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Accounting For The Public Interest: A Japanese Perspective
Accounting For The Public Interest: A Japanese Perspective
Accounting For The Public Interest: A Japanese Perspective
Accounting for
Accounting for the public the public
interest: a Japanese perspective interest
Norio Sawabe
Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan 631
Abstract
Purpose – To expand one’s understanding about how accounting helps to shape, mediate and
constitute the public interest, the private interest, and their relationships.
Design/methodology/approach – An interpretive approach is utilized to analyze the documents
that have both informed and legitimized the Japanese financial regulatory changes since the end of
1970s.
Findings – The paper finds that the concepts of private and public interest, and their relationships
have been mutable in the deployment of accounting rhetoric. The concept of private interest was given
more concrete shape as the market-oriented reform advanced in the name of public interest.
Originality/value – This paper sheds light on the constructing role of accounting in society, which
in turn helps to understand changing conceptualizations of the public interest, the private interest, and
their relationships.
Keywords Public interest, Regulation, Finance, Disclosure
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
This paper aims at analyzing accounting-related rhetoric that is deployed during the
financial regulatory reforms over the last two decades in Japan. This paper analyzes
the changing rhetoric in the official documents issued by an affiliate of the financial
authority, in order to expand our understanding about how accounting helps to shape,
mediate and constitute the public interest, the private interest and their relationships.
An interpretive approach is utilized to analyze the documents that both informed and
legitimized the regulatory changes.
Accounting in the regulatory space mediates not only between those who regulate
and those who are regulated, but also between abstract theories and regulatory
practices (Sawabe and Yamaji, 1999). The regulatory reforms since the 1980s are
usually theoretically informed by neoclassical economic thoughts and ideologically
allied with neo-liberalism (Otake, 1994). The role of accounting is more evident in the
financial regulatory reforms than anywhere else, where individualistic economic
thoughts inspired and legitimated the shift from a paternalistic to a market-oriented
regulatory framework.
The motive of this paper is to highlight the potential for accounting-related rhetoric
to be deployed in the changing Japanese financial regulatory frameworks that impinge
on the relationship between private and public interests. In this paper, rhetoric is
understood as an essential element of our lives that may be used to persuade others Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal
Vol. 18 No. 5, 2005
The author wishes to thank Dean Neu, Christine Cooper, and Cheryl Lehman for friendly and pp. 631-647
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
very helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Any omissions and errors remain the 0951-3574
author’s own. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (15730220). DOI 10.1108/09513570510620484
AAAJ about the correctness of a particular view of reality (Latour, 1987; Young, 2003,
18,5 pp. 623-5). From this perspective, texts perform actions through rhetoric, as it
encourages certain beliefs and silences others (Young, 2003). Rhetoric acts in this sense.
Cooper (2005, this issue) develops a strong argument for the new turn to the material
for accounting researchers. This paper shows that analyzing the accounting rhetoric in
the financial re-regulation in Japan involves those issues that are about images as well
632 as about the material and the economic.
A limitation of this paper is that it does not analyze how accounting rhetoric was
received by the public. There exist the operational difficulties in conducting such
research, post hoc, that preclude the provision of meaningful, reliable results (Craig and
Amernic, 2004, p.43). Instead, this paper highlights the key accounting-related rhetoric
and the way in which the private and the public interests are structured in the rhetoric.
Fundamentally, there is difficulty inherent in establishing the significances and
meanings of a particular rhetoric, because it is always in the process of being
established. It is receivers and users, not senders and preparers, who find significances
and meanings for themselves. The heterogeneity and diversity of the audience poses a
high hurdle empirically, as well. It can only assumed that a particular way of
understanding “reality” is temporally established until opposing voices are raised from
the implied audience.
This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, the concepts of public
interest in neoclassical economic theory and its limitations are clarified. The latter
point is closely related to the mutable relationship between the private interests and
public interests that are discussed in the later sections. It is followed by the analyses of
accounting-related rhetoric in official documents issued by an affiliate of the Japanese
financial authority. The next section discusses implications of the mutability of the
relationship between private and public interests, in the rhetoric of financial reforms.
