 h, 31 min
2 1h
25 min
2 50 min
1h
1 32 min
1 1 h, 44 min
Number of interviews Length of interview
3 1h
1 h, 4 min
32 min
3 57 min
58 min
1 h, 24 min
1 1 h, 54 min
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 Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Accounting, Organizations and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aos

The interplay between ideological control and formal management

control systems e A case study of a non-governmental organisation
Kalle Kraus*, Cecilia Kennergren, Amelie von Unge
Stockholm School of Economics, Box 6501, 11383 Stockholm, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study we explore organisational ideology as an important dimension of management control
Received 8 May 2013 systems (MCS). Through a case study of a health centre operating as an NGO we found that the ability of
Received in revised form ‘ideological talk’ to emphasise the organisation's uniqueness and importance gave the manager a
26 December 2015
powerful instrument of control. Ideological control was also key to explaining the limited resistance to
Accepted 2 February 2016
the implementation of financially oriented formal MCS. We contribute by detailing an important, yet still
Available online 15 February 2016
insufficiently explored, part of this implementation process, namely that the formal MCS, through the
interplay with the predominant ideological control in place, became vested with symbolic significance.
Keywords:
Accounting talk
Thus, our findings show that the production of ‘concurrent visibility’ can be sought both through the
Compliance design of formal MCS (as suggested by Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2013) and through the use of ideological
Concurrent visibility control (as in our case). Our results also suggest the need to distinguish between professional and
Healthcare organisational identity when analysing MCS in health care organisations and NGOs.
Ideological control © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Non-governmental organization
Organizational identity

1. Introduction
In this study we explore organisational ideology as an important,
yet still insufficiently explored, dimension of management control
systems (MCS). Organisational ideology is defined as an over-arching
idea-system that provides the fundamental justification and legiti-
mation for what it would have employees believe is an established
order (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1988; Thompson, 1980). The MCS liter-
ature has long recognised the importance of culture, clan controls and
belief systems (Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Dent, 1991; Efferin &
Hopper, 2007; Ouchi, 1979; Simons, 1995), but has paid little atten-
tion to how managers use ideological control to indirectly govern
employee behaviour by controlling their underlying experience,
thoughts and feelings. Ideological control concerns managers' use of
* Corresponding author. Department of Accounting, Stockholm School of Eco-
nomics, Box 6501, 11383 Stockholm, Sweden.
E-mail addresses: kalle.kraus@hhs.se (K. Kraus), cecilia.kennergren@alumni.hhs.
se (C. Kennergren), Amelie.vonunge@alumni.hhs.se (A. von Unge).
rituals and symbols, and their verbal communication of the organ-
isational ideology, through which they target employees' beliefs,
emotions and values (Alvesson & Ka €rreman, 2004; Czarniawska-
Joerges, 1988; Etzioni, 1975; Kunda, 1992).
Ideological control should be brought to the fore because it is
often found that religious organisations, hospitals and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) have a significant proportion
of employees whose commitment is primarily moral (Etzioni,
1964). Etzioni (1961, 1964, 1975) denotes such organisations
‘normative organisations’ and argues that ideological control is
especially significant here. However, as stressed by Etzioni (1975, p.
6, 40e54), even in organisations where ideological control is pre-
dominant, certain elements of formal MCS have been established.
The overall purpose of this study is to give a grounded account of
ideological control and its interplay with formal MCS in normative
organisations. We investigate MediOrg, a small religiously affiliated
health centre operating as an NGO in rural India.
We also take up the related key issue of how a high level of
compliance to formal MCS initiatives is achieved, including

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2016.02.001
0361-3682/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
employees accepting increased use of MCS associated with an
intrusion of economic rationality on work practices. The more mi-
cro-oriented1 accounting literature on health care organisations
and NGOs has, in the main, focused on resistance to formal MCS
(Broadbent, Jacobs, & Laughlin, 2001; Dixon, Ritchie, & Siwale,
2006; Goddard & Assad, 2006; Jones & Dewing, 1997;
Kurunma €ki, 1999), without paying much attention to compliance.
Specifically, we address how managers in normative organisations
can use ideological control to achieve a high level of compliance
among employees when implementing formal MCS. We examine
the implementation and reception of behavioural controls at
MediOrg that heralded and promoted a more financially oriented
agenda.
Our study contributes to the MCS literature in a number of ways.
First, a focus on ideological control is consistent with the emerging
accounting research on the “expressive dimensions” of organisa-
tional life (e.g., Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Boedker & Chua, 2013;
Chenhall et al., in press). However, while this literature has ana-
lysed, for instance, the influence of subcultures on formal MCS and
how formal MCS play an active role in values expression, less in-
terest has been shown in how managers use organisational ideol-
ogy to enact a particular form of experience for their employees and
to create a highly valued sense of purpose. We found that it is
mainly through ‘ideological talk’ in face-to-face contact between
the manager and the employees that ideological control assumes
specific significance in organisations. The ability of ‘ideological talk’
to emphasise MediOrg's unique worth gave the manager a
powerful instrument of control as it created characteristics of
MediOrg that the employees perceived to be central, distinctive and
enduring. Second, the use of ideological control and its creation of a
strong and articulated organisational identity was of value to
explain the absence of any resistance to the implementation of
financially oriented formal MCS. Accounting scholarship has pro-
vided valuable knowledge of how the design characteristics and the
implementation process of formal MCS can help to explain
compliance (e.g., Ahrens & Chapman, 2004; Jordan & Messner,
2012; Wouters & Wilderom, 2008). We contribute by detailing a
novel part of this implementation process, namely that a strong
predominantly ideological control system was significant for how
employees perceived the implementation of the formal MCS.
Through the interplay with the predominant ideological control in
place, the formal MCS became vested with symbolic significance.
Third, Chenhall, Hall and Smith (2013) found that compliance
increased when formal MCS were designed to produce ‘concurrent
visibilities’ such that different evaluative principles of organisa-
tional actors were made visible. Our findings suggest that
compromise between multiple values can be sought both through
1
We acknowledge that there are studies within the domains of accounting and
health care (e.g., Llewellyn & Northcott, 2005; Preston, Chua, & Neu, 1997) and
accounting and NGOs (e.g., Neu, Everett, & Rahaman, 2009; Rahaman, Everett, &
Neu, 2007, 2010) which have demonstrated how accounting calculations and
techniques come to constitute or transform these organisations. These studies,
inspired by Miller and Rose (1990, 1993, 1994; Rose & Miller, 1992) scholarship,
mainly draw on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality and theorise accounting
as a technology of government that is linked to wider socio-political objectives (c.f.,
Preston et al., 1997). As stressed by Miller and Rose (1990), governmentality studies
have a programmatic character with an important focus of analysis being on po-
litical power, i.e., the way in which the state and other social actors, such as the
World Bank, increasingly appear to act on and intervene in the lives of organisa-
tions and individuals. In these studies, less attention was paid to detailed accounts
of the internal workings of specific health care organisations and NGOs, in partic-
ular where formal MCS initiatives from the managers were concerned, and the
eventual compliance or resistance of the employees to initiatives. This is where the
emphasis of the present study is laid, so our research adopts a more micro-oriented
approach than those of Llewellyn and Northcott (2005), Preston et al. (1997), Neu
et al. (2009), and Rahaman et al. (2007, 2010).
43
the design of formal MCS (as in Chenhall et al., 2013) and through
the use of ideological control, vesting the formal MCS with sym-
bolic significance (as in our case). We also conclude that too much
concurrent visibility might be problematic. In situations of
apparent resource insufficiency, a limit is introduced on what can
be accounted for by means of rational argumentation (c.f., Cho,
Laine, Roberts, & Rodrigue, 2015; Messner, 2009). Open discus-
sions may result in too much concurrent visibility, imposing an
ethical burden on employees, who need to decide on something
that they find difficult, or even impossible, to rationalise.
We also contribute to two related, yet distinct, empirical do-
mains: management control in NGOs (e.g., Chenhall, Hall, & Smith,
2010; Chenhall et al., 2013, in press; O'Dwyer and Unerman, 2008),
and management control in health care organisations (e.g.,
Kurunm€ aki, 1999, 2004; Jones & Dewing, 1997). Less developed
countries such as India, where our case organisation MediOrg
operates, often have neither the economy nor the capability to
provide adequate public healthcare to their population (Banerjee,
Glennerster & Duflo, 2008). As a result, the provision of health-
care services in such countries is often taken care of by NGOs. The
existing literature has demonstrated that tensions exists in NGOs
between financial ideals, namely the pressure to balance budgets
and meet the reporting requirements from the various funders, and
the employees' ethos to the social mission (e.g., Chenhall et al.,
2010, 2013; Dixon et al., 2006; O'Dwyer and Unerman, 2008).
However, accounting research on NGOs has mainly focused on
‘upward’ accountability to funders (Goddard & Assad, 2006;
Hopper, Tsamenyi, Uddin, & Wickramasinghe, 2009; Hopwood,
2005; Unerman & O'Dwyer, 2006), paying relatively little atten-
tion to the use of ideological control and formal MCS in these NGOs.
Our findings suggest that in spite of heavy intrusion of economic
rationality on work practices, MediOrg did not appear to have lost
its organisational identity. Thus, while recognising the role of
formal MCS to manage the tensions between financial and social
ideals in NGOs that has been documented in previous research, our
findings reveal a more complex picture involving ideological con-
trol, formal MCS, moral considerations and spiritual leadership.
These dimensions need to be taken into account when analysing
how management control can help NGOs attract funding, while
maintaining their identity.
Management control in health care organisations has primarily
analysed the interplay between financial pressures and profes-
sional ideals in health centres and hospitals (e.g., Kurunma€ki, 1999,
2004). Medical staff who had worked in direct contact with pa-
tients and had acquired many of the tools of management ac-
counting acknowledged that economic reasoning could influence
their decisions and the actions they took (e.g., Jacobs, 1998;
Kurunm€ aki, Lapsley, & Melia, 2003; Kurunma €ki, 1999, 2004).
However, the majority of the studies highlight the importance of
professional autonomy, where decisions concerning which patients
to admit, how to examine and treat them, and how long to keep
them in hospital were taken by the front-line healthcare pro-
fessionals based on patient well-being, independent of financial
concerns (Jones & Dewing, 1997; Nyland & Pettersen, 2004). At-
tempts to limit the professional autonomy of the doctors and
nurses and increase the emphasis on economic reasoning have
encountered strong opposition (Jones & Dewing, 1997; Lapsley,
2008), but these studies are mainly based on findings from
‘Western’ hospitals and health centres. Thus, studying the opera-
tion of a health centre in rural India, one of the world's poorest
countries, therefore offers the potential for new insights into the
role of management control in health care organisations. More
specifically, our findings suggest a need to distinguish between
professional and organisational identity (see, Empson, 2004). Pre-
vious studies of health care organisations have focused on
44 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
professional identity, which has meant that organisational identity
has tended to be treated as being subsidiary to, or conflated with,
professional identity. In contrast, our study shows that professional
and organisational identity coexist in a complex relationship.
MediOrg doctors and nurses seemed to share a basic understanding
of what it meant to be a professional, but the way in which they
translated this understanding into practice was influenced by the
organisational identity.
In the next section we discuss Etzioni's compliance theory and
related accounting research to specify analytically its implications
for the understanding of the interplay between ideological control
and formal MCS. This leads to a section on research methods.
Section four then presents the case analysis, starting with a
description of the Indian healthcare climate and the setting for the
case organisation. This is followed by an analysis of ideological
control and formal MCS in MediOrg during a period in which the
reporting requirements were tightened in connection with changes
in the way in which funding was obtained. Finally, the discussion
and conclusions are presented, along with some suggestions for
further research.
2. Theoretical development
2.1. Etzioni's compliance theory
Our theoretical understanding of the interplay between ideo-
logical control and formal MCS has its roots in Etzioni's compliance
theory (Etzioni, 1961, 1964, 1975). Etzioni classifies organisations on
the basis of the nature of their compliance. For him (Etzioni, 1975, p.
xv): “Compliance is a relationship consisting of the power
employed by superiors to control subordinates and the orientation
of the subordinates to this power.” In this way, Etzioni combines a
structural and a motivational aspect of management control:
structural because he is concerned with the kinds and distribution
of control in organisations; motivational, because he is concerned
with the various commitments of employees to organisations.2
Etzioni proposes three analytical categories: The first is the type
of control used by managers to make employees comply. One target
of control can be behaviour (through formal MCS) or world-view
(through ideological control) (Etzioni, 1961, 1975).3 The category
formal MCS refers to attempts to directly control employee
behaviour through output control, such as key performance in-
dicators and reward systems, and behavioural control, such as rules
2
Etzioni (1964, ch. 3e5) posits his compliance theory as a way to study orga-
nisations that synthesise the formal (ideal-typical) approach of Weber and the less
formal (subjective) approach of Human Relations researchers (e.g., Elton Mayo and
Kurt Lewin). Central to Etzioni's ideas is the organisational dilemma that the
inevitable strains can be reduced, but not eliminated, between organisational and
personal needs, between discipline and autonomy, and between formal and
informal relations (see also Sciulli, 2011). Etzioni has been criticised for structural-
functionalism (e.g., Prideaux, 2005, ch. 3), but this critique refers, as noted by
Etzioni (2005) in his response, mainly to his later (more macro-theory oriented)
work on communitarian movement. Etzioni (2005) stresses that his early (more
micro-oriented) work on compliance is not at all structural-functionalistic, being
rather a middle-range theory designed to facilitate the empirical study of organi-
sations. For the purpose of this study, it is important to note that Etzioni's early
work focuses on the major bases of compliance within organisations; that is, on the
ways in which leaders establish and maintain order and the effectiveness of the
response this elicits from the employees. These are issues of relevance for analysing
management control, and as such Etzioni's compliance theory is especially apt
when analysing the interplay between ideological control and formal MCS in
normative organisations.
3 4
Etzioni uses the terms ‘utilitarian control’ and ‘normative control’ instead of
formal MCS and ideological control. However, since formal MCS and ideological
control are terms commonly referred to in the accounting literature, we use the
latter throughout the paper.
and written guidelines (Etzioni, 1975). Ideological control, in
contrast, refers to attempts to govern employee behaviour indi-
rectly by controlling the underlying experience, thoughts and
feelings guiding employees' behaviour (Etzioni, 1964, 1975). Ideo-
logical control rests on the encouragement of esteem, verbal
communication of the organisational ideology, and the use of cer-
emonies and ritualistic symbols (Alvesson & Ka €rreman, 2004;
Etzioni, 1975). Etzioni (1975, pp. 40e54) argues that most organi-
sations use both ideological control and formal MCS, but the degree
to which they rely on each differs from organisation to
organisation.
The second analytical category relates to the place and role of
leadership in organisations. The power to control other members of
an organisation is associated with specific positions (top manager)
and personality (being persuasive). Actors whose power is derived
mainly from their position in the organisation are called officers
(Etzioni, 1964). Actors who have personal, but not official, power
over subordinates are referred to as informal leaders. Actors with
formal and personal power over their subordinates are called
formal leaders (Etzioni, 1964).
The third analytical category concerns involvement, i.e. the
attitude of the employees towards the organisation. The intensity of
involvement ranges from high to low and can be either positive or
negative. Etzioni (1975) refers to positive involvement as commit-
ment and negative involvement as alienation. Accordingly, em-
ployees can be placed on an involvement continuum that ranges
from a highly intense negative zone through mild negative and
mild positive ones to a highly positive zone.
Applying these three analytical categories, Etzioni labels orga-
nisations such as MediOrg, i.e., a religiously affiliated NGO,
normative organisations.4 Normative organisations are those in
which ideological control is the major source of influence over the
employees. The employees exhibit moral commitment and there
tend to be few officials or informal leaders (Etzioni, 1961). Formal
leaders effectively control the employees. Table 1 summarises the
main characteristics of normative organisations.
In the following, we provide a theoretical discussion of ideo-
logical control and its interplay with formal MCS in normative or-
ganisations based on Etzioni's three analytical categories and
related accounting research. We also discuss how ideological con-
trol can create compliance when implementing formal MCS.
2.2. Compliance theory and its implications for studying the
interplay between ideological control and formal MCS in normative
organisations
A focus on ideological control is consistent with emerging ac-
counting research on the “expressive dimensions” of organisational
life (e.g., Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Boedker & Chua, 2013; Chenhall
et al., in press; Efferin & Hopper, 2007; Ezzamel, 2009; Jacobs &
Walker, 2004; Quattrone, 2004). This literature has focused on
the influence of subcultures on formal MCS (e.g., Ahrens & Mollona,
2007), on how formal MCS is a means through which employees'
levels of engagement and emotions can be moulded and managed
(e.g., Boedker & Chua, 2013), and on how formal MCS can be used to
express the values and beliefs of organisational members (Chenhall
et al., in press). However less interest has been shown in how
managers use ideological control to enact a particular form of
organisational experience for their employees and to create a
Etzioni also discusses two other types of organisations: utilitarian and coercive.
Utilitarian organisations are ones in which formal MCS are dominant. In coercive
organisations, such as a prison or a custodian mental hospital, control is applied
through physical means, for instance through the use of a lock.
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59 45

Table 1
The characteristics of normative organisations.

Normative organisations

Predominant type of control used Ideological control e managers target behaviour indirectly (e.g., verbal communication of ideology, rituals and use of various symbols)
Type of leadership Formal leaders effectively control the employees
Involvement Moral commitment (i.e., commitment at a high level)

