Management accounting practices and health: Problematizing chronic illness in the workplace

Management accounting
practices and health:
Problematizing chronic illness in the
workplace

Anne Steinhoff (PhD Candidate, Essex Business School)
Dr Rebecca Warren (Lecturer in Accounting, Essex Business
School)
Prof David Carter (University of Canberra)

Overview

 Introduction
 Context
 Contribution
 Literature
 Research
  Problematisation
 The political nature of
  accounting through
  PSDT
 Research Outlook

“I understand that it is difficult to provide individualist
               reasonable adjustments especially, for chronic
               illnesses. But I am exhausted spending my
               weekends recovering so that I am in the office on
               Monday.” The Head of Department replies to the
               employee: “your performance report does not leave
               any room for such interpretation. On the contrary, you
               met all deadlines, your projects’ management cycles
               are within the targeted timeframe and all awarded
Introduction   projects are up to date.” The Head adds: “and this
               despite your above average number of medical leave
               requests which have all been granted”. “But that is
               because I am good at doing my work in less time”
               the employee replies.*

                            *conversation researcher had with line manger

Context
 Chronic illness: a long term- medical condition that
  currently cannot be cured (NHS, 2020)
 Performance measures: the financial or nonfinancial
  measures used at different levels in organizations to
  evaluate success in achieving their objectives, strategies
  and plans (…)(Ferreira and Otley, 2009: 271)

Context
 Immaterial labour: labour that creates immaterial
  products such as knowledge, information, a relationship,
  or an emotional response (Hardt and Negri, 2004: 108)
 The ‘political’: is related to practices that shape society
  (Stavrakakis, 1999; Glynos and Howarth, 2007). It is an
  empty place of inscription (…). It is rather an ontology of
  potential geared toward the articulation of context
  (Dyrberg, 2004:252)

Contribution
 Call for action: viewing performance measures in
  management accounting and their effects from the
  perspective of employees living with chronic diseases
 Theorising: highlighting an alternative political nature of
  accounting in the existing critical management
  accounting literature by drawing on Laclau and Mouffe
  (1985) and its benefits to visualise and critique current
  processes

Literature 1
•  Development, evaluation and critique of, performance
   measures- management control systems and KPI
   (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005; Ferreira and Otley, 2009;
   Busco and Quattrone, 2018)
• Critical research on performance and accounting costs
   in health care (Morgan, 1988; Kurunmaki and Miller,
   2008)
• Employee health/ well-being and reporting on employee
   health (Roslender and Monk, 2017; Roslender et al.,
   2020)
What about the different meanings of performance and
accounting costs for different groups of employees?

Literature 2
•   Performance measures and their pressure on labour in
    general (Spence and Carter, 2011; Carter, 2018;
    Boedker et al., 2020)
•   The struggles over measurement in immaterial labour
    (Hardt and Negri, 2004; 2009; Frezatti et al., 2014) e.g.
    universities (De Angelis and Harvie, 2009)
•   The role of accounting on individuals and the everyday
    (Miller and O’Leary; 1974; Hopwood, 1994; Messner,
    2009)
•   The treatment of employees by performance measures
    with short term health considerations (Haynes, 2008a;
    2008b; Dambrin and Lambert, 2008)

• Existing literature demonstrates that
             performance measures employed in
             organisations have an impact on
             different groups and individuals (e.g.,
             De Angelis and Harvey, 2009)
               • Step further: they impact different

Research
                 groups and individuals differently
                 (e.g., Haynes, 2008)
Problem            • another step further: these
                     different impacts are
                     politically constructed and
                     expose performance
                     measures and
                     accountancy’s arbitrariness
                     (Carter, 2018)

The political nature of
accounting through PSDT:
                          Linguistic and non-linguistic
                           discourses: Accounting practices as a
 Post structuralism
                           discourse
                          The ‘political’ making the process
                           visible in which society (= employees)
 Poststructuralist
 Discourse Theory          is ordered and unified: Relationship
  (Laclau and Mouffe)
                           between management and employees is
                           a political relationship
                          Instability of social contexts and
The Logics of Critical
    Explanation            always changing structure: What do
  (Glynos and Howarth)
                           accounting practices do in organisations?
                           (Frezatti et al., 2014)

The political nature of
accounting through PSDT
 political logics address practices and processes that
  challenge established social norms.
 These existing patterns of social norms refer to social
  logics which capture the practices taken for granted
  within society.
 fantasmatic logics refer to the ‘grip’ that existing
  patterns of practices hold over individuals of society
  (Glynos and Howarth, 2007): fantasy of performance and
  efficiency in accounting

Research outlook
 Where does this way of thinking lead us to? What
  kind of research can be carried out through this way
  of thinking?
    How do performance metrics affect chronically ill
     employees in workplaces?

Any
Questions?