Finally, the paper’s concluding comments are presented.
1979 report: in search of the balance between the social responsibility and the efficiency
of banks
In May 1975, the Finance Minister asked the FSRC for advice about the improvement
of the banking law and other related laws[2]. It was just after the first oil crisis, and
extraordinary inflation hit the Japanese economy severely. Banks were repeatedly
criticized as financially supporting the anti-social behavior of businesses that
aggravated the inflationary economy.
AAAJ Against this background, it was argued that banks ought to have public character
18,5 and, thus, they were obliged to fulfill their social responsibility. The Japanese Diet
responded to these social responsibility arguments and asked the FSRC to clarify what
the social responsibility of banks was (Seki, 1979, p. 6; Tate, 1988, p. 4).
It took more than four years for the Financial Research Council to draw a conclusion
for the 1979 recommendation. By the time the Council reached its conclusion, the
636 criticism against banks had already abated; instead, the demand for efficiency became
the point of dispute. Thus, the 1979 report attempted to balance the social
responsibility and efficiency arguments. This concern to balance the social
responsibility and efficiency of banks is reflected in the amendment of the banking
law in 1981. It introduced the object clause, which states that it is important to find the
right balance between social responsibility and the nature of private profit-seeking
enterprise of banks (Seki, 1979, p. 7; Tate, 1988, p. 5).
In the 1979 recommendation, it is stated that “while maintaining the stability, banks
should execute public functions appropriately and fully by responding to the needs of
the economy and society” (FSRC, 1979, p. 36). The report argued that the realization of
efficient and fair allocation of funds by banks could not be obtained solely by the
utilization of the market mechanism, even though it is, in principle, the competitive
force in the market that contributes most to attaining such a goal. The pursuit of the
efficiency of individual banks had to be balanced with the social fairness and overall
macro-economic performance of the nation: “Financial institutions should not only
pursue their managerial efficiency alone, but perform their functions in accordance
with the overall macro economic and social fairness viewpoints” (Seki, 1979, p. 7).
In the 1979 recommendation, banks were requested “to grasp the gist of social needs
in an exact manner and to independently respond to such social needs from a long-term
perspective” (FSRC, 1979, p. 38). Improved disclosure practices of banks were
understood as “measures to apprehend social needs” (FSRC, 1979, p. 60).
A peculiar feature of the report was that it specifically requested the legalization of
the disclosure of banks’ fund management operations in order to show that financial
intermediation by banks was carried out in a manner that was appropriate for the long
term goals of society in general (FSRC, 1979, pp. 38, 60-1, 65). This emphasis upon
long-term public interest was partly a response to the criticism against banks in the
mid-1970s. Banks were severely criticized, as they provided funds for land speculation
that were regarded as socially unacceptable greed at the time, and were linked to the
anti-social activities of business corporations (FSRC, 1979, p. 38).
The report emphasized that there are limitations in the market mechanism. The
notion of market failure was used as a justification of regulations. However, the report
was hesitant in legalizing direct regulations on banks’ business activities. Mandatory
Disclosure was introduced as an alternative to the direct regulations. It is stated that
“instead of legalizing any regulations concerning lending activities of banks to a
certain sector of the economy, the balance between the demands from the society and
the profit seeking nature of banks should be sought by banks themselves. Banks
should correct their own behavior independently by disclosing financial information
(to the general public)” (FSRC, 1979, p. 60-1).
The 1979 report argued that “disclosing their own behavior and its consequences to
the nation for their assessment is a very effective measure to promote individual efforts
of banks to correct their own behavior” (FSRC, 1979, p. 60). It seemed that the nation Accounting for
and the general public were the assumed users of the disclosed information in the the public
report[3].
The rhetoric of the 1979 report clearly shows that the “public interest” of the nation interest
supersedes the “private interest” of banks. As for the mandatory disclosure of banks, it
is the public in a collective form that is assumed to be the user of information. It is the
public in general that should watch banks’ activity, by using disclosure information in 637
the interest of society. The private interest of banks is regarded as a necessary evil,
while the market failure type of argument is used to justify the regulations. At this
stage, the public interest is not a mere residual of private interest but holds an
independent conceptual status.
