Microfoundations of accountability

Organisational and institutional accountability research has been topical for several years. Researchers have addressed policies and practices promoted by national and transnational actors (Grossi et al., 2020; Murphy and Albu, 2018), civil society (Lehman and Morton, 2017), explored the institutionalisation and diffusion of new practices (including sustainability reporting, see Contrafatto, 2014; de Villiers et al., 2014; Rinaldi et al., 2018; Tregidga et al., 2014) and identified sites (Parker and Jeacle, 2019), styles (Ahrens, 1996) and limits (Messner, 2009) of accountability.

However, the mechanisms driving organisational and institutional accountability also operate at the micro-level, and their influence on activating the collective construct of accountability is yet unknown. While macro theories have provided notable insights into the broader motivations behind adopting forms of accountability, they cannot fully explain how adoption happens and why accountability endures, develops or fails.

The concept of microfoundations has gained traction in recent years as researchers have recognised the importance of understanding the individual-level processes that underlie the functioning of organisations and institutions. For example, organisational and management scholars have explored the microfoundations of specific processes, such as routines and capabilities (Felin et al., 2012; Winter, 2013), dynamic capabilities (Nayak et al., 2020), and markets and institutions (De Ven and Lifschitz, 2013). Accounting scholars are starting to contribute to developing the microfoundational approach (Power, 2021; Rautiainen, et al., 2022), however, accounting and accountability research has yet to fully embrace this level of analysis. Thus, it is unknown how modern – and even possibly conflicting – conceptions of accountability, including financial, sustainability, social, digital and technological elements, are aligned and influenced by feelings, cognitive dissonances, or other micro-level phenomena over (recent turbulent) time.

This special issue aims to deepen our understanding of the microfoundations of accountability. According to Felin et al. (2012), a microfoundational approach is concerned with how mechanisms of causality unfold between and within organisational or institutional levels and can be clustered into three core or overarching categories: 

• INDIVIDUALS: the role of individuals is key to understanding the creation and development of collective constructs such as accountability. For example, individual-level components such as ability, motivation, perception, personality, values, ethics, satisfaction and cognition are important constituents for understanding collective phenomena.

• PROCESSES: explanations of collective phenomena require consideration of the historical and contextual factors involved in the operation of accountability processes for two main reasons. First, putting processes into action requires the intervention of individuals. Second, the interactions between processes and individuals with their motivations, preferences, and attitudes shape accountability outcomes.  

• STRUCTURES: structures specify the conditions that enable and constrain individual and collective action and establish the context for interactions within organisations and institutions. For example, differences in the design of the decision-making activities (such as rules and procedures) have an important effect on accountability (Roberts, 1991). 

 

The interactions of individuals, processes, and structures contribute to the aggregation and emergence of the collective construct of accountability. Given the complexity and incalculability of modern challenges, recent accounting studies have emphasised the need for refined theorisation and methodological sophistication. 

This special issue aims to act as a focus for research providing a more granular understanding of the individual-level processes that drive collective accountability phenomena by illuminating a multilevel conceptualisation of accountability processes. The special issue will prioritise papers that take a micro-level approach, for example, examining the core questions that cut across organisational and institutional accountability practices and shed light on causal mechanisms and the key links between individuals, processes and structures while analysing specific accountability-related questions.
 

Submission instructions

Submissions for the AAAJ special issues should be made through Emerald's submission system ScholarOne. Author guidelines must be followed.

Submit via ScholarOne

Author Guidelines 
 

Key dates

Submissions open: ScholarOne submission for the Special Issue will open on 1 March 2025.  

Submission deadline: full paper submission deadline is 30 April 2025.
 

AAAJ special issue workshop

To help authors develop their manuscripts for submission, a Workshop linked to this special issue will be held on the 6th July 2024, at Royal Holloway University of London, just after the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting (IPA) Conference. If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please email the draft of your full paper to Leonardo Rinaldi ([email protected]) by 4th March 2024 (please note the extended deadline). Invited Authors will be notified by 25th March 2024.

Please note: participating in the workshop is not a precondition for submitting a manuscript to the Special Issue. Also, and importantly, the presentation at the workshop does not guarantee acceptance of the paper in the Special Issue.

Contact

If you would like to discuss the special issue and your potential contribution, please contact Professor Leonardo Rinaldi at [email protected].
 

Guest Editors

Leonardo Rinaldi

Royal Holloway, University of London - UK
 

James Guthrie

Macquarie Business School - Australia
 

Christopher Napier

Royal Holloway, University of London - UK
 

Antti Rautiainen

University of Jyväskylä, School of Business and Economics - Finland