highly valued sense of purpose for the organisation (c.f., Etzioni, some formal MCS. Thus, the two types of control coexist creating a
1975). complex management control structure (see, e.g., Alvesson &
Ka€rreman, 2004; Kunda, 1992, for similar points). As he pointed
out (Etzioni, 1964, p. 64), formal leaders in normative organisations
2.2.1. Leadership and ‘ideological talk’
therefore often use a combination of formal and ideological control,
Etzioni (1975) emphasises the importance of leadership when
even though ideological control is often dominant. Later he
analysing ideological control. Leadership is defined (Etzioni, 1965,
developed this argument and elaborated on the importance of
pp. 690e691) as: “the ability, based on the personal qualities of the
investigating the predominant control in tandem with the less
leader, to elicit the followers' voluntary compliance in a broad
dominant form of control, which he refers to as (Etzioni, 1975, p. 6,
range of matters. Leadership is distinguished from the concept of
40e54) “the secondary source of control”. Following Etzioni (1975),
power in that it entails influence, that is, change of preferences,
we therefore propose that the role and relevance attributed to
while power implies only that subjects' preferences are held in
formal MCS by the employees is likely to be related to the pre-
abeyance”. Although the role of leaders has received considerable
dominant ideological control in place, as the ideological control
attention in the management literature, it has, as noted by
may vest formal MCS with symbolic meanings. This has important
Abernethy, Bouwens, and van Lent (2010), largely been neglected in
analytical implications for our understanding of compliance and
research on MCS. But as stressed by Etzioni (1961, p. 59), the use of
the absence of resistance towards the implementation of formal
ideological control largely depends on the ability of the leader to
MCS.
articulate and communicate the ideology for the organisation.
Previous research on this topic has, in the main, analysed how
Thus, in addition to rituals and symbolic devices, verbal commu-
and why employees resist the implementation of formal MCS.
nication is an integral part of ideological control. Accounting
Lapsley (2008) noted that, given the robust nature of public sector
scholars have long argued that the relevance of formal MCS in or-
professions, moves to increase the use of accounting will encounter
ganisations is dependent on how managers use such information in
strong opposition. Field studies have shown strong resistance
verbal communications (e.g., Ahrens, 1997; Carlsson-Wall et al., in
€nsson, 1998). As stated amongst staff when formal MCS are introduced within the public
press; Englund & Gerdin, 2015; Hall, 2010; Jo
sector, examples being in health and medical care (e.g., Kurunma €ki
by Hall (2010, p. 302):
et al., 2003), schools (e.g., Broadbent & Laughlin, 1998), the police
‘It is primarily through talk rather than through written reports (e.g., Hoque, Arends, & Alexander, 2004), the social services (e.g.,
that accounting information becomes implicated in managerial Carlsson-Wall, Kraus, & Lind, 2011; Kraus, 2012; Llewellyn, 1998),
work. In particular, verbal forms of communication allow cultural and historical organisations (e.g., Oakes, Townley, &
managers to tailor accounting information to specific opera- Cooper, 1998), and NGOs (e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010; Dixon et al.,
tional concerns, and provide a context to debate and discuss the 2006; Goddard & Assad, 2006), where the employees valued
meanings and implications of accounting data.’ their autonomy and prioritised making professional judgements in
their client interests over financial concerns. For instance,
Kurunm€ aki (1999, p. 122), studying three Finish hospitals, found a
In studying management control within two British and German
continuous struggle for power and control between those advo-
breweries, Ahrens (1997) found the particular functioning of formal
cating professionally oriented and financially oriented ideals. Other
MCS was crucially linked to the manner of talk as this had the
research indicates resistance towards formal MCS with individual
ability to make concepts meaningful to organisational members in
or groups of workers, comprised of e.g., senior doctors, absorbing
their everyday work. The literature on ‘accounting talk’ has estab-
the impact of change by shouldering the burden of formal MCS
lished that accounting information is made to work through dis-
initiatives so that the core activities can continue unhindered
cussion. However, limited attention has been given to different
(Broadbent et al., 2001; Broadbent & Laughlin, 1998; Jacobs, 2005).
forms of verbal communication (see, Carlsson-Wall et al., in press).
However, recent research has started to analyse why employees
In this study, we argue that it is mainly through ‘ideological talk’ in
in organisations do not resist MCS initiatives. As Boedker and Chua
face-to-face contact between the leader and the employees that
(2013, p. 264) commented: “… throughout our study, we observed
ideological control assumes its specific significance in organisations
a notable dimension that characterised the case study organisation,
(c.f., Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988; Gioia, Thomas, Clark, &
namely the compliance of Australian actors to relationships with
Chittipeddi, 1994). ‘Ideological talk’ allows managers to help their
corporate executives … our paper indicates that forms of resistance
employees to envisage how their work fits into the idealised vision
were mostly absent”. Their explanation of the compliance related to
of the organisation. The ability of ‘ideological talk’ to categorise the
formal MCS being able to stimulate enthusiasm, hope, nervousness
world verbally and to emphasise the organisation's uniqueness and
and anxiety all at the same time. They coined the term “happy slave
importance gives managers a powerful instrument of control
syndrome” in that managers skillfully used formal MCS to appeal to
(Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988).
people's pride, the prospect of fame in the public press and the
threat of loss of market leadership (Boedker & Chua, 2013). Other
2.2.2. Resistance or compliance e the interplay between ideological studies, using the enabling and coercive dichotomy of Adler and
control and formal MCS Borys (1996), have found that attention to the design characteris-
While ideological control is assumed to be the predominant tics and the design and implementation process of formal MCS can
form of control in normative organisations, Etzioni (1961, 1964, help explain compliance in organisations (e.g., Ahrens & Chapman,
1975) stresses that these organisations probably also employ
46 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
2004; Chenhall et al., 2010; Englund & Gerdin, 2015; Jordan &
Messner, 2012; Jo €rgensen & Messner, 2009; Wouters &
Wilderom, 2008). Chenhall et al. (2010), studying an Australian
welfare provision NGO, concluded that formal MCS that were
transparent, flexible and provided details of interdependencies
between specific programmes and other parts of the NGO's oper-
ations were met with little resistance, while formal MCS designed
with less transparency and flexibility were resisted. On a related
note, Chenhall et al. (2013), studying a non-governmental inter-
national development organisation, found that compliance
increased when formal MCS were designed to produce ‘concurrent
visibilities’ such that different evaluative principles of organisa-
tional actors were made visible. Within this context, our study is
complementary and contributes to the literature by proposing that
compliance can also be related to how formal MCS are linked to
ideological control. In relation to Etzioni's concept of involvement,
employees in normative organisations tend to have an intensive
commitment to the organisation's ideology. As emphasised by
Etzioni (1975), ideological control can be used to accomplish
change, and not just to maintain a status quo (c.f., Czarniawska-
Joerges, 1988). A well-defined, clearly differentiated and widely
shared organisational ideology can provide a focus for employee
identification in a difficult situation and enhance commitment
(Etzioni, 1964).
To summarise, this discussion has highlighted the potential in
analysing the interplay between ideological control and formal
MCS in normative organisations. In the following, a field study of
MediOrg, a small health centre operating as an NGO in rural India, is
analysed to explore these issues. But first, the research methods are
presented.
3. Research methods
This research took the form of an exploratory case study of
MediOrg, a health centre located in rural India.5 The area in which
MediOrg operates is one of India's poorest and least developed in
terms of infrastructure, such as roads, electricity and sewage sys-
tems. MediOrg is a small health centre with limited resources and
few possibilities for specialist care. The relatively small size of the
NGO provided the opportunity to observe the daily work at both
managerial and operational levels, and the use of ideological con-
trol and formal MCS. In their review of the literature on manage-
ment control in less developed countries, Hopper et al. (2009)
concluded that research has concentrated on large organisations
and suggested that future studies ought to include cases from small
organisations. In addition, it should be stressed that the health
centre manager of MediOrg welcomed this type of investigation
and facilitated field visits to many of the funders.
The data collection was conducted through a mixture of formal
interviews, informal conversations, observations and the study of
documentation. Two of the researchers stayed at the health centre
compound for five weeks in late February to early April 2012 where
they observed the everyday work and the planning and monitoring
of the health centre's practices. On a daily basis, the researchers
also participated in the morning ceremonies, had lunch with the
health centre manager6 and his wife and took part in the tea-break
with the employees. This was essential for developing an under-
standing of ideological control at MediOrg since this type of control
is difficult to observe through formal interviews alone (Alvesson &
Ka€rreman, 2004).
5
The identities of individuals, and of the organisation itself, have been disguised
to preserve anonymity in accordance with our agreement with the organisation.
6
Henceforth simply referred to as the ‘manager’.
Two sets of formal interviews were conducted with MediOrg's
management and employees, and with various funders (see
Appendix). First, 19 interviews took place on site FebruaryeApril
2012. Typically, these lasted between 30 and 60 min, with an
average length of around 45 min. The interviews were relatively
unstructured, but revolved around a few main themes: the work,
MediOrg's vision, religion, in addition to which the informants'
opinions on the various funders and their requirements were dis-
cussed. Many of the interviewees were new to the interview
setting, so to make them more comfortable, a tape recorder was not
used. Instead, one of the researchers took notes while the other
conducted the interview. The open-ended interviews allowed the
interview to be adapted to the interviewee and made it possible to
create a conversational setting where the interviewee could feel at
ease. The interview notes were transcribed following each
interview.
The nature of the research process was similar to what Ahrens
and Chapman (2006, p. 836) described when they said that:
“Problem, theory and data influence each other throughout the
research process. The process is one of iteratively seeking to
generate a plausible fit between problem, theory and data.” When
collecting the empirical material, a broad interest in management
control in NGOs guided the research. An initial analysis was made
of management control in MediOrg. This first analysis indicated
that we needed additional analytical concepts to interpret our data.
Here Etzioni's work and the focus on ideological control came in;
our analysis of field material in relation to Etzioni's compliance
theory took place entirely after the data was collected (see, e.g.,
Ahrens & Chapman, 2004, pp. 285e286, for a similar discussion).
During this analysis, we found that a second round of interviews
was needed to provide more empirical depth to some of the con-
ceptual claims made in the paper. As Ahrens and Chapman (2006, p.
836) put it: “Theory helps the author structure the masses of data
and communicate its significance at the same time as it helps
construct that significance.” In June 2015, we therefore performed
an additional nine telephone interviews with the manager, Medi-
Org doctors and nurses, and also with a European doctor and two
European nurses who had performed five-week internships at
MediOrg and a city hospital (see Appendix). The European interns
could, for instance, reflect on whether they perceived any differ-
ences between MediOrg doctors and nurses and those working in
the city hospital. These interviews lasted between 35 and 50 min
(average around 40 min).
No formal coding programme was used for the data analysis.
First, each interview transcript, the research notes from the direct
observations and informal conversations and the documents were
read by the researchers. Once the theoretical framing was set, the
empirical material was organised and analysed using several cat-
egories. The categories initially used were: general information
about MediOrg and the context in which it operates, MediOrg's
funders, and Etzioni's (1975) analytical categories e ideological
control and formal MCS, type of leadership and involvement.
Thereafter, selective coding was used, where findings not consid-
ered to be of sufficient relevance to the study were stripped out (c.f.,
Efferin & Hopper, 2007). Empirical material was related to the
theoretical concepts of the study to draw unique insights. Finally,
the case analysis was written up where the emerging findings were
compared to and contrasted with previous research to determine
the insights unique to our investigation.
4. Case analysis
4.1. NGOs and healthcare in India
India is the world's second largest country by population. About
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
70 percent of people were estimated to be living in rural areas
(WHO, 2011). A profusion of local organisations called panchayats,
structured mainly around individual caste groups, exist in these
rural villages (Pur, 2007). Such caste-based local governance in-
stitutions vary from village to village, but they do have a common
core agenda of upholding social norms and customs and preserving
local law and order (Pur, 2007). Reflecting this, India's rural areas
are defined by a relatively strict social hierarchy as the Indian caste
system enforces social stratification. A great deal of social stigma
and a considerable economic challenge is borne by people
belonging to India's poor castes (Borooah, Dubey, & Iyer, 2007).
Parallel to this, religion is important in India (Borooah, 2012). Four
world religions e Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism e
originated here and Christianity and Islam arrived in the first
millennium.
Over the last five decades India has made systematic efforts to
alleviate poverty by: increasing economic growth, making direct
attacks on poverty by means of targeted programmes, through land
and tenancy reforms, and provision of basic services (Mehta &
Shah, 2003). In spite of these efforts, according to World Bank es-
timates, 32 percent of the Indian population lives below the poverty
line ($1.25 per day) (World Bank, 2011). Given the size of the
population, its diversity and the economic conditions, India faces a
great challenge in providing healthcare to its population. India has a
highly pluralistic healthcare system. The private sector accounts for
more than 80 percent of total healthcare spending in India (PwC,
2007). However, private healthcare is expensive and therefore
almost exclusively targets India's urban middle and upper classes.
The severely poor in rural areas have very few natural, physical or
financial assets and no money to pay for healthcare.
The healthcare system at the district level consists of three tiers.
First, there are aid posts or subcentres. These are primary-care fa-
cilities that refer more complicated cases to the health centres,
which may in turn refer patients to the third tier, the district hos-
pitals (Banerjee et al., 2008). However, as noted by Banerjee et al.
(2008), even if improvements have been seen, India's public
health services often fail to deliver care to poor people in need.
Government facilities are often closed and the number of skilled
personnel is low. In addition, although fees in government hospitals
are low, severely poor households still report sizable out-of-pocket
expenditures for a visit and for the medication required. Thus, in
rural India there is a great need for NGOs that can provide free
healthcare for the severely poor (Berman, 1998).
NGOs have mushroomed in India since the 1980s (Waghmore,
2012), however, voluntarism has always been an integral part of
Indian society and dates back to ancient times when it operated in
fields such as education and medicine.7 Modern forms of voluntary
organisations began to appear in the colonial period, primarily in
the form of socio-religious organisations. Secularist development-
oriented voluntary movements received their strongest impetus
from Gandhi, who believed that voluntary action was the only path
to India's development (Sen, 1999). During the struggle for
freedom, dedicated workers from the Indian National Congress
undertook rural development programmes. It is within this social
and historical context that we must place the comparatively new
term ‘NGO’ in India. Many Indians still believe in a notion of
voluntarism that is essentially romantic, inspired by self-initiative
and social commitment (Sen, 1999). As a result, small local NGOs
such as MediOrg are often highly appreciated, especially in rural
areas, whereas large NGOs are perceived locally to be less
committed to social change, often employing people motivated by
job prospects rather than a social mission.
7 8
For a more thorough description of the history of NGOs in India, see Sen (1999).
47
4.2. MediOrg
MediOrg is part of a healthcare initiative started by a European
Christian missionary church.8 The last missionaries from the
Church left India in the mid-1990s, since then the Church has had a
passive role providing financial support for MediOrg in the form of
a grant. The grant is not attached to specific activities at MediOrg,
instead it is intended as a general contribution to cover general
medicine activities in the open clinic and the ward. As the Church's
Director of the International Mission explained:
“For NGOs in India there is an increasing problem with funding
since most funders like to see clear and physical results, such as
a number of children vaccinated or a new operating theatre,
things that can easily be translated into results. No other donors
want to fund administration, even though the organisation itself
has to exist.”
The Church has no specific comments on the follow-up of how
the grant is used and there are no formal requirements for MediOrg
to report on how the money has been spent. MediOrg has a board of
trustees comprised of the Director of the International Mission and
a few others from the Church, but it is a passive board. Everything
that concerns MediOrg, including financial and operational re-
sponsibility, is delegated to the manager, the sole annual decision is
whether the Church should continue to support MediOrg and
whether the annual report should be approved.
MediOrg is situated in a small village in rural India. One of the
European nurses doing a five-week internship described her first
impressions as follows: “It really felt like [MediOrg] is located in the
middle of nowhere. Having a health centre in such rural areas
seems to be really important to help the poor.” The inhabitants are
farmers and extremely poor. The health centre is located on the side
of the road going through the village, which is shared by mopeds,
old tractors, cows and people. A little wall surrounds the health
centre compound with a gate that is locked during the night. The
compound consists of one main stone building, the health centre,
with rooms for open clinic general treatment and in-ward treat-
ment of patients, an isolation room for highly contagious patients,
an operations room and a lab. Behind the main building are small
stone houses for guests and some of the staff and a chapel.
The manager explained that for many NGOs, especially recent
ones, the most difficult task is to gain acceptance and to establish a
reputation among the villagers. The informal local governance in-
stitutions, the panchayats, are powerful in the area where MediOrg
operates, and they are generally suspicious of outside initiatives.
However, MediOrg has been operating in the area for a long time
and is well accepted by the panchayat leaders and the locals.
MediOrg is not perceived to be a threat to the social norms and
customs upheld by the panchayats, mostly owing to the fact that
MediOrg is a Christian healthcare NGO. The local village politics are
based on the caste system, related to Hinduism. For a Christian,
individuals have equal worth, so at MediOrg everyone is treated the
same and given access to free healthcare in the open clinic. In
addition, because of its long presence in the village, MediOrg is
considered trustworthy in carrying out its mission to help the
severely poor gain access to healthcare. As the manager notes:
“MediOrg has been well accepted for a long time and is rooted in
the village, so we can wholeheartedly focus on the mission to
provide good healthcare”.
All MediOrg employees, including the manager, are Indian. The
Henceforth called the Church.
48 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
manager is a Christian medical doctor with long experience of
healthcare provision in India. MediOrg employs three doctors and
five nurses, all educated in India and Christian. In addition, there
are two other types of employee: those who directly support the
doctors and the nurses in their clinical work, such as a lab techni-
cian and assistant nurses, and those who provide more general
support, such as counsellors, maintenance personnel, drivers and
caretakers. It is not a prerequisite to be Christian to work for
MediOrg and some of the staff are Hindu.
MediOrg offers daily primary healthcare to outpatients from the
surrounding area, and the NGO also provides ward treatment. On
average, 30 to 40 patients are treated in the open clinic and around
25 in the ward each day.9 One of the doctors and two nurses work
in the open clinic and the two other doctors and three nurses work
in the ward. From our observations of the open-clinic work, the
medical staff seemed hard working, and at times overworked. Up to
40 patients for one doctor and two nurses per day is a heavy
workload; during the period over which we made our observations
the open clinic did not close until all patients had seen the nurse or
the doctor. The doctors and nurses rotated on a weekly basis be-
tween the open clinic and the ward.
The importance of patients is stressed in MediOrg's overall goal:
the prevention of diseases and promotion of health among the
people in the area. The area where MediOrg is situated is one of the
poorest areas in India, and consequently the majority of the pa-
tients are illiterate and have no way to pay for healthcare; MediOrg
offers the only option available to them.
4.3. The previous context of MediOrg
In the past, MediOrg was fully funded by general grants from the
Church and the Indian government. MediOrg had no specialisation,
and the doctor working in the open clinic made all the decisions
regarding treatment, including who should be admitted to the
ward. Both the manager and the doctors described in-patients
admitted to the ward as being the most severely ill. Priorities
needed to be set, but this was done on the basis of the front-line
doctor's professional judgement of patients' health. Screening pa-
tients for admission to the ward had been an important part of a
doctor's work in the open clinic.
In line with previous research (e.g., Abernethy & Stoelwinder,
1995; Chenhall et al., 2010), formal MCS did not play a dominant
role at MediOrg. The doctors and nurses were not involved in
budgeting and the discussions between the manager and the
medical personnel never addressed the financial situation: this was
taken care of solely by the manager. Instead of formal MCS, ideo-
logical control was important in MediOrg, which we elaborate on
next.
4.3.1. Ideological control at MediOrg
During informal conversations and interviews with the manager
it was striking how he made continual reference to MediOrg's
ideology of helping the severely poor and doing God's work. For
instance, the manager frequently spoke about how the work of
MediOrg was appreciated among the severely poor in the area. He
also talked about patients who had been cured and how much that
meant to them and their families. As he explained: “When we see
the fruits of our work we appreciate ourselves and enjoy this as a
team. There are many times we can see good fruits of our work in
9
We were only allowed to observe the activities in the open clinic directly. The
ward was closed for visitors, including us. Our findings are therefore mostly related
to the open clinic, where the empirical material is based on both observations and
interviews; any references to the ward are based on interview data alone.
the field and we enjoy that.” The religious and missionary basis of
MediOrg has never been mentioned in the health centre's vision,
but MediOrg is “proud to present and give our Master's love,
concern and care to the needy and for whoever walks into this
compound” is a recurring sentence in MediOrg's annual reports.
The manager stressed that running MediOrg was about more than
simply providing health care:
“You must understand that MediOrg is our cause in life. To help
poor people and working for the sake of God is so much more
than simply providing health care. It is what gives our lives a
sense of meaning.”
Ideological control was also apparent in the form of an overall
presence of religion, displayed through physical artefacts such as
crucifixes on the walls and biblical quotes at every entrance (c.f.,
Etzioni, 1961). One nurse proudly explained her Christian ideals
when she talked of how, through her work at the health centre, she
would be safe “standing by the gates of heaven”. In addition, she
stressed:
“On judgment day, He [God] will see what we all have done to
improve this world and help the poor people, my work is my
way to show Him that I am doing good.”
The most important place for exercising ideological control was
the chapel. It was located just behind the main building, with
sparsely decorated brick walls, large church windows and a
prominent cross above the entrance. Inside the chapel, there was an
altar with a cross and two candles in a large room with no benches,
everyone stood during the ceremony. Men stood on one side and
women on the other, with those of highest rank, i.e., doctors and
nurses, in front. All employees at MediOrg seemed to have their
own standing place.
The health centre is open Monday to Saturday. Every day
commenced at 9.30 with a 10e15 min long ceremony in the chapel.
All employees scheduled to work on a particular day participated in
the service. Just before 9.30, they entered the chapel, took off their
shoes and went to their respective places. At 9.30 the health centre
manager entered and greeted everyone by shaking hands. Then the
ceremony began, always including a prayer and the singing of a
hymn. The health centre manager led the ceremony and the prayer,
while the doctors, nurses and other employees, took turns to lead
the singing. The health centre manager emphasised that the
morning ceremony was a very important part of his idea of running
MediOrg, saying: “If you want to understand MediOrg, attend the
morning ceremony. We all get together and remind ourselves that
we do good for the poor and work for God's sake. And that
[MediOrg] is really unique.” The morning service followed the same
ritual every day, and had done so for “as long as we can remember”,
as one doctor put it. A nurse explained:
“I am a nurse, yes, but more importantly I am a [MediOrg] nurse.
What other health centre or hospital starts the day with a
morning ceremony? We have done so every day for more than
20 years and it is really important. [MediOrg] is really unique.
We help the poor with health care and work for the sake of God.
We are the only option for them [poor patients], we really make
a difference.”
All European interns at MediOrg and a city hospital stressed the
differences between MediOrg doctors and nurses and those work-
ing in the city hospital. A recurring expression used by the MediOrg
doctors and nurses was: “I am not just a doctor [/nurse], I am a
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
[MediOrg] doctor [/nurse].” As the European doctor put it:
“It was so striking during my visit [to India]. Doctors and nurses
in the city hospital were very good at their work but it seemed
like “simply” work for them. When seeing and interacting with
the [MediOrg] doctors and nurses I felt from day one that they
were different. The work seemed to give them a much deeper
meaning and they were so committed to and proud of [Medi-
Org]. And the morning ceremony seemed like an extremely
important and special ritual for them.”
During the morning ceremonies the manager repeatedly
emphasised MediOrg's ideology and explained how this ideology
made MediOrg unique in the area. He continuously positioned
MediOrg vis-a-vis the private health centres where health care was
very expensive. He compared MediOrg with the public health
centres, which did not operate in such remote rural areas, and
charged a small fee. As many people in the village had neither
money for transport, nor for the fee, MediOrg was the only option
for the poor of the area. As the manager explained:
“Without [MediOrg], the people in our village would not get any
health care. They have no money to pay for health care else-
where, and no opportunities to travel for care at other health
centres. We are unique compared to public and private hospitals
and health centres. We do not simply work with health care. We
work for [MediOrg] with health care. And each day during the
morning ceremonies it is important to remember and
acknowledge what we do and that we are unique.”
A typical morning service took the following form:
Introduction of ceremony:
The manager started by discussing the two parts of Medi-
Org's ideology: (1) helping the severely poor people in the
area, and (2) working for God's sake. He also emphasised the
important work done by MediOrg and stressed that the
organisation was unique and the only option for the severely
poor to gain access to free health care. The manager also gave
examples of patients who had been severely ill, but were
now recovering after being treated by MediOrg. All em-
ployees were quiet and listened carefully.
Examples from an introduction:
Manager: “Welcome. We take pride in doing God's work and
providing free health care to India's poorest”.
Manager: “The people in the village need us, for example, the
malnourished man we helped yesterday with well advanced
tuberculosis. The woman who got the HIV diagnosis and
treatment, would have died without it. We take pride in
helping them, and we see that we do good every day.”
Manager: “The people in this village need us. They need free
health care close by. Private health centres or public hospitals
are not alternatives for them. We are unique and should be
very proud of what we do. We make a difference.
Manager: “MediOrg is not like other health centres or hos-
pitals. We are unique. We take pride in helping the poor and
working for the sake of God.”
Middle of ceremony:
This part of the ceremony emphasised the religious dimen-
sion of MediOrg's ideology. The health centre manager led
the prayer and one of the MediOrg employees led the singing
of a hymn. The majority of the employees closed their eyes
during this part of the ceremony and they seemed very
focused on their prayers.
49
End of ceremony:
The manager once again quickly emphasised the importance
of MediOrg's work when ending the ceremony.
Examples closing a ceremony:
Manager: “Let us now start work. We help the poor and work
for the sake of God.”
Manager: “There are people in need waiting for us. Let us
help them.”
Manager: “Keep in mind, we are unique and our work is very
important.”
Manager: “Think of the child with tuberculosis that was
difficult to treat who we helped yesterday. Our work makes a
difference.”
Everyone was very calm and focused during the ritual, listening
carefully to what the manager was saying. As one doctor com-
mented: “These ceremonies are really important for us. We all get
filled with energy. [MediOrg] is unique and what we do is really
important. We help the poor and work for God's sake.” This was
noticeable when the ceremonies ended and the employees headed
off to start work. Everyone was smiling and seemed highly
committed to doing their daily work. This high moral commitment
to the organisational ideology was also apparent in interviews and
informal conversations with the MediOrg staff, they all told us
about their pride in being able to help the severely poor get access
to free basic health care and in working for the sake of God (c.f.,
Etzioni, 1964). The manager emphasised that this organisational
ideology had been the same since MediOrg started and explained
that he nurtured the ideology through his way of running the
morning ceremonies. The nurses and doctors had worked for a long
time at MediOrg and earned a relatively low salary, but they
explained that they did not work for the money, but for the feeling
of achieving something meaningful and contributing to society. As
one doctor explained:
“[MediOrg] is unique and not like private health centres or
hospitals. You [the researchers] have attended our morning
ceremonies so you see that we are something special. All of us
are committed to helping the poor.”
The doctors and nurses would have obtained a much a higher
salary in private hospitals in the cities. They were often approached
by recruiters from these hospitals since there is a severe shortage of
doctors and nurses throughout India, including in the area where
MediOrg operates. But this did not seem to be an alternative for
them. As one nurse put it: “We like our work here, this health
centre does good work for the people living around here. I know I
am working for something good.” Echoing the doctors and nurses,
the manager underscored how the commitment to MediOrg's
ideology was shared by all employees, including himself. As he put
it: “We all have a common agenda, and we are proud of the work
we do for the severely poor”. The manager and his wife had been
running MediOrg for a long time and he was seen as a father figure.
The employees had a great deal of respect for him. This was evident
in the way the employees talked about him. One of the hospital
orderlies said: “He is very good. He takes care of us”. Among the
doctors and nurses he was highly respected for his long-term
commitment to ensuring that MediOrg could continue its impor-
tant mission. As one doctor explained: “[The manager] makes sure
we can help the poor with free health care. We trust him.” During
informal conversations with us, the doctors even stressed that they
saw the manager as the guarantor for MediOrg's continuing work.
To summarise, as Table 2 details, MediOrg has the typical
characteristics of a normative organisation (Etzioni, 1961, 1964,
1975). Ideological control dominated, highlighting the importance
50 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59

Table 2
Predominant type of control, involvement and leadership in MediOrg.