Concluding comments
In the 1990s, Japan mirrored the complacence of the 1980s, and deprecated its way of
doing business. Trust-oriented long-term relationships were not only old-fashioned,
but unprofitable. Mutual-shareholdings were no longer risk-reducing, but became the
source of risk. Lifetime employment, which used to improve employees’ dedication to a
business, became a symbol of management incompetence and organizational slack.
The changing attitudes of individuals towards collectivities, such as business
enterprises, epitomized the dramatic reversal of the self-images of Japanese businesses.
Using Hirschman’s terms (Hirschman, 1970), ideas of how individuals ought to be in
relation to collectivities shifted from “loyalty” to “exit.” In other words, anonymous
relationships in the market should prevail over the community spirit.
The other side of the coin was the promotion of individualism. The demise of a
communal spirit was apparently coupled with the primacy of the private. During the
1990s in Japan, there were various sorts of campaigns that intended to establish “the
principle of own responsibility” of individuals in society. One of the means used in such
a campaign was the financial disclosure regulations of banks. Individuals could not
assume own responsibility unless they knew what they would do and what they would
get. The rhetoric was that improved financial disclosure of banks to the general public
realizes greater self-determination and own responsibility.
The change in the rhetoric of disclosure may have a dual role in this transformation.
A very explicit role is the part disclosure should play in the idealized financial system.
In the ideal situation, publicly disclosed information is thoroughly utilized by market
participants to reach equilibrium. Mandatory disclosure is a means by which to make
the reality close to perfect information, and that is a prerequisite of a perfect
competitive market. In the ideal, improved public disclosure enables the freedom of
choice of individuals, even though that freedom does not allow any alternative choice
to the one that rationality demands.
There is an implicit role of disclosure in this process of transformation. Enhanced
public disclosure requirements have a pedagogical function. The new disclosure
requirements outdate an existing set of knowledge and practices that were associated
with the main bank system, by introducing novel sets of knowledge and belief[15]. The
rhetoric of financial disclosure requirements propagated in the 1995 FSRC report, and
subsequent improved disclosure practices that actually took place, may have
functioned pedagogically to the extent that the social identities of depositors are
transformed to something similar to those of rational investors.
The novel rhetoric of financial disclosure requirements voices that individuals have
to change in order for regulatory change to succeed. Each time a novel philosophy
behind the public disclosure policy in the 1995 FSRC report is repeated, it acts as a Accounting for
message that the system should transform. It is not only the system that changes in the the public
transformation, but also the elements of the system that change as well. This role of the
disclosure requirements in the transformation process might have a rather coercive interest
effect, though the mechanism itself is based on the normative and the mimetic behavior
of each individual client and depositor of banks. Ironically, each individual depositor is
expected to choose the best bank by using the disclosed information, although there are 643
no economic incentives to do so. The stronger the message for the depositor to change
and to resume responsibility identical to that of investors, the more effective it is that
attention of the public is diverted from the crude economic reality of re-regulations that
benefit the rich and the powerful.
Notes
1. From ancient Greece to the Renaissance, the antonym of public life was vita contemplantiva,
i.e. contemplative life (Arendt, 1958). Public life was identical to vita active, i.e. active life. It
is only recently with the rise of commerce and industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries that another type of active life, that aims directly at the production and
accumulation of private wealth, is discovered. In the same period, the idea that the pursuit of
one’s private, material interest is a legitimate form of human conduct (Hirschman, 1982, p. 7).
2. The previous banking law was enacted in 1927.
3. Although the report attached great importance to the disclosure of financial information,
there existed a clear limit of disclosure, as far as the scope of disclosure went. General and
comprehensive disclosure was encouraged on a voluntary basis (FSRC, 1979, p. 61).