MediOrg

Predominant type of Ideological control: e.g., during morning ceremonies the manager made continuous reference to MediOrg's ideology of helping the severely
control used poor in rural areas and working for the sake of God. Crucifixes on the walls, biblical quotations at every entrance, prayer and singing in the
chapel.
Type of leadership One formal leader, the manager. Strong spiritual leadership; the manager was seen as a father figure. Among the doctors and nurses he was
highly respected for his long-term commitment to ensuring that MediOrg continued with a mission that they believed to be important.
Involvement High moral commitment. Employees motivated by MediOrg's ideology. Both employees and the manager subscribed to MediOrg's ideology.

of religion and of working for the severely poor in combination stable and long-term funding commitment to continue to sup-
with strong spiritual leadership from the manager, who was highly port operations under MediOrg's mission.”
respected and perceived as a father figure by the staff. The em-
ployees had a high moral commitment to the organisation and its
According to the manager, establishing MediOrg as a reliable
ideology (Etzioni, 1975). It is in this context that the changes to-
partner in large government programmes is the best way to secure
wards a more financially oriented kind of health care delivery
the long-term survival of the health centre provision. The manager
should be analysed. We turn to these next.
explains that an important advantage of the programmes is that the
pre-set payment levels for activities such as HIV tests and opera-
tions to prevent blindness are, in his view, generously set. At least,
as he argues, for small health centres like MediOrg with less bu-
4.4. Changes towards a more financially oriented agenda
reaucracy and management layers than larger health centres and
hospitals. This means that MediOrg's activities in the government
The occurrence of two events at the beginning of the 21st cen-
programmes effectively cross-subsidise the general outpatient
tury had a significant effect on MediOrg's finances. First, the general
medicine practiced in the open clinic and the in-patient general
grant from the Church was gradually decreased to the current level
medicine.10 This is perceived to be very important by the manager
of 20%. This is the level that the Church considers to be reasonable
as he stresses that a vital part of MediOrg's work is to provide basic
and, as pointed out by the Director of International Mission, the
health care to everyone who comes to the health centre, and
Church perceives it to be important for MediOrg to rely primarily
funding from government programmes is helping MediOrg to
on other funding sources. The Church has no plans to alter the
continue with this important work. All employees at MediOrg
grant, and this intention has been communicated clearly to the
stressed, with pride in their voices, that no one is denied basic
manager. Second, the pressure to adopt more financially and
healthcare. As one nurse put it: “As you see, everyone gets help in
output-oriented control of NGOs has increased in India, in associ-
the open clinic here. We are proud of this. We really make a dif-
ation with the wider ideas of new public management (NPM)
ference to the people in this village.” Our direct observations sup-
(Broadbent, Dietrich, & Laughlin, 1996; Hood, 1995). These ideas are
port this. Every day followed the same pattern: Early in the
intended ‘to cost’ the activities of professionals more closely and
morning people lined up at the reception to register. After regis-
evaluate them against performance measures (Abernethy, Chua,
tration, they sat in an austere waiting room until the nurse or
Grafton, & Mahama, 2007). More specifically, NPM has driven
doctor called them. The open clinic did not close until all patients
changes in funding arrangements in India. As a consequence, the
had met the nurse or doctor.
Indian government no longer provides general grants to MediOrg,
However, participation in large government programmes also
and instead works more intensively with large government pro-
means that MediOrg must devote an increasing amount of effort to
grammes targeting specific diseases and purposes.
fulfilling formal reporting requirements from the government
In recent years MediOrg has therefore actively participated in
agencies. There is, as the manager puts it, “very little flexibility”
four such programmes (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, family planning
when it comes to reporting to these agencies (c.f., Ebrahim, 2003;
and blindness control), and, as shown in Table 3, 75% of MediOrg's
O'Dwyer, 2005). In addition, all government funding is delivered
funding now comes from these sources. This means that govern-
after the treatment has been provided and the detailed reports
ment agencies are amongst MediOrg's most important funders, as
submitted. There is also a pre-set non-negotiable level of care and a
the manager explained:
fixed number of patients in each programme that cannot be
“Most of the programmes we undertake here are activities exceeded. The manager emphasised that the only way to secure
within the national programmes and thus we work in close continuous funding from the government programmes is for him to
collaboration and in line with the government agencies”. document all activities related to these programmes. This was
supported by our informants from the Indian national agencies, all
of whom explained that MediOrg had recently become much better
MediOrg receives specific payments from the government to
at producing timely and correctly completed reports, which was
run the programmes, but the government does not contribute to
deemed important by the agencies when they discussed whether
the additional general medical activities undertaken in the open
to prolong the funding or not. MediOrg is now seen as a reliable
clinic and the ward. The government provides these payments
partner in these programmes. Observing the manager's daily work,
through government agencies that then monitor the targeted ac-
it was noticeable that he spent a considerable amount of his time in
tivities. At times, MediOrg also functions as a training centre for
community health for local medical and nursing schools, and for
this MediOrg also receives some payment.
The focus on government programmes has been a deliberate 10
The manager explained that a significant part of the budget goes on general
choice by the manager. As he put it: medical activities unrelated to the four government programmes. We were, how-
ever, not granted access to detailed reports broken down by activity and cannot
“It is possible for MediOrg to seek out other funders as well, but therefore assess the extent to which each government programme cross-subsidises
the government has the advantage of being able to provide a general medicine.
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59 51

Table 3
Funders of MediOrg.

Funder Programme/aim Follow-up requirements Contribution to

MediOrg's
funding

The Church Contribution to MediOrg's administration and None 20%

Government HIV/AIDS
Programme
Government Tuberculosis
Programme
Government Family Planning
Programme
Government Blindness
Programme
Local bodies: medical college;
nursing college; Education
Society
general medical activities.
HIV/AIDS control through testing and treatment.
Free to patients.
Tuberculosis control. Goal of early detection and
treatment. Free to patients.
Family planning. Female sterilisations are
performed. Free to patients.
Blindness control. Cataract operations are
performed, with post-operational check-ups. Free
to patients.
Clinical training for students of nursing and
medicine.
Monthly; number of HIV tests performed and treatment via an on- 35%
line reporting system. Regular visits from a programme manager.
Monthly; number of tests and treatments. Regular visits from a 20%
programme manager.
Semi-annual reporting on the number of operations performed. 10%
Monthly; number of tests, diagnoses, operations, and post-op 10%
check-ups. Occasional visits by a programme manager.
Informal. Training reports provided by the students and 5%
occasional visits by university personnel.

his office working with MediOrg's finances and various perfor-
mance statistics for the government funding agencies. The manager
explained that he did everything related to budgeting and the
actual reporting to the government agencies without the involve-
ment of the doctors, nurses or other staff at MediOrg. He needed
documentation from the clinical staff, but he compiled reports for
the government agencies personally. The formal reports produced
to satisfy the requirements of funders were neither circulated
further down in the organisation nor used for internal performance
evaluation.
It was noteworthy that when issues relating to funders, per-
formance targets and financial constraints came up during in-
terviews, all employees explained that they did not have any
knowledge about these issues since the manager took care of them.
Even when they were pushed somewhat by being asked repeatedly
about the financial situation, the answer given by both doctors and
nurses was always the same: “I do not know”. This is illustrated in
the following two excerpts.
Researcher: “Tell me about the financial situation at MediOrg”
Nurse: “We do not need to worry about that. You should ask [the
manager]”.
Researcher: “OK, but where does [MediOrg's] money come
from? Can you describe that in your own words?”
Nurse: “I do not know”
Researcher: “Can you give your view on MediOrg's financial
situation?”
Doctor: “[The manager] can answer those questions”
Researcher: “But from your point of view, how would you
describe it?”
Doctor: “I am not involved. Talk to [the manager].”
Repeatedly referring these types of questions to the manager
was even the case on a middle management level, where, when
asked about the follow-up procedures for grants, the middle
manager immediately referred to the health centre manager, “This
question will be relevant to [the health centre manager] since he is
the administrator. I do not have much of an idea about this”. Our
direct observations confirmed this pattern: the discussions be-
tween the manager and the medical personnel never addressed
MediOrg's financial situation; he undertook sole responsibility for
this.
The manager adopted the same philosophy when it came to
budgeting. According to him, making sure that the budget was
balanced required extensive attention throughout the year. The
actual preparation of the annual budget was described as being
relatively straightforward: before the year started, the manager
knew how much revenue he would receive from the various fun-
ders, including the detailed predetermined tasks to be performed
to satisfy each of the four government-funded programmes. On this
basis, he prepared a budget, where the wages of the staff repre-
sented the single biggest expense item. However, the manager
emphasised that since the majority of MediOrg's revenues are
claimed monthly from the government programmes after
providing detailed statistics of the activities performed, he always
had to make sure that the doctors and nurses provided the docu-
mentation needed to complete the reports. In addition, since each
government programme had a non-negotiable ceiling on the
amount of care that would be paid for, the manager needed
frequent updates on the actual care delivered in each programme.
This was especially important for the in-patients as MediOrg only
had a 25-patient capacity.
We conclude that the current situation for MediOrg is similar to
the findings already reported in the literature, namely, that funders
increasingly require those providing welfare services, such as
NGOs, hospitals and health centres, to demonstrate efficient use of
resources (e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010; Dixon et al., 2006; Goddard &
Assad, 2006; Jacobs, 2005; Kurunma €ki, 2004 O’Dwyer & Unerman,
2008). Satisfying the agencies' demands is vital and time-
consuming as 75 percent of MediOrg's annual budget is attribut-
able to them.
According to the manager, economic concerns had resulted in
difficult decisions on which patients should be admitted for more
extensive in-patient treatment. Many patients who come to
MediOrg are very ill, and consequently in need of in-patient
treatment, but MediOrg's ward capacity is only 25, and there is
no funding to expand the number of beds. As a consequence, the
patients' need for in-patient treatment is much greater than
MediOrg's capacity. Thus, the intrusion of economic rationality
inevitably necessitates not being able to admit patients in real need
of specialised care. As the manager explained:
“Every day is a day of difficult decisions. As you have seen,
almost all people coming to the open clinic are very ill and
would be in need of ward treatment. Otherwise they do not
come here, they only come when they are very ill. But [MediOrg]
is a small health centre, our ward capacity is very limited. So
52 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59

every day we need to send home very, very sick people after et al., 2003). Chenhall et al. (2010, p. 748), for instance, concluded
treating them in the open clinic. That is the reality here.” that: “This intrusion of economic rationality inevitably involves not
undertaking some worthy but expensive causes. If these “causes” to
be neglected are part of the targeted welfare group … the organi-
When asked to exemplify such decisions the manager referred
zation [a welfare provision NGO] risks losing its identity”. The
to grave cholera cases and extremely malnourished people, but he
majority of the studies on management control in health care or-
also added: “I guess the best way to understand these difficult
ganisations show that there is strong opposition from doctors and
decisions is simply to look at the people coming to the open clinic. I
nurses to attempts to limit their professional autonomy and to ef-
am sure you agree that they look like people in need of ward
forts to increase the emphasis placed upon economic reasoning
treatment. And as you have seen, many of them are not admitted to
(Jones & Dewing, 1997; Lapsley, 2008). At first glance, the findings
the ward.” The European doctor who did an internship at MediOrg
from MediOrg seem to support these studies as the manager
supported the manager's claims. As he put it:
insulated doctors and nurses from financial matters. However, as
“Working five weeks at [MediOrg] was really an eye opener for previously discussed, economic concerns indisputably impacted
me about differences between health care in less developed upon the treatment provided by MediOrg. When deciding whom to
countries and developed countries. I mean, we weighed in admit to the ward for treatment, the patients covered by the
adults at 25 kilos; heavily undernourished. Many had oedema government-funded programmes were prioritised since this would
due to anaemia and protein shortage. In Europe almost all of the bring MediOrg revenue from the government. The doctors and
patients that visited the open clinic at [MediOrg] would have nurses also provided detailed clinical documentation for external
been directly admitted for ward treatment. But here just a few of reporting purposes, thereby sacrificing time that could have been
them were admitted to [MediOrg's] ward. And it was the same spent more usefully treating patients. So, to a great extent, a form of
thing day after day. The ward capacity was so limited.” economic logic did govern the healthcare provided by MediOrg.
Two formal MCS (discussed below) were used by the manager to
implement this economic rationality. In contrast to existing
When making these difficult decisions about who should be
research on NGOs and health care organisations, our observations
admitted to a ward, the manager was clear that patients whose
and interviews with MediOrg employees did not reveal any resis-
treatment fell under one of the four government-funded pro-
tance towards these formal MCS. This is elaborated on next.
grammes needed to be prioritised since these patients gave
MediOrg revenue from the government. When asked to be even
4.5. The implementation of formal MCS in MediOrg
more specific, the manager said that, in practice, these patients
occupy almost all ward capacity: “In this village the need for
The manager, doctors and nurses all stressed the importance of
treatment for HIV, tuberculosis, cataract operations and steri-
formal MCS in the form of detailed written guidelines on how to
lisations is almost endless. So these patients occupy our ward and
complete and continuously update the medical documentation.
this is what we are paid for.” This meant that the earlier policy of
These guidelines had been introduced by the manager when the
admitting the most severely ill patients for ward treatment no
changes occurred in MediOrg's financing and stipulated that, in
longer applied. Relatively healthy patients who would never have
addition to the normal clinical documentation, activities related to
been considered for in-patient treatment in the past, such as those
the four government programmes should be documented on pre-
in the female sterilisation programme and the blindness pro-
printed forms specifying the information needed on each patient.
gramme, who are undergoing surgical procedures continue to
As the manager noted, these forms directly mirrored the govern-
occupy beds in the ward for some time during their post-operative
mental agencies' reporting requirements. He explained: “The forms
treatment. As a consequence, patients who come to MediOrg, but
for the four government programmes are absolutely necessary in
are severely ill with, for instance, cholera will be treated in the open
order to comply with the funding requirements.” The other formal
clinic, but rarely admitted to the ward for in-patient treatment. The
MCS took the form of a written instruction from the manager to the
manager argued that this is the largest drawback associated with
doctors and nurses stating that all decisions on admitting patients
being dependent on government programme funding, and that this
to the ward were to be taken by him. This formal control was in
presents a clear moral dilemma for MediOrg.11
sharp contrast to past practice, where the doctor in the open clinic
As previously discussed, it was evident that these difficult de-
made all the decisions regarding treatment, including admissions.
cisions needed to be made and priorities set continuously because
In contrast, these written guidelines stipulated that the nurses and
the inflow of patients needing admission to the ward was larger
doctors in the open clinic were required to consult the manager
than the health centre's capacity. One way forward for MediOrg,
throughout the day, providing the medical reports of any patients
given this situation, would be to try to get employees to embrace
who, after the initial examination, were being considered for in-
economic concerns and to appreciate the need for tough financially
patient treatment. The manager explained that this formal con-
informed priorities. However, previous research has shown this to
trol needed to be implemented to secure the requisite funding from
be problematic in welfare provision NGOs (e.g., Chenhall et al.,
the government programmes. As he put it:
2010; Dixon et al., 2006; Goddard & Assad, 2006) and in health
care organisations (Jacobs, 2005; Jones & Dewing, 1997; Kurunm€ aki “We only get paid for ward treatment related to the four gov-
ernment programmes and I need to make sure we have room in
the ward for these patients. This means I have to make decisions
11
The manager explained that it is primarily during the decision-making for ward about ward treatment because I am the only one with the full
admissions that financial and medical/moral rationales conflict. Conflicts between picture about the four programmes and the funding
expensive/cheap treatments, for instance, did not exist at MediOrg because, as in arrangements.”
similar health centres in the rural areas, in- and outpatient treatment was always
carried out with the cheapest medicine and methods available. This had long been
the case and all medical staff agreed that it was the best solution because it let them However, he also acknowledged that it limited the doctors'
treat more patients without considering trade-offs. Trade-offs between expensive/
cheap treatments were considered something of a ‘western’ phenomenon by the
professional autonomy to some extent, and said that it introduced
doctors and the manager, relevant in India only in the private hospitals that offered an important moral dimension related to not treating the most
a range of medicines and treatments. severely ill patients. The manager explained that the two formal
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
MCS were introduced and continuously discussed during the
morning ceremonies alongside the already established and
strongly articulated ideological control. This was supported by the
doctors and nurses' testimonies, as follows:
An example of a morning ceremony discussing the new formal
MCS.
Opening of the ceremony:
As already described, the manager opened the ceremony by
describing the importance of MediOrg's work and the unique-
ness of the organisation as the only option for severely poor
people in the area in need of basic health care.
Middle of ceremony:
As already described, the health centre manager led the prayer
and one of the MediOrg employees led the singing of a hymn.
End of ceremony:
The manager introduced the new formal MCS by arguing that
they needed to be implemented for MediOrg to continue its
important work helping the severely poor and serving God.
Then immediately he emphasised MediOrg's uniqueness, of-
fering a comparison with the private and public health centres
and argued that the new formal MCS helped MediOrg continue
to help the severely poor.
One of the doctors explained: “[The manager] emphasised the
importance of us using the special forms for HIV/AIDS, tuber-
culosis, blindness and female sterilisation. Explaining that these
forms were necessary for us to continue our important work.
MediOrg is unique and the people here rely on us.”
As a nurse put it: “[The manager] stressed the importance of us
remembering the special forms for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,
blindness and female sterilisation. They help us continue our
important mission to help the poor and work for God's sake.”
Another nurse explained: “[The manager] emphasised that he
needed to make decisions on ward treatment and for this he
needed the clinical journals from us throughout the day. He
really stressed that this way of working is the only way for us to
continue our important mission to help the people in our
village.”
The manager emphasised that, since these written guidelines
had been introduced, the reporting to the government funding
agencies was faster and much more reliable. From our observations
in the open clinic, it was obvious that the administrative burden
took time away from the actual treatment of patients. After the
doctor or the nurse had seen a patient there, they always took time
to complete the template form for the detailed clinical documen-
tation of the work. When asked about these controls, the doctors
and nurses simply answered that they followed these guidelines
and that the manager had made it clear that the guidelines were
important for MediOrg's ongoing work. No further reflections were
made by the doctors and nurses as illustrated in the following
excerpt.
Researcher: “And then we have the special forms for HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, blindness and female sterilisation.”
Doctor: “Yes, we always complete them.”
Researcher: “Why are they important?”
53
Doctor: “[The manager] needs them. He is very clear about the
importance of the forms for us to continue our work for the
poor.”
Researcher: “Can you elaborate?”
Doctor: “[The manager] needs them.”
Researcher: “What about the special forms for HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, blindness and female sterilisation?”
Nurse: “Yes we always carefully complete them for those pa-
tients. [The manager] needs the forms to secure our important
work with the poor in the future, too.”
Researcher: “Can you elaborate?”
Nurse: “The forms are vital for our important work here in the
village, [the manager] really stresses it.”
The European doctor and nurses who did an internship at
MediOrg supported these statements. Working with the MediOrg
doctors and nurses, they observed that the staff carefully filled in
the special forms for the four government programmes. As one of
the European nurses explained: “The nurses documented every-
thing in detail related to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, blindness and fe-
male sterilisation. It was obvious that these special forms were
important.”
With regard to the second formal MCS, observations of the daily
work at MediOrg showed a flow of patient reports being delivered
by the nurses to the manager in his office. On average, ten patients
per day (of the 30e40 who visited the open clinic daily) were to be
considered for admission. After meeting with the doctor, these
patients were placed in a small waiting room set to one side where
an assistant nurse looked after them. The nurse took the clinical
journal to the manager, who then decided whether the patients
should be admitted to the ward. Once the decision was taken, an
assistant nurse implemented it. We never observed any complaints
from the patients: they simply listened and followed the advice
from the assistant nurse.12 The doctors and nurses were completely
compliant, which, in effect, meant that the manager made all the
tough admissions-related decisions. As explained by the manager,
on average, two or three of the ten patients were admitted. The
European doctors and nurses confirmed the manager's claim that
very difficult decisions were taken regarding ward treatment. As
the European doctor put it:
“I was really impressed by [MediOrg], they do so much with
such limited resources. But the reality was that so many more
patients would have needed ward treatment than was provided.
So even if I was not involved in the decisions about ward
treatment it was very obvious that these decisions and priori-
tisations were extremely difficult.”
The manager explained how he made these decisions. The
clinical journals were not overly detailed, but had information
about type of disease and the health status of the patients,
including boxes for ‘ward treatment needed’ and ‘ward treatment
12
The manager explained that doctors' decisions were never questioned; the
patients and their families accepted the medical treatment suggested, whether it
was ineward treatment or medication to be taken at home. As stressed by the
manager, medication and treatment are very abstract to the people in these rural
areas and the doctors' authority is considered to be absolute. This was confirmed by
our direct observations, and neither the patients nor the relatives questioned
anything when the patients were either sent home with medication or admitted to
the ward for treatment, they simply accepted the manager's decisions.
54 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
absolutely necessary’. According to the manager, and confirmed by
the doctors, when the box ‘ward treatment absolutely necessary’
was ticked, the patient was so severely ill that his/her life was in
immediate danger. With MediOrg's limited ward capacity, the
manager explained that only two types of patients were admitted
to the ward. First those patients covered by one of the government
programmes, assuming that the ceiling had not been reached.
Second were those patients for whom the box ‘ward treatment
absolutely necessary’ had been ticked even though they did not fit
into one of the government programmes. Here the manager
emphasised that he could not refuse ward treatment for such pa-
tients, and he mentioned that often one or two patients had to lie in
the corridor because all 25 of the ward beds were occupied. This
was confirmed by the doctors and nurses, who explained that
treating patients in the corridor was often part of their work in the
ward. In this way, the manager argued, he compromised to some
extent with regards to the moral aspect of not treating those most
in need of in-patient care, but he never compromised if a patient's
life was in real danger through not being admitted to the ward. But
as previously mentioned, it also implied that relatively healthy
patients who would never have been considered for in-patient
treatment in the past, such as patients in the female sterilisation
programme and the blindness programme, occupied beds in the
ward for some time during their post-operative treatment while
patients who were severely ill with, for instance, cholera were not
admitted to the ward for in-patient treatment because these dis-
eases were not covered by the four government funded pro-
grammes. The manager stressed that he saw this somewhat
pragmatic solution as the only viable way to secure continuous
funding from the government programmes and thereby secure the
future for MediOrg. These relatively straightforward decision-
making rules also made it possible for him to make decisions on
ward treatment without extensive patient contact: the manager
went down to the waiting room and met the patients very quickly,
but, as he stressed, he made his decisions primarily on the basis of
clinical reports from the doctors.
The doctors and nurses at MediOrg did not resent the imposi-
tion of these formal MCS. And, according to the manager, the
medical documentation was completed satisfactory, i.e., the doctors
and nurses followed the pre-set templates and provided all
necessary information on the patients. When asked about the de-
cisions for ward treatment, the doctors and nurses answered that
they filled in the clinical reports as required and ticked the
appropriate box concerning the need for ward treatment. When
asked to be more specific about which patients were actually
admitted and why, they referred to the manager as illustrated in the
following excerpt:
Researcher: “Can you tell me about the decisions for ward
treatment?”
Doctor: “We fill in the clinical reports and then [the manager]
makes those decisions.”
Researcher: “But who gets admitted?”
Doctor: “[The manager] can answer these questions.”
Researcher: “Can you elaborate?”
Doctor: “You should talk to [the manager] about these issues.”
The European doctor and nurses also explained that they were
struck by the fact that the admission to the ward was not discussed
at all among the MediOrg doctors and nurses. As one of the Euro-
pean nurses put it:
“When admission to the ward was brought up by us nothing was
ever said about it. The [MediOrg] doctors and nurses always
simply referred to the [manager]. They filled in the clinical re-
ports and did their work brilliantly in my view but I remember
that I talked to my colleague about the fact that admission to the
ward was never brought up during our discussions with the
[MediOrg] doctors and nurses in the open clinic and the ward. It
seemed like an issue no one discussed.”
To summarise, our findings suggest the importance of ideolog-
ical control in normative organisations such as MediOrg. They also
suggest the need to analyse the interplay between ideological
control and formal MCS to further develop our understanding of
what can explain compliance to formal MCS commensurate with a
more financially oriented agenda. In the following we provide a
discussion of these issues.
5. Discussion
5.1. Ideological control at MediOrg
Overall our analysis shows that MediOrg has a system of control
that is dependent on an ideology, emphasising the importance of
helping severely poor people in rural areas and pride in doing God's
work, which the employees and the manager appear to subscribe
to. As previously mentioned, the MCS literature has long recognised
the importance of culture, clan controls and belief systems (e.g.,
Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Efferin & Hopper, 2007; Ouchi, 1979;
Simons, 1995) and expressive dimensions of organisational life
(e.g., Boedker & Chua, 2013; Chenhall et al., in press; Dent, 1991;
Ezzamel, 2009; Jacobs & Walker, 2004; Quattrone, 2004), but
paid less attention to how managers use ideological control to
target employees' beliefs, emotions and values. As Willmott (1993,
p. 516) put it, managers need to: “… win the ‘hearts and minds’ of
employees: to define their purposes by managing what they think
and feel, and not just how they behave.” Our findings show that the
manager used ideological control to generate and maintain Medi-
Org's ideology (c.f., Etzioni, 1975). Ideological control took the form
of symbols, such as crucifixes on the walls and biblical quotations at
every entrance, and most importantly rituals, in the form of the
morning ceremony.
Our study reveals that we cannot disentangle the perceptions of
ideological control from MediOrg's leadership (c.f., Etzioni, 1975).
The manager can be characterised as a formal leader (Etzioni, 1964)
and, based on our informal conversations with the doctors and
nurses, their faith in their leader seemed genuine. This is also
supported by the fact that the doctors and nurses remained at
MediOrg, despite the continuous offers of significantly higher
wages that they received from other hospitals. As stressed by
Etzioni (1961, p. 59), the use of ideological control largely depends
on the ability of the leader to articulate and communicate the
ideology for the organisation. We found that the manager exercised
ideological control mainly through verbal communication, most
notably during the morning ceremonies. As Kunda (1992) noted,
gatherings are occasions in which organisational ideology is
dramatised and brought to life. We see our findings in this regard as
having parallels with the literature on ‘accounting talk’ (e.g.,
Ahrens, 1997; Carlsson-Wall et al., in press; Hall, 2010; Jo €nsson,
1998). Our study reveals how the manager, through ‘ideological
talk’, was capable of having an extraordinary effect on his staff (see,
Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988). Thus, through this ‘talk’,
ideological control assumed its specific significance in MediOrg
(c.f., Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988; Etzioni, 1975).
‘Ideological talk’ in MediOrg concentrated on three aspects: (1)
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
Repeatedly emphasising the organisation's ideology and clarifying
why it is important: During the morning ceremonies, the manager
continuously talked about the importance of providing the poor
people with free health care and pride in doing God's work. (2)
Repeatedly emphasising how the ideology creates organisational
uniqueness: The manager continuously positioned MediOrg vis-
-vis the public and private health centres, emphasising that
a admitting relatively healthy patients at the expense of severely sick
MediOrg was unique and the only option for the severely poor in
the area. He repeated that the private health centres charged high
fees and were therefore not an option for the severely poor, and
that the public health centres were located too far from the rural
areas in which MediOrg operated and that they charged a small fee,
stressing that as the severely poor had neither money for trans-
portation, nor for the small fee, MediOrg had a unique role to play.
(3) Repeatedly displaying exemplary behaviour in line with the
ideology. During the morning ceremonies the manager continu-
ously recalled examples of patients who had been cured at MediOrg
and stressed the success and importance of the daily work being
done.
Through ‘ideological talk’, the manager enacted a particular
form of organisational experience for the employees and created a
highly valued sense of purpose for the organisation (c.f.,
Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988; Etzioni, 1961, 1975). Adhering
to MediOrg's ideology seemed to create a sense of belonging among
the employees. Here our findings have parallels with Empson's
(2004) distinction between professional identity and organisa-
tional identity. Organisational identity is an expression of how
organisational members define themselves as a social group and
understand themselves to be distinctive from members of other
organisations (Empson, 2004). In our case, organisational identity
represented those distinctive attributes that the doctors and nurses
associated with their membership of MediOrg. The manager's use
of ideological control created unique characteristics of MediOrg
that the employees perceived to be central, distinctive and
enduring. And as noted by Empson (2004), the perceptions of the
distinctive character of an organisation are often formed on the
basis of comparison with referent organisations; this was indis-
putably true for MediOrg. Previous studies of health care organi-
sations have mainly focused on professional identity, which has
meant that organisational identity has tended to be treated as being
subsidiary to, or conflated with, professional identity. In contrast,
our study shows that professional and organisational identity
coexist in a complex relationship (c.f., Empson, 2004). An illustra-
tion of this was the recurring expression “I am not just a doctor
[/nurse], I am a [MediOrg] doctor [/nurse]”. MediOrg doctors and
nurses seemed to share a basic understanding of what it meant to
be a professional, but the way in which they translated this un-
derstanding into practice was influenced by the organisational
identity.
In the next section, we will discuss how the manager's use of
ideological control and its creation of a strong and articulated
organisational identity in MediOrg was important when explaining
the doctors' and nurses' compliance to the introduction of the
financially oriented formal MCS.
5.2. Explaining compliance to financially oriented formal MCS
Through our analysis of MediOrg, it emerged that the manager
implemented formal MCS outlining the behaviour commensurate
with a more financially oriented agenda. He largely employed a
rational approach to the decisions on whom to admit to the ward
based on a cost-benefit analysis driven by patient participation in
one of four government programmes. Even though the manager
never compromised when a patient's life was in real danger
through not being admitted to the ward, the adoption of a
55
financially rational approach still meant that relatively healthy
patients, i.e., patients in the female sterilisation and the blindness
programmes, who would have never been considered for in-patient
treatment in the past, were admitted to the ward. Thus, the
implementation of economic rationality, required to secure the
continuous funding of MediOrg, involved the moral dilemma of
ones e.g., those with cholera, whose illness fell outside the four
earmarked government programmes.
However, contrary to the findings in previous research on NGOs
and health care organisations (e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010; Dixon
et al., 2006; Lapsley, 2008), our observations revealed that the
doctors and nurses at MediOrg did not resist the imposition of
formal MCS. Chenhall et al. (2010), for instance, drawing on Adler
and Borys' (1996) design features of enabling bureaucracies,
found that formal MCS lacking flexibility, repair and internal
transparency, were resisted and seen as an impediment to
spending time on clients. In our study, the written guidelines were
premised on centralisation, rather than capitalising on the doctors'
and nurses' intelligence (c.f., Adler & Borys, 1996; Jordan &
Messner, 2012). In addition, the written guidelines had to be fol-
lowed, period, and no flexibility was granted to the doctors and
nurses in the application of the formal control procedures (c.f.,
Ahrens & Chapman, 2004; Jo €rgensen & Messner, 2009). As noted by
Ahrens and Chapman (2004, p. 279): “The premise of the enabling
logic is that operations are not totally programmable.” As such, our
case contributes to the literature on enabling control by providing
an extreme case of a specific task (i.e., the actual decision of who to
admit to the ward) being ‘totally’ programmable and hence there
was no need for doctors' and nurses' input beyond provision of the
information specified in the clinical forms.13 Resource poverty, an
absence of perceived treatment choices, the financial situation of
MediOrg and the strategic choice of being involved in government
funded programmes created a context in which the manager
required no participation from the doctors and nurses when mak-
ing the actual admission decision, and consequently the doctors
and nurses were not enabled at all. However, the formal MCS were
nevertheless accepted as necessary and the doctors and nurses
spent a considerable amount of time completing forms after
providing treatment to patients. The doctors and nurses used the
pre-set templates to supply the necessary information for each
person treated. Similarly, in relation to previous research on
healthcare organisations, the formal MCS did indeed limit the
professional autonomy of the doctors and nurses, given that the
actual decisions about patient admissions were now taken solely by
the manager. On the basis of existing research, such control would
almost certainly encounter strong opposition from the line workers
(e.g., Jones & Dewing, 1997; Lapsley, 2008). In our case, however,
the doctors and nurses filled in the clinical reports as required and
ticked the appropriate box concerning the need for ward treatment.
How can these findings be explained? One answer could be that
there is a lack of understanding of the conflicts between economic
and medical/moral rationale by those involved, i.e., the doctors and
nurses are ignorant of the implications of the formal controls being
exercised upon them. This is unlikely as MediOrg is a small health
centre where the doctors and nurses work both in the open clinic
and the ward, and thereby they are fully aware of which patients
are treated in the ward. We would rather suggest that these con-
tradictions are overlooked, tolerated and even accepted to sustain
MediOrg's ideology of helping the poor people and working for
God's sake. Thus, our study reveals that the understanding of
formal MCS is not only pre-determined through choices made in
13
Thanks are due to a reviewer for pointing this out.
56 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
the design of these systems, but also in how the implementation
process is carried out (Englund & Gerdin, 2015; Jordan & Messner,
2012; Wouters & Wilderom, 2008). As noted by Jordan and Messner
(2012), symbolic practices through which the role and relevance of
formal MCS are communicated impact on how the systems are
perceived by the employees. We contribute by detailing an
important, yet in previous research unexplored, part of this
implementation process, namely that a strong predominantly
ideological control system had an important impact on how the
doctors and nurses perceived the implementation of the formal
MCS (c.f. Etzioni, 1961, 1964, 1975). Highlighting the interplay be-
tween ideological control and formal MCS, our case showed how
the manager through ‘ideological talk’, during the morning cere-
monies, linked the formal MCS to MediOrg's ideology. The two
formal MCS, through the interplay with the predominant ideolog-
ical control in place at MediOrg, became vested with symbolic
significance (see, Etzioni, 1975). The MediOrg staff appeared to feel
at ease with their formal leader and accepted his arguments about
the linkage between the formal MCS and the organisational ide-
ology. This is supported by the fact that the doctors and nurses
remained at MediOrg in spite of regularly repeated offers of
significantly higher wages from other hospitals. As such, our find-
ings suggest that formal MCS gained relevance for MediOrg's em-
ployees through the manager's use of ideological control in verbal
communication.
Additionally, the implementation of the two formal MCS can be
understood as shift in the compromises between two different, and
potentially conflicting, means of valuing everyday work. In a recent
contribution, Chenhall et al. (2013) found that one important
feature when designing formal MCS was that of ‘concurrent visi-
bility’, i.e., that different evaluative principles of organisational
actors were made visible. They showed that a performance mea-
surement system designed to produce such concurrent visibility
limited the resistance to the imposition of formal MCS. For instance,
metrics were accompanied by narrative boxes, which enabled the
respondents to compromise between the different evaluative
principles. Our findings suggest that compromise between multiple
values can be sought both through the design of formal MCS (as in
Chenhall et al., 2013) and through the use of ideological control,
vesting the formal MCS with symbolic significance (as in our case).
Furthermore, an important part of producing concurrent visibility
in MediOrg was the manner in which the formal MCS were intro-
duced into the morning ceremonies. The manager always ran these
ceremonies in a similar fashion, commencing with a discussion of
MediOrg's ideology. The manager's choice of the familiar setting of
the morning ceremony as a key site for communicating the
implementation of the formal MCS arguably reinforced the rele-
vance of the topic for the staff. Yet putting this issue at the end of
each ceremony also subordinated these concerns to MediOrg's
ideology, which likely resonated with the doctors' and nurses'
existing values (c.f., Carlsson-Wall et al., in press). In this way, the
manager highlighted the different modes of evaluation. Another
example was that a patient whose life was in danger was always
admitted to the ward, even if this meant that patients were being
treated in the corridor.
However, our analysis also shows that too much concurrent
visibility might be problematic. There was an absence of open
discussion in MediOrg regarding the financial situation and the
rationale for implementing the formal MCS. This was the case both
when we observed the communication between the manager and
the employees and when we posed questions concerning the
rationale to the doctors and nurses. They simply repeatedly
referred the researchers back to the manager. Messner (2009) ar-
gues that sometimes demands for accountability can become so
great as to be ethically problematic for the person or organisation
that is expected to provide an account. In situations of apparent
resource insufficiency, a limit is introduced on what can be
accounted for by means of rational argumentation (Cho et al., 2015;
Messner, 2009). Open discussions may result in too much concur-
rent visibility, creating an ethical burden for the employees insofar
as they need to decide on something that they find difficult, or even
impossible, to rationalise (see, Messner, 2009; Roberts, 2009). In
this context, Brunsson discusses the danger of open discussions
when moral concerns are important. As he put it (Brunsson, 1993, p.
492): “It is easier to implement actions which are regarded as
immoral, than to acknowledge them openly; and it is even more
difficult to defend them or to propose that they be adopted. In other
words, it is difficult to hold an open discussion about actions which
are difficult to defend on morally acceptable grounds. This difficulty
can lead to things being done without their being openly accounted
for.” The manager's behaviour in our case corresponds to this line of
reasoning. Acknowledging the (financially informed) reason for the
implementation of the formal MCS openly would reveal moral
tensions and could potentially be difficult to defend. MediOrg
would risk losing its organisational identity (c.f., Empson, 2004).
This difficulty can, as noted by Brunsson (1993), lead to formal MCS
being implemented without them being openly accounted for,
which can explain the lack of open discussion observed in the
MediOrg case.
Finally, we find it important to acknowledge that ideological
control has the capacity to be beneficial or damaging, and very
often has components of both, at different times and for different
groups (see, Czarniawska-Joerges, 1988). The changes in decision-
making regarding ward treatment introduced by the manager to
accommodate the requirements of the government programmes
would have had adverse effects on many of those patients whose
illness fell outside the programmes (and probably their families
and relatives, too). We did not investigate these adverse effects
further in our study.
6. Conclusion
This study explored ideological control and its interplay with
formal MCS in MediOrg, a small health centre operating as an NGO
in rural India. A focus on ideological control is consistent with
emerging accounting research on the “expressive dimensions” of
organisational life (e.g., Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Boedker & Chua,
2013; Chenhall et al., in press; Efferin & Hopper, 2007; Ezzamel,
2009; Jacobs & Walker, 2004; Quattrone, 2004). However, while
this literature has analysed, for instance, the influence of sub-
cultures on formal MCS and how formal MCS play an active role in
the expression of values, less interest has been exhibited in how
managers use organisational ideology to enact a particular form of
organisational experience for their employees and to create a
highly valued sense of purpose for the organisation. We found that
it is mainly through ‘ideological talk’ in face-to-face contact be-
tween the manager and the employees that ideological control
assumes its specific significance in organisations. This ‘talk’, during
morning rituals, was repeatedly directed towards three aspects,
emphasising the organisation's ideology and why it is important;
how the ideology makes the organisation unique; and displaying
exemplary behaviours that are in line with the ideology. We
conclude that these aspects of ‘ideological talk’ enabled the man-
ager to emphasise MediOrg's uniqueness, giving him a powerful
instrument of control (c.f., Czarniawska-Joerges & Jorges, 1988;
Etzioni, 1961, 1975).
Ideological control was also important for explaining the limited
resistance to the implementation of financially oriented formal
MCS. Prior research has provided valuable knowledge on how the
design characteristics and the implementation process of formal
 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
MCS can help to explain compliance (e.g., Ahrens & Chapman,
2004; Boedker & Chua, 2013; Jordan & Messner, 2012; Wouters &
Wilderom, 2008). We contribute by detailing an important, yet
previously unexplored, part of this implementation process,
namely that the relevance of formal MCS was emphasised for
MediOrg's employees through the manager's use of ideological
control when implementing the systems. The formal MCS, through
the interplay with the predominant ideological control in place,
became vested with symbolic significance (c.f., Etzioni, 1975). On a
related note, Chenhall et al. (2013) found that compliance increased
when formal MCS were designed to produce ‘concurrent visibil-
ities’ such that different evaluative principles of organisational ac-
tors were made visible. Our findings suggest that compromise
between multiple values can be sought both through the design of
formal MCS (as in Chenhall et al., 2013) and through the use of
ideological control, vesting the formal MCS with symbolic signifi-
cance (as in our case). We also conclude that too much concurrent
visibility might be problematic. Acknowledging the true rationale
for implementing the formal MCS would reveal moral tensions and
MediOrg would risk losing its organisational identity. Thus, open
discussions could result in too much concurrent visibility imposing
an ethical burden on the employees as they would become involved
in decisions that they would find difficult to rationalise.
Our research also contributes to the empirical domain of man-
agement control in NGOs. Our study of MediOrg supports the
claims made in the existing literature that NGOs face increased
pressure from funders to demonstrate efficient use of resources
(e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010; Dixon et al., 2006; Goddard & Assad,
2006). MediOrg responded fully to such pressure and we
observed a heavy administrative workload associated with satis-
fying the government's demands. While the social mission to
provide free healthcare for the severely poor was important at
MediOrg, economic concerns impacted heavily on how MediOrg
was to deliver healthcare services. However, in spite of the heavy
intrusion of economic rationality on work practices, MediOrg did
not appear to have lost its organisational identity, as had been
observed in previous research (e.g., Dixon et al., 2006; O'Dwyer &
Unerman, 2008). Thus, while recognising the role of formal MCS
to manage the tensions between financial and social ideals in NGOs
documented in previous research (e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010, 2013,
in press), our findings reveal a more complex picture involving
ideological control, formal MCS, moral considerations and spiritual
leadership. These dimensions need to be taken into account when
analysing how management control can help NGOs attract funding,
while maintaining their identity.
Finally, our conclusions have implications for the ongoing
debate about the role of management control in healthcare orga-
nisations (e.g., Jacobs, 1998, 2005; Jones & Dewing, 1997;
Kurunma €ki, 1999, 2004). This stream of research has highlighted
the tensions between economic reasoning and professional ideals
experienced by doctors and nurses in hospitals and health centres
in developed countries (Kurunma €ki et al., 2003; Nyland &
Pettersen, 2004). We still know little about how such tensions are
handled in different specific social and organisational contexts,
however, and in this context, Marcon and Panozzo (1998) and
Jacobs (2005) argued that researchers should go beyond the
countries habitually considered to analyse these tensions in con-
textually informed research. Our findings show that the tensions
between economic reasoning and professional ideals in MediOrg
are more complex than has been suggested by previous research.
More specifically, we need to distinguish between professional
identity and organisational identity (see, Empson, 2004). Previous
studies of health care organisations have mainly focused on pro-
fessional identity, which has meant that organisational identity has
tended to be treated as being subsidiary to, or conflated with,
57
professional identity. In contrast, our study shows that professional
and organisational identity coexist in a complex relationship. In
MediOrg, economic concerns strongly impacted on the decisions
concerning admission for in-patient treatment, thereby severely
compromising the professional autonomy of the front-line doctors
and nurses. However, this was not because the doctors and nurses
had acquired the tools of management accounting and let economic
reasoning influence their decisions, as demonstrated in the existing
accounting literature on healthcare organisations (e.g., Kurunma €ki,
1999, 2004). Rather, the manager's use of ideological control
created a strong organisational identity and the staff appeared to
feel at ease using the formal MCS because their formal leader
argued that it was important for MediOrg's ongoing work with the
severely poor.
Our study shows that there is much scope for future research to
specify and contextualise the interplay between ideological control
and formal MCS. Our analysis is based on a relatively small reli-
giously affiliated NGO, which, presumably, makes it easier for a
manager to be a formal leader and to exercise strong and spiritual
forms of ideological control, such as ‘ideological talk’. More
research is needed on how ideological control, involvement and
leadership type (Etzioni, 1961, 1964, 1975) play out in larger orga-
nisations and in organisations which are not religiously affiliated.
Furthermore, MediOrg had gained acceptance and earned a good
reputation among local people and was therefore able to focus
wholeheartedly on providing healthcare to the severely poor,
avoiding involvement in village politics. In addition, the patients
and the relatives simply accepted the doctor's suggestions for
medication or ward treatment. Further research could analyse how
downward accountability, empowerment and participation (see,
O'Dwyer & Unerman, 2010) add additional layers of complexity to
the use of management control in NGOs and in health care
organisations.
Acknowledgements
This paper has greatly benefited from comments from Trevor
Hopper, Martin Messner, Wai Fong Chua, Henning Christner, the
participants at the AOS workshop on Accounting, Non-
Governmental Organizations and Civil Society, London School of
Economics, 2012, the participants at the Management Control
Seminar Series, Stockholm School of Economics, 2014, the editors
Matthew Hall and Brendan O'Dwyer, and two anonymous
reviewers.
Appendix. Interview overview
Interviews FebruaryeApril 2012
1. Coordination officer, local medical college
2. Director of the International Mission, church
3. District tuberculosis officer, government tuberculosis
programme
4. Centre manager, government HIV/AIDS programme
5. Dean, local nursing college
6. Department head, local medical college
7. Health centre accountant, MediOrg
8. Health centre manager, MediOrg
9. Health centre manager, MediOrg
10. Health centre manager, MediOrg
11. Health centre manager, MediOrg
12. Health centre orderly, MediOrg
13. Medical officer, nearest district hospital
14. Middle manager, MediOrg
15. Middle manager, MediOrg
58 K. Kraus et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 42e59
16. Nurse A, MediOrg
17. Principal, local education society
18. Programme manager, government HIV/AIDS programme
19. Senior counsellor, MediOrg
Interviews June 2015
20. Health centre manager, MediOrg
21. Doctor A, MediOrg
22. Doctor B, MediOrg
23. Nurse A, MediOrg
24. Nurse B, MediOrg
25. Nurse C, MediOrg
26. European doctor, 5-week internship split between MediOrg
and a city hospital
27. European nurse A, 5-week internship split between MediOrg
and a city hospital
28. European nurse B, 5-week internship split between MediOrg
and a city hospital
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 Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Accounting, Organizations and Society