However, the same report gave provisos on the scope of disclosure requirements. “It is
inappropriate to require disclosure about: information that might endanger an orderly
financial system; information that might damage the privacy and confidentiality of clients;
information that might result in an unjust disadvantage concerning the bank’s management;
and information that might impose excessive disclosure costs on banks. The Federation of
Bankers Association Japan objected to the mandatory disclosure of the fund management
operation (The Federation of Bankers Association Japan, 1979, p. 32). In the 1981 amendment
of the banking law, provisions on disclosure requirements became admonitory instead of
mandatory (Yoshida, 1997, p. 137). During the political process of the amendment of the
banking law that followed the 1979 report, several important changes were made from the
initial draft that reflected the report with accuracy. Inter-business regulations between
banking and securities business were a major issue that complicated the process. See
Inoguchi and Iwai (1987) on this point.
4. Most of the foreign exchange control was removed in the 1979 amendment of the Foreign
Exchange Law, and the little that remained was completely demolished by the amendment
of the Foreign Exchange Control Law in 1998. Loan interest rate regulations were liberalized
long before and deposit interest rate regulations had been abandoned since 1985 and were
completely liberalized by 1994. Division of the financial sector by businesses was the major
issue in the 1979 FSRC recommendation. It was decided to abolish the regulation on the
division of financial services with the announcement of the so-called Japanese Financial Big
Bang initiated in 1996 (Nishimura, 1999, p. 60).
5. Business reality here refers primarily to the lending activities of banks.
6. The MOF had discouraged new equity issue by banks with the fear that it might bring a
lower retention rate (Aizawa and Sera, 1988).
AAAJ 7. However, there existed provisos concerning the scope of the disclosure requirements in the
1985 recommendation, as was the case with the 1979 report. In other words, as far as
18,5 banking regulatory environments were concerned, the notion of full disclosure of
information as a way of curbing management’s power to run banks in their own interest was
missing in Japan. For the full disclosure philosophy, and particularly the Berle-Dodd debate,
see Macintosh (1999).
644 8. Exchange rates between US dollars and Japanese Yen changed drastically since 1985. In
September 1985, there was a G5 meeting where Finance ministers of G5 countries, i.e.
France, Germany, Japan, USA and UK, gathered at the Plaza hotel in New York. At the
meeting, the so-called Plaza Accord was reached in which US dollars were systematically
depreciated against other major countries’ currencies. Consequently, Japanese yen
appreciated from 200 yen to 120 yen per dollar within two years following the accord.
9. Minority opinions about the raise of the maximum insured amount in the deposit system
were explicitly described in the 1985 recommendation: “There are opinions that are against
the raise of the maximum insured amount, concerned about the prevention of moral hazard
and about the principle of the own responsibility of depositors” (FSRC, 1985, pp. 50-1).
10. Exceptions are those clients of banks whose accounts are held for the settlements of business
transactions.
11. For the Jusen Housing Loan Companies, see Nishimura (1999)
12. The recommendation was provisional for the period of five years until the end of fiscal year
2001.
13. Whether the rational behavior of depositors with full utilization of disclosed information
would lead to the stabilization of the financial system is very problematic (Crockett, 1997).
14. The mechanism through which redefined private interest is accepted by individuals is
beyond the task of the current paper. It is only suggested that the tacit knowing process
described by M. Polanyi (1958, 1966) tells that it is only through the subjugation to the
authority that a person is able to learn what he/she did not know before. Trust and loyalty to
the master is core to the tacit learning process of an apprentice. An insight provided by a
tacit knowing process is that those who are innocent and least knowledgeable are most likely
to be affected by the pedagogical process. If this holds also for the case presented in this
paper, the learning process inspired by the changing rhetoric of financial disclosure is more
likely to be based on mimetic mechanism fostered by the socially created
taken-for-grantedness of new reality. Those who have grounded knowledge and those
who have direct stakes in the financial businesses are immunized by their own knowledge
and reality and are least likely to be affected. It is suggested that the isomorphic
identification processes typically affect those who do not have much direct interest in,
knowledge about, and prior experience of the agenda, which is quite consistent with the
observation that those disinterested parties are the most loyal and easily re-identified
themselves with the changing financial system.
15. For the pedagogical function of accounting, especially that of business planning, see Oakes
et al. (1998).
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