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aos

The expressive role of performance measurement systems: A field

study of a mental health development project
Robert H. Chenhall a, Matthew Hall b, *, David Smith a
a
Department of Accounting, Monash Business School, Monash University, Australia
b
Department of Accounting, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The management control systems (MCS) literature has long recognized the importance of values and
Available online 5 December 2014 beliefs (e.g., Ouchi, 1979; Simons, 1995). However, in this literature, values and beliefs are typically
presented in the context of mission statements or company slogans that can play little substantive role in
shaping actions and behaviors. In this paper we focus on how MCS can play a more active role in values
expression, and examine the potential for performance measurement systems (PMS) to be used within
organizations to express the values and beliefs of organizational members. This use of PMS, which we
term its expressive role, is important as pluralistic and expressive forms of organizing are becoming more
prevalent. Furthermore, prior research indicates that enabling the expression of values and beliefs by
organizational members can generate energy and commitment that are important to the achievement of
organizational objectives. In a field study of a mental health development project in a non-government
organization, we examine the design and operational characteristics that are important for the
expressive role of PMS. We also examine the interplay between the expressive role and the instrumental
role of PMS and identify circumstances in which these roles can clash and/or be complementary.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction increasingly operating in more pluralistic contexts characterized by

The management control systems (MCS) literature has long
recognized that values and beliefs are important in the functioning
of organizations (Ouchi, 1979; Simons, 1995). Scholars have ques-
tioned, however, whether those MCS often associated with values
and beliefs, such as mission statements and company slogans, play
any substantial role in shaping actions and behaviors (e.g., Argyres
& McGahan, 2002: 48). Furthermore, even in contexts where MCS
are envisioned to play a more prominent role, it is typically to
promote conformance by organizational members with corporate
values and beliefs espoused by senior management (Ouchi, 1979;
Simons, 1995). In this way, there has been little attention directed
toward the possibility for MCS to play a more active role in values
expression, particularly in the context of enabling a wider variety of
organizational members (and not only senior managers) to express
their beliefs and values as part of their work in organizations.
Attention to a more active role for MCS in values expression is
important because recent research indicates that organizations are
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: m.r.hall@lse.ac.uk (M. Hall).
multiple objectives (Denis, Langley, & Rouleau, 2007). In this
context, in addition to a purely instrumental rationale focused on
the pursuit of specific objectives, organizations can have an
expressive purpose (Berry, 2005; Etzioni, 1961; Frumkin, 2005;
Schultz, Hatch, & Larsen, 2000). This expressive purpose reflects a
focus on helping individuals to express their values, commitment
and faith through their work in organizations (Frumkin, 2005;
Gordon & Babchuk, 1959; Mason, 1996; Schultz et al., 2000).
A focus on the expressive dimension of organizations is
consistent with emerging research attempting to reposition the
role of organizational members’ values, beliefs and emotions at
work e not as a nuisance or obstacle to organizational progress, but
rather as a potentially productive feature of the work environment
(Boedker & Chua, 2013; Bolton & Houlihan, 2009; Dutton, Worline,
Frost, & Lilius, 2006; Huy, 1999). In particular, research indicates
that enabling the expression of values and beliefs by organizational
members can generate energy and commitment, enhance learning
and exploration of alternatives, and reduce value conflicts in ways
that can aid the collective achievement of organizational objectives
(c.f., Frumkin, 2005; Huy, 1999).
In this study we examine the potential for PMS to be used within

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2014.11.002
0361-3682/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
organizations to express the values and beliefs of organizational
members. In particular, we consider whether and how organiza-
tional members’ involvement with PMS can potentially provide a
context within which their values and beliefs can be expressed. This
focus on organizational members’ substantive engagement with
PMS seeks to highlight a more active role for MCS in values
expression, moving beyond the typically passive role ascribed to
elements of MCS such as mission statements and slogans. We also
seek to pay particular attention to the expression of values and
beliefs held by a variety of organizational members, and not only on
how PMS can be used instrumentally by senior managers to
encourage conformance with corporate values and beliefs. Specif-
ically, we address three interrelated research questions: Can PMS
help organizational members to express their values and beliefs? If
so, what design and operational characteristics of the PMS could
help to facilitate this process? How does the expressive role of PMS
relate to and/or conflict with an instrumental use of PMS in
organizations?
To analyze the potential for an expressive role of PMS we con-
ducted a field study of the development of a PMS in the Sri Lankan
office of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), a non-government or-
ganization (NGO) working in the field of international develop-
ment. NGOs, like VSO, are characterized typically by the
instrumental pursuit of specific objectives, such as poverty reduc-
tion and meeting other developmental goals related to health, ed-
ucation and empowerment. In addition, they are characterized by a
salience of beliefs and values related to missions to help the
disadvantaged, where organizational members participate in these
organizations in order to help express their commitment to these
values and causes (Frumkin, 2005; Mason, 1996). Our empirical
setting provides us with a powerful lens through which to examine
the potential for PMS to play an expressive role, as well as the way
in which this expressive role relates to the instrumental use of PMS
in organizations.
Our study contributes to the literature by developing and
advancing understanding of the expressive role of PMS. We
conceptualize this role as the capacity of a PMS to facilitate the
display of a variety of values and beliefs held by organizational
members. The findings from our field study indicate that the ability
of a PMS to enable organizational members to express their values
and beliefs is related to specific design and operational character-
istics. The creation of a ‘playful’ environment (c.f., Huy, 1999) in
which the PMS operates, and a PMS that is easily accessible to
organizational members, are both important in order for the PMS to
operate in an expressive role. Prompting the expression of values
and beliefs by organizational members is then facilitated by the
indicators included in the PMS aligning with the important values
and beliefs of organizational members, where the development of a
close affinity between the specific values and beliefs of organiza-
tional members and the precise content and wording of those in-
dicators is paramount.
Our identification and conceptualization of the expressive role
of PMS contributes to the MCS literature (e.g., Simons, 1995) by
exploring how values and beliefs can be discussed and expressed as
part of MCS and how this actually shapes behavior. This is in
contrast to, for example, MCS in the form of a mission statement
that is neither referred to, nor thought about, by organizational
members (e.g., Argyres & McGahan, 2002: 48). This focus also
contributes to emerging research positioning the expression of
organizational members’ values and emotions as a potentially
productive feature of the work environment (Boedker & Chua,
2013; Bolton & Houlihan, 2009; Dutton et al., 2006; Huy, 1999).
In particular, our study provides insight into the way in which the
expression of values through PMS can help the achievement of
organizational objectives by mobilizing the energy, motivation and
61
commitment that values expression can create (c.f., Dutton et al.,
2006; Frumkin, 2005; Huy, 1999). Examination of the expressive
role of PMS is likely to be important for those organizations that
have an evident expressive purpose, such as NGOs, and for orga-
nizations more generally as pluralistic and expressive forms of
organizing become more prevalent (Denis et al., 2007; Schultz
et al., 2000; Huy, 1999; Dutton et al., 2006).
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next
section provides the theoretical framework for the study. The third
section details the research method. The fourth section provides
information on the case context, with the fifth and sixth sections
presenting our empirical analysis from our field study. In the final
section we discuss our findings and provide concluding comments.
Theory development
Our conceptualization of the expressive role of PMS has its roots
in literature seeking to distinguish between expressive and
instrumental organizations, a typology first adopted by Gordon and
Babchuk (1959). An expressive organization is one whose activities
can help individuals to express their values, commitment and faith
through their work, while an instrumental organization is one
designed to maintain or create some normative aim (Frumkin,
2005; Gordon & Babchuk, 1959; Mason, 1996).
Recent research has indicated that rather than being either
purely expressive or purely instrumental, organizations can operate
in more pluralistic contexts characterized by multiple objectives
(Chenhall, Hall, & Smith, 2010; Denis et al., 2007). On this basis, the
idea that all organizations have an expressive purpose (to varying
degrees) has gained increasing attention. This is founded on the
idea that organizations compete based on their values, or what they
are seen to stand for (Schultz et al., 2000). This can be the case for
both for-profit and non-profit organizations. In considering for-
profit organizations, Shaw (2000) notes the importance of values
relating to innovation at 3M and HewlettePackard and the manner
in which these organizations have used stories of organizational
members past and present to highlight these values to new
members. On this basis, rather than organizations being purely
expressive or instrumental, it makes more sense to consider the
expressive and instrumental purposes that may be at play within
any given organization. As such, our study focuses on the role PMS
can play in supporting this expressive purpose, as well as instru-
mental roles for PMS in organizations.
PMS, roles of accounting information, and the expression of values
and beliefs
In examining the expressive role of PMS, we focus on the way in
which MCS can be used to express values and beliefs. Prior MCS
research has tended to focus on the values of top managers where,
for example, they can use interactive control systems to reveal their
values and preferences to other managers and employees in the
organization (Simons, 1995). However, this is very much a top-
down, hierarchical process whereby the values of top managers
are communicated to others in the organization, with little capacity
for the expression of values and beliefs by employees at lower
levels of the organization. We seek to understand how PMS can
help to express or ‘signal’ the values and beliefs of a variety of
organizational members, not only top managers. Prior MCS
research also tends to locate values under the domain of ‘belief
systems,’ where practices such as mission statements are used to
valorize particular values (Simons, 1995). However, such practices
seemingly have little active or on-going role in helping organiza-
tional members to discuss and express their values as part of their
work (e.g., Argyres & McGahan, 2002: 48). In contrast, our focus is
62 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
on how the PMS can become involved in the communication, dis-
cussion and expression of values by members of the organization.
As such, we consider how PMS can be used to discuss and express
the beliefs and values of organization members, and how these
systems can be used to shape behavior.
In line with this discussion, we define the expressive role of PMS
as the capacity of a PMS to facilitate the display of a variety of values
and beliefs held by organizational members. In crafting and elab-
orating this definition, we first draw on research into organiza-
tional symbolism. Scholars have focused on a variety of different
types of organizational symbols related to the core and distinctive
values and beliefs of an organization, and, in particular, have
identified the use of material objects and artefacts as being a
potentially powerful symbol in this process of values expression
(c.f. Pratt & Rafaeli, 1997; Trice & Beyer, 1993).
PMS typically (if not always) involve the development of ma-
terial objects and artefacts, such as indicators, spreadsheets, and
performance reports. Smith and Stewart (2011) argue that the
process of transferring unexpressed beliefs and values into
comprehensible symbols and material artefacts is important for the
expression of values. Boedker and Chua (2013) argue that emotions
like hope, desire, fear and passion can come alive and circulate
through material artefacts such as accounting templates, reflecting
their role in not only engaging intellectual and reasoning skills, but
also playing on people’s passions and feelings. Other research in-
dicates that measurement and evaluation practices can provide an
important mechanism through which individuals in organizations
can reflect upon and express their beliefs and values (Abma, 1997;
Dart & Davies, 2003; Greene, 1999; Howes, 1992). This research
suggests the development and operation of a PMS, particularly its
manifestations in material artefacts, could help staff to think about,
reflect on and articulate their values and beliefs.
In elaborating this idea, we draw on Huy’s (1999) work on
emotional dynamics, specifically on the role of ‘display freedom.’
Huy (1999) refers to display freedom as the organization’s ability to
facilitate the variety of emotions that can legitimately be displayed
and felt in the organization. We adapt this conceptualization of
display freedom to refer to the capacity of a PMS to facilitate the
display of a variety of values and beliefs held by organizational
members. Huy’s (1999) work suggests that the creation of an
environment in which there is freedom from the fear of reprisal for
holding ‘inappropriate’ views, and in which there is ‘time’ and
‘space’ to have the ability for reflection, experimentation and
expression of new ideas, is likely to support the development of
display freedom. In contrast, display freedom is low when organi-
zational members are faced with an organizational climate where
they feel restricted in their ability to share their values and beliefs
(for example, where there is fear of reprisal, or embarrassment).
On first consideration, it may appear that an instrumental use of
accounting places little or no explicit emphasis on the expression of
values and beliefs held by organizational members, given that its
focus is on efficiency and the pursuit of instrumental ends. How-
ever, a large body of more critical accounting scholarship illustrates
how the (often typical) focus in PMS on financial goals can serve to
promote a narrow range of values related to efficiency and purely
economic or profit-based ends (e.g., Cushen, 2013; Dent, 1991;
Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington, 2008). This suggests that a
strong focus on economic goals may restrict the expressive role of
PMS.1 In contrast, an expressive role of PMS need not be restricted
to a focus on improvements in operations and efficiency, even
1
An exception to this could be in situations where organizational members
happen to value highly goals related to organizational efficiency and profit-based
ends.
though the energy generated from the process of articulating be-
liefs and values can complement efforts to improve organizational
effectiveness (c.f., Frumkin, 2005). Frumkin (2005) notes that the
instrumental and expressive perspectives may not necessarily be in
tension. Specifically, PMS playing an instrumental role may support
expressive purposes by serving to highlight and focus attention on
areas seen as important to the values of organizational members.
As above, however, this may only be possible where there is scope
for the inclusion of organizational members’ values in the PMS that
go beyond the purely economic or instrumental.
The above discussion examined the role of organizational
members’ values and beliefs in the development of a PMS. How-
ever, when and how a PMS could provide organizational members
with opportunities to express their values and beliefs is unclear,
and is likely to depend on the presence of certain design and
operational characteristics.
Characteristics of PMS enabling the expression of values and beliefs
In considering the characteristics that may enable the expres-
sion of values and beliefs of organizational members, we first draw
on research suggesting that the engagement of organizational
members in the performance measurement process is likely to be
important for the expressive role of PMS. This can involve opening
up information production activities to a wider variety of partici-
pants in order to make the PMS more accessible and visible to
organizational members (c.f., Deetz, 1995; Greene, 1999). This could
involve providing organizational members with the opportunity to
ask questions, offer views and provide suggestions during the
development and operation of the PMS (c.f., Hirschheim & Klein,
1994). Organizational members could be given power to nego-
tiate collectively the development of the PMS, where engagement
is more than a mere ‘feel good’ exercise akin to a ‘sham ritual’
(Ebrahim, 2003; Najam, 1996). Engagement of organizational
members with the performance measurement process may also
involve senior staff adopting an empowering approach facilitating
dialogue and information sharing rather than being overly com-
manding or directive (c.f., Bisbe, Batista-Foguet, & Chenhall, 2007;
Simons, 1990). Research also suggests that involving organizational
members in the development and operation of the PMS may
facilitate the expressive role as they are best placed to judge
whether their values and beliefs are suitably reflected in the PMS
(c.f. Wouters & Wilderom, 2008).
To understand how to engage organizational members in the
performance measurement process, we first draw on Huy’s (1999)
work on ‘playfulness.’ Huy (1999) refers to playfulness as the ability
of the organization to create a context promoting experimentation
and tolerating mistakes. We adapt this conceptualization to refer to
the organization’s ability to create an environment for developing
and operating the PMS in which mistakes are tolerated and
experimentation is encouraged. Such an environment would be
characterized by jokes, laughter, and playful activities legitimizing
trial and error (Huy, 1999) as part of the PMS’s operation. This is
consistent with the notion that fun and playfulness are an impor-
tant part of organizational life and part of attempts to engage with
the human side of organizing (Bolton & Houlihan, 2009).
The dynamic of playfulness appears particularly important in
enabling freedom of expression. The process underpinning the
development of the PMS would need to have aspects of ‘playful-
ness’ in order for staff to feel comfortable enough to provide sug-
gestions as to the properties of the PMS. This is consistent with
research focusing on the way in which fun and playful activities can
create a sense of involvement (Bolton & Houlihan, 2009). Playful
and game-like qualities in accounting systems can also encourage
organizational members to be more open and to engage in more
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
creative, innovative and experimental behaviors (Cooper, Hayes, &
Wolf, 1981). It would appear, then, that the presence of “playful-
ness” in the development of a PMS would promote “display
freedom”, and thus the expression of values and beliefs in the PMS.
In addition to Huy (1999), we also draw on research in evalua-
tion, organizational communication and management accounting
that helps to shed light on how to engage organizational members
in the PMS. Research in evaluation suggests formal evaluation
techniques can aid the expression of values by providing a medium
through which individuals feel comfortable expressing their per-
ceptions, which often involves modifying conventional frameworks
to suit the skills and culturally familiar idioms and styles of
expression of participants (Howes, 1992). These modified formats
can then provide memory triggers whereby individuals are able to
recount and reconstruct key events and experiences as part of the
formal evaluation process (Howes, 1992). Evaluation that is
responsive to and promotes the expression of the values of par-
ticipants tends to be formalized in a more open and narrative style,
which helps to invite reflection, rather than in a propositional style,
which limits dialogue by being more declarative about findings and
their meaning for participants (Abma, 1997).
Research also suggests that in order for a PMS to enable orga-
nizational members to express values and beliefs, it needs to be
accessible. This is because organizational members are unlikely to
engage with and adequately express their values and beliefs
through a PMS that they cannot understand. Prior research in-
dicates that user engagement with formal systems can be aided by
presenting information in a language familiar to the operator rather
than the language and terms of technical staff (Adler & Borys,
1996).2 This is because overly formal and technical language can
provide an expressive privilege to (often) managerial voices and
thus makes it difficult for a wider variety of organizational mem-
bers to express their views and opinions (Deetz, 1992, 1995). The
use of more every-day and natural language in formal systems can
help organizational members to access their content and reflect
upon its significance for them (Abma, 1997; Deetz, 1992). This can
also increase access to formal systems by limiting the need for
training in specialized techniques or abstract concepts (Hall, 2014).
Management control process can be made more accessible to
organizational members by, for example, calculating variances us-
ing categories relating to operational work, integrating budgeting
with operational planning, and by presenting simple information in
easily digestible formats so staff can process them quickly (Ahrens
& Chapman, 2004). Research also suggests PMS can be made more
accessible by eliminating accounting jargon and using plain lan-
guage instead of technical terms (Rowe, Birnberg, & Shields, 2008).
Method
For this study, the second author was a full-time volunteer at
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), an international development
NGO. The author’s volunteer placement was as a “Monitoring and
Evaluation Advisor” responsible for helping the mental health
programme to develop “appropriate M&E systems to monitor
progress of the VSO mental health programme/project.”3 The
author became aware of the volunteer placement during a research
visit to Sri Lanka in January 2009 that formed part of a wider study
2
Adler and Borys (1996) refer to the use of familiar language as part of their
discussion of ‘internal transparency’ within their description of enabling and co-
ercive bureaucracy. This work has, of course, been developed further in manage-
ment accounting research to refer to enabling and coercive controls (see for
example, Ahrens & Chapman, 2004; Wouters & Wilderom, 2008).
3
Source: Placement outline for Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor.
63
the authors were conducting on VSO (Chenhall, Hall, & Smith,
2013). The author subsequently applied to become a VSO volun-
teer through the standard VSO volunteer recruitment processes.
Accordingly, during this time the author’s position changed from a
researcher studying VSO as an ‘outsider’, to a participant observer
or ‘insider’ who was immersed in the real-time flow of activities in
the mental health programme (c.f. Ahrens & Mollona, 2007;
€ nsson & Lukka, 2007). The author completed the volunteer
Jo
placement in two visits to Sri Lanka in 2009, the first during two
weeks in April and the second during JulyeSeptember.4 During the
placement the author was based in the VSO Sri Lanka office, located
in a suburb of Colombo, where most of his time was spent. He also
travelled to other locations in Sri Lanka to visit various mental
health facilities where other volunteers were working. In total, the
author spent 61 days as a participanteobserver, where, in addition
to his work as a volunteer, he observed the everyday goings-on at
the office over the course of the placement, participated in lunches
and conversations with office staff and volunteers, as well as other
activities such as social gatherings, meetings, and weekends away.
The majority of the placement concerned the development of a
new system for use in the monitoring and evaluation of a mental
health development programme operated by VSO in Sri Lanka
(which came to be known by the acronym ‘LEAP’). Compared with
interview-based studies, participant observation can make more
credible claims toward studying accounting in ‘action’ (Ahrens &
Mollona, 2007). It can help researchers to gain the trust of organ-
isational members, which can provide access to information often
unavailable to outsiders (Rowe et al., 2008). This can provide the
opportunity to collect more significant and subtle data as the
researcher can see what organizational members actually say and
do and what really matters to them (Jo € nsson & Lukka, 2007) and to
get a closer look at people’s facial and bodily responses (Boedker &
Chua, 2013). Participant observation is particularly important to
this study in order to observe organizational members in situ and
see their responses (verbal and otherwise) to the PMS ‘close up.’ To
this end, there was an explicit agreement that the volunteer
placement would serve the dual purposes of helping the mental
health programme to develop a PMS as well as provide an oppor-
tunity for the author to gather empirical data for research purposes.
Overall, we adopted an interventionist approach. The author’s
participation was as follows: he facilitated the involvement of
programme staff, volunteers and partners’ in the development of
LEAP, organized regular meetings where staff and volunteers’
feedback on the tool was obtained and then incorporated into each
subsequent version, and coordinated completion of LEAP at each of
the mental health facilities. During these processes he spoke with
organizational members (individually and in groups) about their
work and the on-going development of LEAP. In this way, the
author participated in a change process with people working in the
organization that lead to the creation of a new accounting practice,
participating on equal terms with other members of the team and
sharing responsibility for the development of LEAP (c.f., Jo€ nsson &
Lukka, 2007). The author’s involvement was democratic (Jo €nsson &
Lukka, 2007) in the sense it was the organizational members who
developed the indicators in LEAP and took the primary role in
scoring the indicators and providing narrative descriptions during
its completion at each mental health facility, albeit with help and
support from the author. Our involvement at VSO did not set out to
test or develop a particular accounting innovation or practice
(Wouters & Wilderom, 2008) but was designed to gather empirical
4
During the research period the first and third authors were ‘outsiders’ who
remained involved in on-going research at VSO but did not participate directly in
the work in Sri Lanka.
64 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
data in order to theorize about how PMSs were developed and
operated, particularly in a setting with limited resources, expertise
and time-pressure. As such, we did not enter the field with an idea
of the expressive role, so our analysis of the data in relation to the
expressive role of PMS took place entirely after the participant
observation had ended (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004).
Formal data collection consisted of field notes, meetings, in-
terviews and documents. The author took detailed field notes
during each day of the research period, keeping a hand-written
diary providing a description of events as they unfolded, which is
important in preserving the traceability of the research process
€nsson & Lukka, 2007). Each evening after work, the hand written
(Jo
notes were turned into an ‘expanded account’ (Spradley, 1980)
using an electronic word processing system. Once a day’s entry was
completed it was not edited (Jo€ nsson & Lukka, 2007). The expanded
account totalled 127 pages of text. Additionally, seven meetings
concerning the development and implementation of the LEAP
system were digitally recorded and transcribed, representing a total
of over 14 h of meetings. Further, we draw on documents from the
LEAP development and implementation process, comprising seven
iterations of the LEAP report template, as well as supporting
documentation. We also draw on interviews with staff and volun-
teers involved with the VSO Sri Lanka programme office (seven
interviews), observations of office meetings (five meetings in total),
and over 100 documents relating to VSO Sri Lanka’s mental health
project and the VSO Sri Lankan programme office more generally.
We also sought to provide a longitudinal perspective to the study
by conducting interviews and collecting further documentation at
the completion of the mental health programme in February 2013.
We conducted an additional three interviews (consisting of an
interview with the Mental Health Programme Manager, a Mental
Health Programme Volunteer, and the Health Programme Manager
at VSO Head Office) and collected documents and reports per-
taining to the overall evaluation of the project. Table 1 provides an
overview of the formal data collection.5
With respect to data analysis, we followed the approach out-
lined by Eisenhardt (1989), which has been utilized in several prior
accounting studies (see for example, Ahrens & Chapman, 2004;
Chenhall et al., 2010; Free, 2007). This involved arranging the
different types of data (field notes, meeting transcripts, documents)
chronologically and identifying common themes and unique in-
sights and also areas of disagreement. We also used archival records
to elaborate and refine our understanding of important issues that
arose in field notes, meetings and interview discussions. We then
re-organized the original transcripts around key events and issues;
and compared emerging findings from our study with existing
research.
Case context
VSO is an international development NGO that works by
(mainly) linking volunteers with partner organizations in devel-
oping countries. VSO’s head office is in London, United Kingdom,
with a ‘country office’ situated in most of the developing countries
in which VSO operates. Volunteers are typically professionals with
substantive experience in their field, and their placements (lasting
5 8
We also draw from prior research on VSO (including 32 interviews from
Chenhall et al. (2013)), which although not referenced directly in the empirical
material below, helped to provide the knowledge necessary to make meaningful
and valid interpretations of the practices we observed (c.f., Alac & Hutchins, 2004).
6
VSO operates programmes in a variety of areas, including health, education,
secure livelihoods, HIV/AIDS, disability, and governance. For further information on
VSO and its operations, see www.vsointernational.org (accessed 5 September 2012)
and Chenhall et al. (2013).
Table 1
Formal fieldwork activity.
Participant observation 61 days, 127 pages of typed field notes
Observation and attendance
at meetings
LEAP meetings 7 meetings
VSO Sri Lanka office meetings 5 meetings
Interviews
VSO Sri Lanka staff 5 interviews
VSO Sri Lanka volunteers 4 interviews
VSO Head Office e Health 1 interview
programmes manager
Documents
LEAP reporting templates 7 iterations of the template
LEAP guidance documents >50 documents
Mental health programme and >100 documents
VSO Sri Lanka office
from three months to two years) involve taking up a specific po-
sition in an organization, usually working alongside a local staff
member. 6
The VSO Sri Lanka country office is located in Colombo, with 12
full-time staff, including a Country Director, three Programme
Managers, and a variety of support staff responsible for volunteer
relations, administration and logistics. VSO Sri Lanka operated
programmes in three areas: mental health, disability, and partici-
pation and governance, with each programme area headed by one
of the three Programme Managers. Each programme consisted of a
set of partner organizations and a group of volunteers.
The mental health programme
VSO had identified mental health as ‘a neglected area with
services and resources concentrated in Colombo and a few urban
areas.’7,8 The VSO mental health programme had volunteers
working in a variety of roles in the Sri Lankan mental health sector,
typically as trainers in contemporary and community-based mental
health care. Most volunteers were qualified mental health practi-
tioners from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS),
with some volunteers from the Netherlands and India. At the time
this research was undertaken, 10 volunteers were in placement in
Sri Lanka. Most partner organizations in the mental health pro-
gramme were government hospitals and rehabilitation centres,
along with two NGOs. The country office worked closely with the
Sri Lankan Ministry of Health through on-going involvement in
regular meetings of the mental health sector and having senior
mental health professionals on the programme’s advisory com-
mittee. The mental health programme was primarily organized by
two staff, a ‘Programme Manager’ and a ‘Programme Officer’, who
were responsible for day-to-day programme organization, admin-
istrative tasks such as planning, budgeting, and reporting, devel-
opment of partnerships and volunteer placements, and liaising
with current volunteers and partner organizations on a regular
7
Source: ‘Supporting and Developing Rights-Based Mental Health Services in Sri
Lanka’ e project description document.
In 2005 the Sri Lankan government issued the ‘Mental Health Policy of Sri
Lanka 2005e2015’ that identified the poor state of mental health in Sri Lanka,
stating that it had ‘an estimated 2% of the population suffering from serious mental
illnesses.’ The policy was primarily directed at establishing minimum service and
staffing levels in each of the districts of Sri Lanka, with a focus on promoting
community-based mental health care that catered for social as well as medical
needs (Sri Lankan Mental Health Policy, see www.searo.wo.int/LinkFiles/On_going_
projects_mhp_slr.pdf, accessed 5 September 2012.
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
basis.9
In 2008 VSO obtained external funding for the mental health
programme, with a four-year project worth approximately one
million euros. The project was 75% funded by the European Com-
mission, with other funding from the World Health Organization,
Astra Zeneca and the Silvia Adams Charitable Trust. There were four
stated objectives for the mental health project:
1. National Mental Health Policy implemented in six target prov-
inces within Sri Lanka;
2. mental health workers in the six target provinces use more
client-centred and rehabilitation-focused approaches;
3. newly trained mental health workers and non-mental health
workers are trained using interactive and practical methodolo-
gies; and
4. partners engage in more community-based rehabilitation-
focused approaches, in particular ensuring the involvement of
people with mental health problems and/or their families in
these approaches.10
These objectives of the mental health project focused on the
extent and quality of mental health practices across different
provinces, as well as the involvement of beneficiaries and their
families. The mental health project required very detailed reporting
on budgeting and expenditures according to pre-specified budget
codes and reporting procedures. These reports were submitted
quarterly to the European Commission. The project also required
VSO to provide annual and end-of-project evaluations on progress
in achieving the stated objectives, but the precise content and
format of this evaluation was not specified by the donors, meaning
VSO was able to develop its own measurement and reporting sys-
tem for this purpose. To this end, VSO proposed that evaluation of
the mental health project ‘include annual partner reviews, and
mid-term reporting by partners and volunteers on progress be-
tween annual reviews. These involve participatory exercises and
workshops with the volunteers, partner’s staff and client groups
and other stakeholders.’11
External funding provided a moderate amount of resources with
which to undertake monitoring and evaluation activities as well as
funding volunteer placements focused on monitoring and evalua-
tion. In this way, the mental health project provides a useful
empirical setting for examining the expressive role of PMS as it is
unlikely to be dominated by external pressures, and there is the
potential for tension between the expressive and instrumental
roles of PMS in that it should be ‘useful’. Further, the project was
undertaken in an environment with sufficient financial resources to
enable the PMS’s development.
Developing a performance measurement system
One of the main existing reporting practices used in the mental
health programme was the ‘Volunteer Report’, which focused on
the activities of an individual volunteer placement. Each volunteer
completed it, typically at two-month, 12-month and 24-month
intervals. This reporting format had been in place for many years,
and was used widely across volunteer placements throughout VSO.
The report was a narrative account that included sections such as
9
For further information about the mental health programme, see www.vso.org.
uk/Images/sri-lanka-mental-health-summary-mar07_tcm79-20599.pdf, accessed 5
September 2012.
10
Source: ‘Supporting and Developing Rights-Based Mental Health Services in Sri
Lanka’ e project description document.
11
Source: ‘Supporting and Developing Rights-Based Mental Health Services in Sri
Lanka’ e project description document.
65
‘the volunteer’s main activities so far’ and asked volunteers to
report on ‘how has your job developed since you arrived and what
lessons can be learnt’ and ‘how have you adapted personally?’12
This report was considered inadequate by the Programme Man-
ager, as it did not relate to the mental health project’s objectives
outlined above.
The development of a new PMS for the mental health pro-
gramme began in August 2008, when the Mental Health Pro-
gramme Manager devised an Excel spreadsheet centred on
reporting progress toward the four objectives of the programme
(see Fig. 1 for a timeline of key events in the development of a new
PMS). The spreadsheet had rows containing questions to gauge
progress on each objective, with each column corresponding to one
of the six provinces in Sri Lanka.13 In attempting to complete the
spreadsheet, the volunteers and Programme Manager were
required to consider the effects of VSO’s work in each province. This
proved problematic, however, with the Programme Manager
commenting that the spreadsheet she had devised was not very
‘user-friendly’14 and the volunteers did not complete it. Little
progress was made, until April 2009, with the beginning of the
researcher’s volunteer placement, along with another mental
health programme volunteer working part-time on the process
(referred to here as Volunteer 1).
The development of the PMS took the Excel spreadsheet as the
starting point and proceeded through a total of seven different
designs (comprising different sections and indicators) that were
trialed and tested during the period AprileAugust 2009. Each
round of this testing involved the development of a new design,
which was then discussed in face-to-face meetings with mental
health volunteers, VSO staff and some representatives from partner
organizations. Feedback from these meetings was then incorpo-
rated into the next design of the PMS, which was taken to another
meeting, and so on. The PMS that was developed from this process
came to be called LEAP, an acronym representing ‘Learning, Eval-
uation, Assessment for Partners.’ This PMS was to be completed for
each of the mental health facilities with which VSO had placed a
volunteer. The final version of LEAP had four sections: Capacity
Building and Service Delivery, Training and Behavior of Staff, Pa-
tient Experiences, and the Impact of Mental Health Services on the
Lives of Beneficiaries. Each section consisted of a set of indicators,
where each indicator was scored on a 5-point scale and accompa-
nied by narrative information.15
The following sections reveal the different ways in which a PMS
can help organizational members to display and express their be-
liefs and values. First, we focus on the way in which a PMS can be
developed to engage people in the performance measurement
process. Second, we analyze the way in which the design and
operation of the PMS can embed (to varying degrees) and therefore
help with the display of values and beliefs held by staff and
volunteers.
Engagement, accessibility and playfulness
This section examines the way in which LEAP was developed
and operated to engage staff, volunteers and others in the perfor-
mance measurement process. Below we analyze how engagement
was facilitated in two ways: by improving LEAP’s accessibility to
12
Source: Sample of Volunteer Reports.
13
See Appendix 1 which shows a sample from the spreadsheet.
14
Source: Field notes, January and April 2009.
15
See Appendix 2 which shows the complete set of indicators, and Appendix 3
which reproduces the beginning of Section 1 and indicator 1.2 from LEAP as given in
the final version.
66 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
Fig. 1. Timeline of PMS developments.
users, and by making the process of developing and using LEAP
playful, fun and enjoyable. The findings reveal how the engagement
of organizational members, as facilitated by both accessibility and
playfulness, was a key part of making LEAP expressive, and, as such,
forms a key part of the expressive role of PMS.
Accessibility
Making the PMS accessible to staff, volunteers and partner
representatives was particularly challenging. The Health Pro-
gramme Manager described a typical view of monitoring and
evaluation processes as follows:
I think there’s a lot of mystique around M&E [monitoring and
evaluation] which perhaps doesn’t necessarily have to be there. I
think people think ‘oh, M&E is something which clever people
that crunch data and statistics and things do.’ […] I think
providing people with systems whereby they can actually do it
very simply is important but I think that can be a bit of a chal-
lenge sometimes.
This ‘mystique’ was addressed by designing LEAP so it was un-
derstandable to people without a background in monitoring and
evaluation. This was significant because the vast majority of people
involved in the mental health programme, including the volun-
teers, did not have such a background. LEAP avoided jargon, used
non-technical language and expressed indicators so they related
directly to the activities of the mental health programme (see Ap-
pendix 2).
A further way accessibility was promoted was by ensuring LEAP
was ‘as simple as possible.’16 This was particularly important
because volunteers and staff who came to work on the mental
health project held somewhat negative views about the use of PMS.
The Programme Officer explained:
The majority of volunteers…are psychiatric nurses and occu-
pational therapists and psychologists and psychiatric social
workers. They are health professionals and when they see this
kind of a tool [LEAP], if they don’t have a lot of background in
monitoring and evaluation and project management and so on
[…] I think they don’t want to take it up.
This quote highlights the way in which the volunteers’
16
Source: Draft 1 of LEAP reporting template.
motivation for working on the mental health programme was
driven by their work as health professionals where tools like LEAP
are viewed as a potential obstacle to their work. In this context PMS
are viewed as a distraction or even an incursion on much more
valuable activities; a situation observed in the wider NGO sector
(e.g., Chenhall et al., 2010).
The importance of LEAP being as simple and less onerous as
possible was evident in the following excerpt, taken from a meeting
in August 2009, where volunteers contrast the first and final drafts
of LEAP:
Volunteer 2: When this [LEAP] was first shown to us some
months ago it was like, my god, what on earth has VSO thrown
up […] this is too big […] I feel this [the revised version] is
workable […]
Volunteer 1: We’ve listened to your feedback.
Volunteer 2: It’s not just that, it’s that, I’m a volunteer, I’m sur-
rounded by paper work more than I was in the UK […] Finally I
understand the value of reporting for the future […] it’s more
user friendly for me, so a round of applause for the LEAP team,
yeah!
[General applause]
Volunteer 7: And also like the guff that we end up filling in in
England, you know, I’ve not been in the statutory sector in En-
gland [the NHS) very long but I’ve never yet had any input into it
at all. You know, you ring up, I can’t even remember the name of
the wretched database team, about why something doesn’t
work, and it’s just like, well, you can’t do it like that, you can’t
put in the information you want, you’ve got to put in the in-
formation we want, you know, and to have something that’s
what we actually need and is useful and is things that we’re
doing and talking about that is rather refreshing because that’s
not been my experience at home.
Volunteer 5: I think the thing I like about it is, I find paperwork
absolutely demoralizing, but this is less of an imposition.17
As with the Excel spreadsheet completed in August 2008, the
first version of LEAP was criticized for being too big and compli-
cated. In contrast, the final version of LEAP, which was the result of
extensive efforts to simplify and make it clearer, is viewed as user-
friendly and more workable. The lack of user input Volunteer 7
perceives in the NHS (‘you can’t do it like that’) is clearly a cause of
much frustration, evident in her view of the operators as the
17
Source: LEAP meeting, August 2009.
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75 67

‘wretched database team.’ In effect, by (seemingly) not even
considering the views of the volunteer, this lack of user input can be
seen as limiting and controlling the types of values and beliefs that
can be displayed and included in the PMS (c.f. Huy, 1999). In
contrast to the NHS case, she views her involvement in LEAP as
‘refreshing’ and considers its content as related directly to her work
(‘things that we’re doing and talking about’), evident in another
conversation where Volunteer 7 stated that LEAP is ‘actually rooted
in our work.’18 This is further supported by the statement of
Volunteer 5 who describes LEAP as ‘less of an imposition’, revealing
the way in which it could bring a sense of hope and encouragement
(rather than ‘demoralizing’) by not encroaching on the work the
volunteers came to Sri Lanka to pursue.
evaluation can help to generate improvements in the lives of per-
sons with mental illness, which was reinforced through the selec-
tion of an image attempting to capture visually the progress the
project was trying to achieve, as shown in Fig. 2. The use of such
images can encourage hope and motivation by giving flesh to the
vision of a project or goal (Huy, 1999; Smith & Stewart, 2011).
Playfulness was also evident in the informal nature of the dis-
cussions held with staff (e.g., doctors, nurses) at each mental health
facility in the process of completing the LEAP reports. For example,
these discussions would begin with an ‘ice-breaker’ activity, the
discussion space was designed so that participants sat in a circle
without any tables and chairs between them, and VSO volunteers
were intermingled amongst staff rather than in separate groups.
Volunteer 6 made the following comment about these discussions:

Playfulness It’s [the LEAP discussions] not like a serious thing […] like in an
exam where you have to give an answer, people are able to tell a
Games and other techniques to encourage a sense of playfulness joke and say, you know, what they feel like and they are able to
were also a feature of the LEAP development process. One example express themselves freely.
is from a pivotal moment in the development of LEAP that occurred
at a quarterly Sector Group Meeting in July 2009. At this meeting,
These informal arrangements provided a relatively safe and
which involved VSO staff, volunteers and representatives of partner
protective environment in which staff could share ideas and have
organization, LEAP was officially introduced for the first time. This
the freedom to participate in the discussion and answer questions
did not involve a formal presentation, but was organized around a
(Huy, 1999).
brief introduction followed by a game. At the very start of the ac-
In this section we examined how the engagement of staff, vol-
tivity, all 50 participants were asked to stand up and, then, on the
unteers and others in the performance measurement process was
count of three, to jump in the air and shout ‘LEAP.’ This prompted
facilitated by making LEAP accessible to users (e.g., using simpli-
much laughter from participants.
fying language for indicators) and by creating a sense of playfulness
The game used to introduce LEAP was called ‘Making Rice’, and
(e.g., the use of the ‘making rice’ game) when developing the LEAP
was the suggestion of Volunteer 1 who had been exposed to a
template and throughout its completion at each mental health fa-
similar game in her volunteer placement. The game involved par-
cility. Accessibility and playfulness were both important in
ticipants being organized into groups of approximately five people,
engaging organizational members in the development and opera-
and then being provided with 20 min to answer five questions
tion of LEAP and thus formed a key part of the expressive role of
concerning the making of rice, where each question was designed
PMS. The involvement and engagement of volunteers and staff also
to mimic a stage in a typical evaluation process, such as monitoring,
helped to facilitate the inclusion of indicators in LEAP focused on
evaluation and impact.19 Responses from each group were collected
their values and beliefs, primarily related to the importance of the
and placed on a flipchart, and the session ended with analogies
beneficiary. In the next section we focus on the way in which the
being drawn between the stages in the evaluation of making rice
indicators that were included in LEAP helped organizational
and the stages in the evaluation of the mental health programme.
members to express their values and beliefs through the PMS.
The game itself prompted much discussion, joking and laughter
throughout and was also a source of amusement at several mo-
ments later in the meeting e for example, one participant joked
Expressing values and beliefs through the PMS
that the researcher and Volunteer 1 should conduct a rice tour to
research how to cook the best rice and that this should involve its
In this section we first examine the way in which the expressive
own evaluation. That these jokes were made at all indicates LEAP
role of PMS was helped by the inclusion of a focus on beneficiaries
was indeed perceived as accessible and non-threatening by par-
in LEAP. We then focus on tensions that arose in enabling the
ticipants, which is important in enabling the expression of beliefs
expressive role in both the design of, and scoring process for, the
and values (Huy, 1999). The ability of the game to generate a sense
of playfulness relates, at least in part, to the selection of a context
that was culturally and cognitively appropriate. Rice is a staple food
LEAP
in Sri Lanka and is often used to celebrate important events e hence
selecting this as the context can be seen to symbolize the signifi-
cance of the LEAP process. In addition, as participants would
actually have experienced the cooking of rice themselves, they
How do we
were all able to participate in the activity, helping to reduce Where are
get here?
we now?
mystique or feelings of exclusion from evaluation activities such as
LEAP.
Several other aspects of the process sought to generate
encouragement and a sense of hope. For example, the ‘LEAP’
acronym was chosen deliberately to symbolize the way in which

18
Source: Field notes, July 2009. Challenges?
19
For example, question 2 was ‘What do you do to check if the rice is cooking
properly?’, which referred to the monitoring stage, and question 4 was ‘What is the Fig. 2. Diagram used in presentation at Sector Group Meeting and on cover page of
result of well-cooked rice?’, which portrayed the impact stage. LEAP reporting template and all guidance documents.
68 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
indicators in LEAP.
Focusing on the beneficiary
A strong belief in the importance of the beneficiary was evident
throughout the mental health programme. For example, pro-
gramme documentation regularly expressed the importance of a
rights-based approach to mental health and of having mental
health services centred on clients and service users.20 Volunteers
often expressed the belief that their motivation for volunteering
was to ‘make a difference’ in the lives of staff and patients they were
working with in their placements.21 The Programme Manager
stated the programme was ‘ultimately about the beneficiary group,
this is why we are here.’22 A belief in the importance of benefi-
ciaries was also evident in changes to VSO’s approach to its work,
with its increased focus on ‘impact’, that is, whether and how the
work of VSO contributed to changes at the beneficiary level (see, for
example, VSO, 2004).
The Volunteer Report was viewed as ‘quite good at looking at
activity but less strong in terms of [capturing] overall impact.’23 The
programme manager commented that the existing volunteer re-
ports were ‘still placement specific’ and, in the context of devel-
oping LEAP, she stated a PMS should enable her and others ‘to see
the benefits [of the programme] for them [the beneficiaries].’24
Volunteers also expressed frustration at not being able to see
how their work was having an impact.25 As such, the existing
Volunteer Reports did not provide volunteers and staff with the
freedom to display and express the importance of the beneficiary in
their work (c.f., Huy, 1999). In contrast to the Volunteer Report, the
first (and subsequent) drafts of LEAP sought to include a stronger
focus on beneficiaries. In particular, indicators were developed
concerning patient behavior (such as whether patients provide
input into their treatment), as well as a separate section on ‘the
impact of mental health services on the lives of beneficiaries’,
which included indicators such as the length of stay, readmissions,
community visits, and discharges (see Appendix 2 for further
detail).
The inclusion of indicators focused on beneficiaries in LEAP
helped to express values and beliefs by prompting discussion of
values amongst staff and volunteers during the completion of LEAP
at the different mental health facilities. This was because
completing LEAP typically involved volunteers and staff from the
respective mental health facility meeting in face to face discussions
to review progress and complete the scoring for each of the in-
dicators. 26 As many of the indicators in LEAP concerned benefi-
ciaries, this meant most of the time spent completing LEAP related
20
Source: End of Project documentary (see www.youtube.com/watch?
v¼UZcQ9a0bLm0&feature¼youtu.bevideo, accessed 14 March 2013) and End of
Project report entitled ‘Sharing skills and experiences: good practices in mental
health’, see http://www.vsointernational.org/Images/sharing-skills-and-
experiences-good-practices-in-mental-health-sri-lanka_tcm76-38911.pdf, accessed
16 March 2013).
21
Additional motivations expressed by volunteers related to the chance to
experience life in a different country, to travel and meet new people, and to gain
experience in the international development sector with a view to gaining
employment after their placement (Source: Field notes).
22
Source: Field notes, April 2009.
23
Source: Field notes, April 2009.
24
Source: Field notes, April 2009.
25
Source: Field notes, January and April 2009.
26
These discussions typically lasted between a half-day and one and a half days
and could involve discussions with different groups of staff and patients at each
mental health facility. For example, those involved in completing LEAP could speak
to doctors, nurses, social workers, support staff and patients in separate groups.
Each group discussion could take at least one hour. Source: LEAP guidance docu-
ment and field notes.
to discussions concerning patients, providing a setting in which
staff and volunteers could discuss and reflect on values related to
beneficiary care. The following four examples serve to illustrate this
process: the first two examples show how LEAP prompted orga-
nizational members to recall particularly impressive activities and
outcomes for patients, whereas the third and fourth examples
show how LEAP provided opportunities for organizational mem-
bers to display and register failures and disappointments as they
relate to patient progress and treatment.
The first example concerns the completion of LEAP at a large
mental health hospital in Colombo. This involved three volunteers,
one hospital staff member and the researcher in a discussion lasting
approximately two hours. During the discussion of the indicators in
Section 2, particularly the indicator on violence and aggression
training, the hospital staff member was prompted to offer the
following reflection:
So the big thing is that we have a target to train all the staff in the
management of violence and aggression, we have trained nearly
half [of the staff]…now we can see in the hospital, there is a big
difference with the staff, now no violence, the violence has
stopped, it has reduced, it’s very very nice […] When I came to
this hospital in 1998, every staff, the minor staff, had a big stick
to attack the patients… now no sticks…It changed, it changed.
The comments it is a ‘big thing’ and a ‘big difference’ illustrates
how LEAP provided an opportunity for the staff member to express
the importance of the change in the behavior of staff he had
observed. Discussing the indicator on violence and aggression
training allowed him to register the significance of the change since
his time at the hospital, particularly as he, along with the volun-
teers, had been largely responsible for developing and operating
the training for staff in violence and aggression management that
had helped to change the patient experience at the hospital.
A second example concerns the completion of LEAP at a
women’s mental health facility located in Colombo. This involved
three staff at the facility (the matron, a doctor and a nurse), a
volunteer, and the researcher in a discussion prompted by the cover
page of the LEAP report, which asked participants to identify and
record the ‘three biggest achievements’, the ‘three biggest chal-
lenges’ and the ‘three biggest priorities for the coming year.’27 Many
achievements were raised during this discussion including, as
above, changes in the way staff were acting toward patients. The
doctor was the most vocal in expressing the significance of the
changes and in particular reflected on the importance to her of
changes in the behavior of patients she had observed. Specifically,
she commented the patients now ‘have ambitions…enjoy them-
selves’ and ‘they have wishes and preferences.’ She further com-
mented that in the past the patients were ‘institutionalized to a
high degree’ but now had begun to show ‘more expressions’ with
‘even acute patients saying hello.’28 As the indicators in LEAP were
focused on changes in the experiences of beneficiaries, it prompts
the doctor to register and express the importance of the positive
changes in the behavior of the patients she had witnessed. By
providing opportunities to reflect on significant achievements they
had observed and/or were involved in, LEAP helped to provide for
uplifting moments where participants could experience a sense of
hope and encouragement (c.f., Huy, 1999). It also provided a setting
in which values related to the importance of beneficiary care were
espoused and discussed amongst staff at the hospital, particularly
values concerning the treatment of patients as individuals with
27
Source: LEAP Reporting template document.
28
Source: Field notes.
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
their own wishes and preferences. These two examples also show
that this is possible because the LEAP process actually involved the
staff at each facility in completing LEAP thereby providing them
with the opportunity to express their values and beliefs.
Along with the ability to highlight achievements, LEAP provided
participants with the chance to display disappointments and fail-
ures related to patient treatment and progress. The third example
occurred during the completion of LEAP at a rehabilitation centre
located in a central province of Sri Lanka. This involved a staff
member, a volunteer, and the researcher in a discussion lasting
approximately three hours. The story of Marsha, which Volunteer 7
relates below, arose during discussions over the completion of the
indicators in Section 4 of LEAP related to changes to the lives of
beneficiaries:
Marsha was a really bright young woman, in her early thirties,
with a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder, a history of mental
illness in the family […] she’d been here [to the rehabilitation
centre] three times […], she was chief editor of the little
newsletter that we’ve got going [at the rehabilitation centre],
she was always up for speaking at a meeting or singing or
anything. She’s always interested, a real bright spark, and I really
wanted her to go and learn something or do something […] but
it wasn’t to be […] her father was fretting and he rolled up one
day […] the house in Colombo he’d exchanged for lifetime care
of Marsha and her brother in this private long stay institution
[…] I said ‘what’s it like? Do they go out there?’ And he
[Marsha’s father] said ‘oh yes, they go out once a year.’ […] It was
completely crap […] It was awful, it was awful.
In recalling this experience Volunteer 7 is able to display her
fondness and affection for Marsha (‘she was a real bright spark’)
and express her sadness and disappointment at her being taken
away to a long stay institution by her father (‘it was awful, it was
awful’). This shows how the LEAP process prompted the volunteer
to recall a significant moment from her work where, in this
instance, a patient’s life had changed for the worse. This story was
particularly meaningful because a key aim of the mental health
programme was to move mental health care away from the type of
‘long stay institution’ Marsha had been taken to and toward the
rehabilitation model of care available at the rehabilitation centre.
LEAP provided a setting where the values of staff and volunteers
concerning the fundamental importance of the potential rehabili-
tation of patients (rather than a lifetime of institutionalization)
could be expressed and discussed. The opportunity to recall a sig-
nificant event was helped by Volunteer 7 being provided sufficient
time and space to actually tell the story, which was exemplified
when she commented toward the end of telling the Marsha story
that she was ‘ranting’, but was reassured by those present that the
recalling of the experience was valuable and that she should
continue. Importantly, the telling of this story was not strictly
necessary for scoring the indicators in Section 4 and completing the
LEAP report.
The fourth example occurred during a three hour meeting with
the mental health volunteers, VSO mental health programme staff
and the researcher during July 2009. The purpose of the meeting
was to discuss the near-final draft of the LEAP report, and to review
each indicator and garner feedback and any final suggestions for
change. The following statement from Volunteer 2 arose during the
review of indicator 2.3, which concerns whether staff at the mental
health facilities informed patients about their diagnosis, treatment
and side effects of medication:
They [the hospital staff] don’t discuss anything with the clients,
at [a hospital] they’re [the patients] all schizophrenics as far as
69
they’re [the staff] concerned […] if they’re [staff] handing out
tablets on the ward the patient should be at least reminded ‘this
is your epilepsy tablet’ […] they’re [the staff] not doing that,
they [the patients] just have two pink ones [tablets], and a
yellow one and a green one, and off you [the patient] go…
Echoing the sentiment of those present during this discussion,
Volunteer 2 recalls how current practices at the mental health fa-
cilities do not involve the type of staff behavior volunteers believe
should be occurring. As with Marsha’s story, discussing treatment
with patients, thinking of them as more than a diagnosis (not ‘all
schizophrenics’) and giving patients information regarding their
medication (‘this is your epilepsy tablet’) were central pillars of the
approach to mental health care volunteers and others working in
the programme valued and believed in very strongly. Importantly, it
is the review of, and subsequent discussion surrounding, indicator
2.3 that prompts the volunteer to recall this experience. This allows
her and others present to express the disappointment of the cur-
rent practices they had been observing in their volunteer place-
ments and to discuss how this connects to their values surrounding
proper patient care and treatment.
Designing indicators to express values and beliefs
In this section we examine how the ability of a PMS to enable the
expression of values and beliefs can depend, at least in part, on the
way in which particular indicators are seen to capture and relate to
sometimes quite specific values and beliefs. We present three ex-
amples to illustrate this process.
One example of where the design of the indicators in LEAP was
able to capture specific values and beliefs concerned the develop-
ment of indicator 1.3 (focused on keeping records in the patient
file). The following excerpt, from the above-mentioned three-hour
LEAP meeting in July 2009, arose in a discussion regarding indicator
2.2 on the extent to which qualified staff actively seek out, listen
and respond to the preferences of patients:
Volunteer 8: Could it [indicator 2.2] be something along the
lines of actively seek out, listen and record?
Volunteer 7: Well, except that recording is maybe a different one
[indicator] and maybe that if we’re interested in recording then
maybe we need that as a separate indicator of some kind […]
Volunteer 8: I mean just something basic, like each patient has a
file is a start […]
Programme Manager: But what they record is not really relevant
or appropriate information, it’s just basic stuff on medical stuff,
but not on social elements, […]
Volunteer 2: And even that is very badly recorded […]
Volunteer 8: You know there’s a few people [patients] inevitably
that are regularly upset or whatever but little of that goes into
the record, all that goes into the record is the extra dose of
tracomazine [a drug].
Volunteer 3: Do you need to add another indicator here about
recording?
Researcher: Each patient has a file with basic information? […]
Programme Manager: In some places they do but that won’t give
us the indicator that is progression, my concern is […] it’s just
basic information based on medical diagnosis just now we’re
talking about their life situation, their priorities, their prefer-
ences and family situation and the psychiatric social workers
also need to be included so if we are putting an indicator we
need to make it something that’s really capturing all elements of
the patient’s life and not just basic information.
70 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
The discussion of indicator 2.2 prompts the volunteers to reflect
on values related to appropriate forms of care and treatment for
patients. In particular, Volunteer 7 suggests that an additional in-
dicator concerning the recording of information about patients
might be required (as none of the indicators in LEAP at that time
captured recording of patient information). Importantly, the dis-
cussion is focused not only on the absence of record keeping per se,
but that the type of record keeping the indicator would attempt to
measure needed to be consistent with the specific values and be-
liefs espoused by the volunteers and staff on the mental health
programme. A core value of volunteers and staff concerned shifting
practice away from the ‘medical stuff’ and to concentrate attention
on the ‘life situation’ of each patient. In the context of record
keeping in the patient file this meant that a variety of information
reflecting the patients’ experiences should be recorded, not just the
medical information such as the ‘dose of tracomazine.’ This was
considered by staff and volunteers to be a central tenet of the
approach they believed in e to think of, and therefore treat, mental
health patients as a human being, rather than as a medical diag-
nosis. LEAP thus provided a setting where they could discuss values
concerning the treatment of patients and how best to reflect these
values in the indicators (e.g., whether there is a patient file vs. a file
capturing holistic patient information). The indicator developed
from this discussion, which assessed whether the patient file
included demographic, assessment, treatment and progress infor-
mation from different staff (see Indicator 1.3 in Appendix 2), was
seen to capture and thus express these beliefs and values
appropriately.
A further example relates to the development of an indicator to
capture the extent to which patients have a say in their care and
treatment. During the same meeting in July 2009, volunteers
reviewed the indicators used in Section 3 on patient experiences,
and, as above, felt the existing indicators were insufficient:
Volunteer 7: You’d [the patient] be having a bit more choice
about lots of things. There’s something about patients [whereby
they] don’t feel they’ve got a right to say anything. It’s kind of,
“I’m a mental patient, what do I know?” kind of a notion that is
reinforced by the service [at the mental health facility]
Volunteer 8: Maybe something [for the indicator] around pa-
tients actually feel[ing] able to state what their needs are.
Volunteer 7: Yes.
Volunteer 8: Yeah, being able to state what they want.
Volunteer 7: Yeah […]
Volunteer 2: Which is breaking that culture of long institutional
care in different organizations, isn’t it? […]
Volunteer 8: So there’s something also about patients feeling
able to refuse…
Volunteer 7: To say what they want and what they don’t want
[…]
Volunteer 5: For example, [the patients are] expected to stay in
bed whether or not they are asleep.
Volunteer 7: So I think that expresses it really well, what they
want and what they don’t want.
In this excerpt, the volunteers are able to discuss and directly
engage with values relating to the importance of treating patients
as having their own individual preferences rather than treatment
being driven by the dictates or preferences of the mental health
care facility. This is evident in how the volunteers comment that the
indicator should capture whether patients are ‘able to state what
their needs are’, ‘what they want’ and being ‘able to refuse.’ This
leads to a suggestion that an indicator be developed to capture the
extent to which patients are able to say what they want and what
they don’t want, which subsequently became indicator 3.3. That
indicator 3.3 used the precise wording as suggested by the volun-
teers meant it was able to express ‘really well’ volunteers’ values
concerning more extensive involvement of patients in their own
care and treatment.
In contrast to the previous two examples, the indicators related
to community-based mental health care provide an illustration of
where the design of the indicators made it more difficult for LEAP to
function in an expressive role. LEAP included a section on
‘Engagement in the community’ (see Section 4.2 in Appendix 2)
that consisted of indicators to address visits to the community by
patients, and any employment, training and work activities outside
of the hospital/rehabilitation centre. These indicators were viewed
as problematic, however, because they were seen to promote a
conception of mental health care at odds with volunteers’ values
and beliefs. For example, Volunteer 1 commented that the in-
dicators in Section 4 should be framed in a way that helped ‘gov-
ernment services to think beyond day trips to the community’,29
indicating they were lacking in their ability to help volunteers to
express to others their beliefs about the importance of particular
forms of community-based mental health care.
These indicators were also criticized because they focused on
the activities of patients who remained in hospital and not on those
patients who had been rehabilitated. This issue was raised during a
meeting with volunteers in July 2009:
Volunteer 7: If the beneficiaries have really benefited they might
not be in the institution any more.
Volunteer 8: How are you going to follow that up?
Volunteer 2: If you capture this [patient experiences in Section
3] they’ll always be there. The statistics on the other one [Sec-
tion 4], you might catch them [going] in and out [of the hospital]
but the effectiveness is not going to be there.
Volunteer 8: And that quality.
Volunteer 2: Yeah, that’s the essence, yeah.30
In this way the indicators are viewed as focusing on patients
who are ‘in’ the facility, and as there was no mechanism to ‘follow
up’ patients who had left, volunteers were unable to express the
importance of focusing on patients who had ‘really benefited.’
Furthermore, it shows that the indicators are lacking in their ability
to provide a sense of hope and encouragement by excluding the
very activities seen by volunteers to be the ‘essence’ of the project.
However, the collection of data on community mental health ser-
vices would have been very expensive and time-consuming,
involving travel to different areas in the province to collect the
necessary data and follow up with patients. This was because
‘volunteers didn’t have the knowledge to complete’ such informa-
tion, evident in such information being missing from the Excel
spreadsheet.31 This example shows how although it was more
efficient not to develop indicators addressing community mental
health services in a more comprehensive manner, this made it
difficult for those indicators to enable organizational members to
express their values and beliefs about the importance of
community-based care.
Scoring the indicators
From above we saw that scoring the indicators and completing
the LEAP report provided a setting where organizational members
29
Source: comment from Volunteer 1 on 3rd draft of LEAP reporting template,
May 2009.
30
LEAP meeting, July 2009.
31
Source: Mental Health project baseline spreadsheets, August 2008.
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
could discuss values concerning the treatment of patients, which
was particularly evident in discussions over significant achieve-
ments and setbacks in attempts to improve patient care. Below we
examine two examples where the scoring process is more prob-
lematic. The first example concerns the ability of the indicators to
capture variations in performance significant to organizational
members. The second example relates to the involvement of pa-
tients in the scoring process. Both examples also illustrate how the
scoring process for the indicators can result in a situation where the
instrumental and expressive roles of PMS appear irreconcilable.
The following statement is from Volunteer 5 and occurred
during the above-mentioned meeting to complete LEAP at a large
mental health hospital in Colombo. The statement was prompted
during discussions focused on scoring indicator 1.6 e the extent to
which patients have a say in their treatment:
On [the] forensic [ward], there are very few care plans but there
are some, and some of those do allow people to make some
choices, one man for instance, on the care plan we did this week,
had wanted to read a newspaper. They have no newspapers up
there [in the forensic ward], they get ward three’s second hand
ones […] they’re planning now to setup a reading group so that
people don’t smoke the newspapers, and all of that, so that one
man did have a choice […] I don’t know where you put that […]
there was another [patient] actually who wanted to work in
horticulture and it was agreed that he could but of course the
system doesn’t allow for that ‘cause the walls aren’t high enough
and the fence isn’t finished so I don’t know quite where you’d
put these little nuggets of progress like that because there’s kind
of some choice.
Volunteer 5 relates examples of the development of care plans,
whereby two patients on the forensic ward were given opportu-
nities to engage in activities they individually preferred, such as ‘to
read a newspaper.’ Recall, however, that the scoring of the in-
dicators required an assessment of the extent to which all patients
are given opportunities to have a say in their treatment and to
assign a score on the 5-point scale. As opportunities were only
being given to a few patients, the indicator was assigned a low
score, prompting Volunteer 5 to query how the indicator would
capture these ‘little nuggets of progress.’ It is important to note that
this is not merely a concern over an incomplete or ill-specified
indicator, as it was the recognition and celebration of these nug-
gets of progress that gave meaning to the volunteers’ work and
gave the hope and encouragement (c.f., Huy, 1999) necessary to
sustain them through what were often extremely difficult and
trying circumstances where progress of any kind was a rare com-
modity. This was particularly acute on the forensic ward, which was
the area of the hospital identified by volunteers as being in most
need of improvement.32
This example shows how in this situation the sensitivity of the
scoring system used in LEAP was not able to capture and express
the significance of the change in practice Volunteer 5 had observed
on the forensic ward. In this example it resulted in a meaningful
discrepancy between the value the volunteer attributed to the
changed practice and the way the score on indicator 1.6 repre-
sented that change, and meant the indicator did not help Volunteer
5 to express her values and beliefs. Although throughout the study
we saw little further evidence of such meaningful discrepancies,
this example does suggest that the sensitivity of indicators in
expressing the meaning of activities and achievements is likely to
32
Source: The LEAP report for the hospital identified the forensic ward as the
biggest priority for the coming year.
71
be very important in enabling the expressive role of PMS.
The potential for tension between the instrumental and
expressive roles of PMS is further highlighted by the involvement
of patients in the scoring process. Patients were involved by
asking them a series of questions about their experiences in the
ward and/or rehabilitation centre and then using their responses
to help determine the most appropriate score for each indicator
(primarily indicators 1.4e1.6 and 3.1e3.3). Staff and volunteers
expressed the importance of involving patients directly in the
process not only because the programme was strongly focused
on patient involvement per se, but also because of a desire to
produce relatively accurate scores. That is, volunteers and pro-
gramme staff expressed concern that staff at the mental health
facilities may present a somewhat optimistic picture of the cur-
rent level of performance and this would then overstate the
performance of the programme as a whole.33 Patient input was
therefore viewed as a way to ‘correct’ for this potential optimism.
However, this was problematic as illustrated by a situation that
arose when completing LEAP at a rehabilitation centre in August
2009.
In the course of asking patients about their experiences, one
patient asked whether she would be able to get a job and wanted
to know what the future would hold for her. As providing answers
to these questions was well beyond the remit of LEAP, Volunteer 1
stated involvement was not ‘meaningful enough for the patients’
and it was primarily directed at ‘getting what we want’, that is, the
information to complete the LEAP report.34 In this way, the
involvement of patients does not register the significance of being
able to do something for patients who found themselves in a
troubling situation e in effect, it was viewed as an information
gathering exercise at odds with the volunteer’s beliefs about the
importance of helping patients. This left Volunteer 1 feeling
frustrated and pessimistic about being able to achieve meaningful
change for patients (c.f., Huy, 1999). Thus, there were tensions
associated with the involvement of patients in completing LEAP e
on the one hand it was considered important to help develop
accurate scores, on the other hand it caused distress and made it
difficult to express the importance of helping patients in a
meaningful way. The frustration and distress experienced by
Volunteer 1 highlights the potential for the conflict between the
expressive and instrumental roles to have adverse effects on staff
and volunteers.
Collection and use of LEAP information
The final version of LEAP was finalized in late July 2009, after
which it was completed at each mental health facility where VSO
had placed a volunteer. By September 2009, the LEAP process had
produced a large quantity of performance information that had not
existed previously. This information consisted of the scores for each
of the performance indicators for each mental health facility, an
extensive set of comments related to performance on each indi-
cator, as well as written details of plans that were underway to
improve performance.
The collection of quantitative performance indicators meant
that, for the first time, reports were produced that aggregated
performance on each indicator across the mental health pro-
gramme. This had the effect of providing performance information
considered helpful by organizational members. In particular, the
Programme Manager highlighted the limitations of the volunteer
report, stating that the information from that report meant ‘we’ve
33
Source: Field notes and interviews with volunteers (2009 and 2013).
34
Source: Field notes, August 2009.
72 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
never been able to measure change and impact.’ In contrast, she
made the following statement about the inclusion of indicators
related to beneficiaries in LEAP during a meeting in September
2009:
This [LEAP] is definitely useful for me when you’re looking at
changes and making sure we make an impact […] that’s what’s
been missing all this time and even though we’ve done the
programme area review […] this [lack of information] is why
I’ve been struggling, the fact that we don’t have baselines, we’ve
never been able to measure change and impact.
This statement indicates how LEAP allows the Programme
Manager to look at changes and impact in two ways. First, because
LEAP collected information using indicators that were standardized
across mental health facilities, it meant she could examine differ-
ences and changes between the different facilities using common
indicators. Second, as noted, many of the indicators in LEAP related
to beneficiary progress, thus providing information on the impact
of the mental health programme that had been lacking under prior
reporting systems. Echoing this sentiment, VSO’s Health Pro-
gramme Manager in London stated that the focus on beneficiaries
in LEAP was the ‘most advanced I have yet come across in any
health programme’ and, given this, he believed it should serve as a
model for VSO’s other health programmes.35
Discussion and conclusions
This study has examined the expressive role of PMS, which we
conceptualized as the capacity of a PMS to facilitate the display of a
variety of values and beliefs held by organizational members. As
such, our study contributes to the nascent body of literature
considering organizational members’ values, beliefs and emotions
at work as potentially productive elements of the work environ-
ment (Boedker & Chua, 2013; Bolton & Houlihan, 2009; Dutton
et al., 2006; Huy, 1999). Additionally, with its focus on how PMS
can play an active role in helping organizational members to ex-
press their beliefs and values as part of their work, our study pre-
sents a counterpoint to prior MCS research that conventionally
considers values as something to be expressed through belief sys-
tem mechanisms like mission, vision and values statements, and
top management communications by way of the interactive use of
accounting systems (e.g. Simons, 1995). In contrast, our focus is on
how the PMS are implicated in the communication, discussion and
expression of values and beliefs by organizational members.
Through our analysis of the development of LEAP at VSO, it
emerged that a PMS can provide a mechanism through which the
values and beliefs of organizational members can be expressed as
part of their work. We saw how LEAP helped staff and volunteers to
express and discuss the importance of the beneficiary in meetings
where the indicators were developed and refined, during comple-
tion of LEAP at the various mental health facilities, and in discus-
sions following the completion and collation of the LEAP data. In
this way LEAP provided organizational members with settings in
which they could discuss values concerning patient treatment and
express the significance of a variety of events related to changes
toward the type of patient care they valued, which included both
distressing episodes and moments of progress and success. Our
analysis also sought to illuminate the design and operational
characteristics that would help a PMS to fulfil an expressive role,
which we discuss in the following sections.
35
Source: Email from Programme Development Advisor, Health, VSO London, to
Mental Health Programme Manager, VSO Sri Lanka, November 2009.
Playfulness and accessibility
LEAP was characterized by trial and error and experimentation
(c.f. Wouters & Roijmans, 2011; Wouters & Wilderom, 2008),
developed through the use of games, imagery, and fun to promote
the capacity of participants to feel comfortable expressing their
values and beliefs in a supportive environment. We identified
‘playfulness’ e the organization’s ability to create an environment
in which mistakes are tolerated and experimentation is encouraged
e as being an important mechanism for enhancing the expression
of values and beliefs in the PMS. Key to this was the use of games to
allow organizational members to share ideas relating to their be-
liefs in a way that was non-threatening, free from judgement and
fear of reprisal, and having a high level of informality and flexibility
associated with the PMS. In particular, LEAP operated in such a way
that there was the opportunity for organizational members to have
the time and space to reflect, experiment and offer up new ideas,
which supported the display of their values and beliefs (Huy, 1999).
LEAP was characterized by the use of non-technical language,
the avoidance of jargon, and the expression of indicators in a way
that was ‘meaningful’ and understandable to organizational
members (c.f. Rowe et al., 2008). It was important to adapt the level
of sophistication of the PMS and the technical expertise required so
it was accessible to users and allowed them to engage with the
PMS. The fact that the suggestions of organizational members were
used in developing the measures in the first instance supported this
process, reflecting an evaluation process using techniques and
concepts readily understood by participants without the need for
training (Hall, 2014). This is in contrast to common monitoring and
evaluation tools used in international development, such as the
Logical Framework,36 which are replete with jargon and technical
terms that are often difficult to comprehend without any prior
training and exposure (see for example, Gasper, 2000; Wallace,
Bornstein, & Chapman, 2007).
Overall, our analysis shows that engaging organizational
members in the PMS is important for the expressive role. This is
because for a PMS to help the expression of beliefs and values, it
must actually involve people in meaningful action of some kind,
whether that is developing indicators, providing feedback on PMS
design, or considering the implications of PMS information.
Passivity or lack of engagement provides little opportunity for the
PMS to enable staff and others to express their values and beliefs in
a meaningful way. In this way, engaging people with the PMS re-
flects a particular kind of participation where organizational
members are actively involved in negotiating, developing and, later,
operating the PMS. In contrast, engagement that is a mere ‘feel
good’ exercise, akin to a ‘sham ritual’ (Ebrahim, 2003; Najam, 1996),
is unlikely to promote the expressive role of PMS.
Design of indicators
Our study showed how the content of the performance in-
dicators was important in enabling the expressive role of PMS. The
variety of indicators that focused on beneficiaries enabled staff and
volunteers to express their beliefs regarding the importance of
beneficiaries by prompting them to discuss and reflect on patient
progress with other staff and volunteers. These indicators provided
a prompt for volunteers and staff to have discussions about patients
e it enabled them to express their feelings and beliefs about what
has occurred, which, can be moments of achievement and
36
The Logical Framework is a commonly-used planning, monitoring and evalu-
ation tool in international development NGOs. For a description, see Hall (2014),
and for an example of its application, see Martinez and Cooper (2012).
 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
jubilation, along with particularly distressing episodes.
The opportunity to discuss both positive and negative benefi-
ciary outcomes (e.g., a volunteer relaying Martha’s story) also
meant volunteers and staff were encouraged to express a wide
range of experiences and emotions without fear of reprisal (c.f. Huy,
1999). This is in contrast to the typical situation in NGOs where
there is often pressure to report only success stories (e.g., Lewis,
2006). More generally, this suggests that the capacity of a PMS to
fulfil an expressive role is likely to be hindered when indicators are
focused too narrowly, for example, where there is a focus on only
financial metrics (Kaplan & Norton, 1996) or a strong reliance on
only profit-based measures of performance (Hopwood, 1974). In
addition, strong sanctions from failing to achieve particular objec-
tives or targets associated with the PMS (e.g., Van der Stede, 2000)
can create a fear of reprisal inhibiting rather than promoting the
free expression of values and beliefs, particularly where they relate
to expressing the significance of negative outcomes.
Developing a close affinity between the specific values and be-
liefs of organizational members and the precise content and
wording of indicators is also important in enabling the expressive
role of PMS. In this process there are likely to be trade-offs involved
in terms of time and resources necessary in order to develop in-
dicators. Achieving a close affinity can be aided by drawing on the
experiences and suggestions of organizational members (e.g., vol-
unteers) when developing indicators, as it is these staff who are
best placed to judge whether their values and beliefs are reflected
in the PMS (c.f. Wouters & Wilderom, 2008).
The expressive and instrumental roles of PMS in organizations
Our study also sought to shed light on the way in which the
expressive role of PMS can be a complement to, or clash with, the
use of accounting information for instrumental purposes, namely,
to improve efficiency. Our findings show that the expressive and
instrumental roles of PMS can, and at times do, complement each
other (c.f. Frumkin, 2005). For example, the development of in-
dicators for beneficiaries provided a mechanism to enable the ex-
change of views relating to individuals’ values and beliefs about
beneficiary care (expressive role), and also enabled the organiza-
tion to capture outcomes relating to beneficiary care that could
help with decision making and resource allocation (instrumental
role). The indicator on the patient file provides a further illustration
e it was standardized and so could be used to aggregate perfor-
mance across the different mental health facilities (essential for
assessing the progress of the programme and the development of
action plans), yet it was also viewed as expressing the importance
of the social model of care valued by staff and volunteers. As such,
we see that PMS fulfilling an instrumental role can support
expressive purposes by focusing attention on areas important to
the values and beliefs held by organizational members.
Our study also reveals situations in which there is tension be-
tween the expressive and instrumental roles. This appears to be
particularly the case where the use of indicators is unable to
recognize the uniqueness of particular situations and the meaning
attached to them by members of the organization. This was most
evident where performance was represented in LEAP through the
use of a standardized scoring method (five levels of performance
for each indicator), which meant the ‘nuggets of progress’ that were
very meaningful to volunteers were not reflected adequately in the
scoring process. In this way, the transformation of qualities (such as
nuggets of progress) into quantities expressed on a standard scale
(such as a rating of performance on a scale) hindered the ability of
organizational members (such as volunteers) to express the
meaning and significance of some activities. As such, this illustrates
that the commensuration process inherent in the use of
73
standardized indicators and/or scoring processes (c.f., Espeland &
Sauder, 2007) can, in some situations, make it difficult for the
PMS to operate in an expressive role. However, with careful
attention to the development of indicators, this situation was un-
common in our setting.
This analysis also has implications for prior research stressing
the importance of developing indicators to reflect the unique
strategy and operating characteristics of divisions in an organiza-
tion (e.g., Kaplan & Norton, 1996; Lipe & Salterio, 2000). The
development of unique indicators is typically premised on instru-
mental grounds e they promote better decision making, resource
allocation and performance evaluation.37 Our study suggests an
additional (and complementary) rationale for the development of
unique indicators because they are better able to reflect, and thus
enable, the expression of values and beliefs salient to organiza-
tional members in different divisions. In contrast, common mea-
sures, by definition, are standardized across divisions and thus
would only fulfil an expressive role where values and beliefs are
relatively homogenous throughout the organization. This discus-
sion may also help to explain resistance to top-down PMS ap-
proaches imposing standard indicators and templates (e.g.,
Wouters & Wilderom, 2008) as they can fail to account for the
differing values and beliefs of organizational members in different
divisions.
Effects of expressive PMS
As outlined above, our study was focused on the ability of a PMS
to help organizational members express their values and beliefs,
the design and operational characteristics of PMS that facilitate this
process, and the relation between the expressive role of PMS and
other uses of PMS in organizations. As such, in terms of the effects
of expressive PMS, our data are more limited in this regard, so we
seek to highlight aspects of our findings that provide some pre-
liminary evidence. Given our study was focused on the develop-
ment of a PMS, the effects we observe relate primarily to attitudes
toward and use of the PMS itself rather than behavioral and orga-
nizational outcomes (Cavalluzzo & Ittner, 2004; Wouters &
Wilderom, 2008).
The first effect we observed related to changes in attitudes of
organizational members toward the PMS (Wouters & Wilderom,
2008). In particular, we observed more positive attitudes to the
PMS, with organizational members viewing the final version of
LEAP as less onerous, more user-friendly and more closely linked
with their work activities in comparison to both prior versions of
LEAP and also the Excel spreadsheet. LEAP was also viewed by staff
as providing important information on progress with the mental
health programme that had been lacking for some time and was
considered the most advanced PMS in use in VSO’s health pro-
grammes. We suggest the expressive role of PMS helps to generate
such positive attitudes because it is focused on the collection of
information relating to and allowing the expression of the values
and beliefs of organizational members, which, in our setting, was
primarily concerned with patient care. The effect of the expressive
role of PMS in fostering more positive attitudes toward the PMS is
likely to be important in ensuring sustained engagement with the
PMS over time and thus may help to enhance commitment to a
PMS. The absence of an expressive role could help to improve un-
derstanding of how and why PMS do not operate effectively and/or
37
As Lipe and Salterio (2000) show, this may not eventuate if managers fixate on
common measures to the exclusion of unique measures, but subsequent research
reveals this can be overcome (e.g., Banker, Chang, & Pizzini, 2004; Libby, Salterio, &
Webb, 2004).
74 R.H. Chenhall et al. / Accounting, Organizations and Society 63 (2017) 60e75
face resistance and tension during their implementation and
continued operation (e.g., Ittner & Larcker, 1998).
The second effect relates to the quality of data captured by the
PMS. The Excel spreadsheet developed by the Programme Manager
was not completed by volunteers and thus did not provide any
helpful information for managing the mental health programme. In
contrast, LEAP was completed for each mental health institution
where VSO had placed a volunteer, and thus provided a large
quantity of performance information that had not existed previ-
ously. We suggest this arose because enabling organizational
members to express their values and beliefs as part of the perfor-
mance measurement process serves to elevate the level of care and
attention they devote to the production of high quality information
for the PMS, helping to ensure the information in PMS is more
complete and less prone to errors.
Relatedly, the third effect we observed concerned the use of
performance measurement information in planning and decision-
making. In our study we saw that information from LEAP was, to-
ward the end of the project, forming a more central part of regular
programme planning and review processes, providing information
making it easier to identify and review more systematically areas of
good and bad performance in the mental health programme. We
also saw some evidence of the way in which the expressive use of
PMS can promote learning and exploration of alternatives (Huy,
1999), where organizational members used the information from
LEAP to learn from prior experiences and develop action plans
exploring a variety of different ideas and alternatives, drawing on
the suggestions of volunteers, VSO staff and staff at the mental
health institutions. These findings are consistent with the expec-
tation that the expression of values and beliefs can generate higher
levels of energy and motivation amongst organizational members
(Frumkin, 2005; Huy, 1999). In particular, our findings suggests that
where a PMS can enable the expression of values and beliefs, the
resulting energy and motivation can help with planning and review
processes, particularly in settings where organizational members
come together to discuss progress and action plans as part of
organizational processes.
Suggestions for further research
Most generally, our study suggests that future research should
devote more attention to examination of the expressive role of PMS,
particularly as organizations are increasingly being seen as having
both instrumental and expressive purposes (Denis et al., 2007;
Schultz et al., 2000). In our study the primary focus was on expli-
cating the expressive role of PMS and examining the effects on
individuals’ use of and attitudes toward the PMS itself. As such,
future research could investigate the likely behavioral and organi-
zational effects of expressive PMS. At the behavioral level, this
could include examining whether and how the expressive use of
PMS relates to individual work behaviors, where, for example, we
would expect the expressive use of PMS to generate higher levels of
intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment and lower
levels of role conflict and resistance amongst organizational
members (Burney & Widener, 2007; Frumkin, 2005; Hall, 2008;
Huy, 1999). The expressive role of PMS could also relate to greater
learning and exploration and reduced emotional dissonance that
can accompany values conflicts (c.f., Huy, 1999). At the organiza-
tional level, research suggests that enabling organizational mem-
bers to express their values and beliefs can help organizations to
achieve their objectives (c.f., Frumkin, 2005; Huy, 1999). Although
this indicates the expressive use of PMS may enhance organiza-
tional performance, this would require careful consideration of
other, potentially offsetting negative effects from the expressive use
of PMS, such as greater time and effort of organizational members
in developing and using the PMS.
Our empirical setting was characterized by organizational
members having relatively homogenous and strongly held values
and beliefs. Future research could examine the expressive role of
PMS in situations where the values and beliefs of organizational
members are more heterogeneous and/or where the strength of
those beliefs varies. In these situations, it may be more difficult for
the PMS to incorporate a wide variety of indicators adequately
addressing those beliefs and/or the beliefs of organizational
members may conflict in ways making them difficult to accom-
modate within the context of a single PMS. In these situations,
careful attention to the development of workable compromises in
the design and operation of the PMS (c.f. Chenhall et al., 2013) is
likely to be very important for enabling the expressive role of PMS.
In our case setting, progress toward realizing employees’ values
and beliefs could, in some cases, be achieved in ways that were
consistent with more instrumental objectives. Future research
could consider situations in which the values of organizational
members are in more serious conflict with more instrumental
concerns. Finally, as our study shows that PMS can fulfil an
expressive role, future research could explore whether and how
other elements of MCS can potentially operate in ways that enable
organizational members to express their values and beliefs.
Acknowledgements
The support of CIMA General Charitable Trust is gratefully
acknowledged. We would also like to thank Brendan O’Dwyer, Kate
Ruff, Mike Shields, Kim Langfield-Smith, Susan O’Leary, Clinton
Free, Emily Barman, Kerry Jacobs, Martin Messner, Allan Hansen,
Binh Bui, Kari Lukka, Suresh Cuganesan, participants at the AOS
Workshop on Accounting, Non-government Organizations and
Civil Society, London, December 2012, the 6th Workshop on Man-
agement Accounting as Social and Organizational Practice, Copen-
hagen, April 2013, the Accounting and Finance Association of
Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) Conference, July 2013, the
Global Management Accounting Research Symposium (GMARS),
June 2014, and seminar participants at the University of Innsbruck,
University of Exeter, Erasmus University, University of Technology,
Sydney, University of New South Wales, HEC Paris, the University of
Western Australia, Macquarie University, and Griffith University for
their helpful comments and suggestions.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2014.11.002.
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