This paper mobilises a governmentality framing drawing on Miller and Rose (1990) and Rose and Miller (1992) to examine how fluctuating rationalities and programmes of government shaped the construction of accountability over several decades in the relationship between Dutch development NGOs and their governmental funder. It unveils a dynamic, mutually constitutive interrelationship between an assortment of NGO accountability technologies and the shifting rationalities and programmes that underpinned their emergence and adoption. We show how a rationale idealising improved NGO accountability through quality improvement underwent constant modification in a context where programmes seeking to facilitate this ideal were congenitally failing and continually altered. Within these efforts to shape the conduct of NGOs we call attention to the constitutive role of NGO ‘counter-conduct’ – conduct by NGOs motivated by a desire to be governed differently (Foucault, 2007). We uncover what Foucault (2007) refers to as the “correlation between conduct and counter-conduct” (p. 196) in the process through which accountability technologies were mutually moulded in the interactions between NGOs and their governmental funder; a correlation frequently overlooked in analyses of governmentality. We unearth five interrelated forms of NGO counter-conduct - associating self-governance with good governance; concentrating engagement at the programmatic level; pre-emption; ‘working around’ core programmatic aims; and aligning the ‘rules of competition’ with existing expertise. We illustrate how this counter-conduct was initially, albeit not ultimately, constitutive of governmentality as it stimulated shifts towards programmatic aims of cost consciousness, increased professionalisation, and enhanced NGO cooperation. Within this process, the creation of competition for funding among NGOs emerged as an objective of accountability thereby offering a counterpoint to prior research which frequently perceives competition for funding as an explanation for increased attention to NGO accountability.

In the past decade, climate-related risk disclosures have become a core component of global sustainability reporting. These disclosures mainly adopt the reporting framework developed by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Drawing on in-depth interviews with members of the Task Force, this paper unveils the manner in which the Task Force members convened to craft their disclosure recommendations. The paper employs and extends Stark's (2009) concept of organizing dissonance to illustrate how the Task Force became a site of contestation in which fragile member collaborations fuelled unanticipated yet productive frictions related to the Task Force's remit, the concept of materiality, the calculability of climate-related risks, and the nature and appropriateness of scenario analysis. The distinctive mode of organizing dissonance unveiled in the paper illustrates how problematizing globalized risk metrics, embracing admissible levels of ambiguity, and acknowledging the (temporary) unknowability of climate change impacts organized an oscillation between harmony and discord among the Task Force members. This resulted in a provisional disclosure settlement facilitating the flexible standardization of global climate-related risk reporting aimed at enabling the transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy. By unpacking a unique instance of user and preparer efforts to co-construct a globally influential climate-related risk reporting framework, the paper advances our knowledge of how transnational private governance initiatives unearth market-based solutions to intractable global challenges.

This paper presents an in-depth longitudinal case study examining the processes through which practitioners in two Big 4 professional services firms have attempted to construct sustainability assurance (independent assurance on sustainability reports). Power’s (1996, 1997, 1999, 2003) theorization of the way in which new subject areas are made auditable is used to frame the findings. The case analysis reveals the fragile nature of efforts to innovate with sustainability assurance and render sustainability reporting auditable. It suggests that innovation in new assurance practices may be constrained by an over-reliance on traditional financial audit training and techniques and certain internal professional services firm control procedures. Practitioners are shown to have experienced considerable discomfort in their attempts to construct a stable and legitimate knowledge base for assurance practice. Tacit knowledge embedded in highly subjective assessments of evidence has been frequently enrolled to make assurance possible in the presence of vague guidance from assurance standards. In light of ongoing practitioner struggles, both firms have publicly acknowledged the limitations of traditional financial audit practice operating alone in the conduct of sustainability assurance. In order to offset these limitations, they have proposed a coupling of ‘‘expert’’ stakeholder assessments of reporting completeness with traditional audit assessments of data reliability. This assigns part of the responsibility for delivering on a key assurance objective (reporting completeness) to what many practitioners perceive as questionable stakeholder expertise. The findings extend prior research highlighting the trial and error nature of the processes through which accountants seek to develop their presence in new markets for their expertise. They also question the extent to which the core aims being espoused for sustainability assurance can be substantively aligned with the operational capabilities available within Big 4 professional services firms.

This introductory essay illustrates how our understanding of accounting, organizations and society can be enriched by closely studying the character and contexts evident in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and non-profit organizations. These organizations represent diverse, complex, and frequently atypical contexts. We contend that these contexts are especially enthralling for accounting scholars given their performance measurement challenges, accountability to diverse sets of stakeholders, and the need to frequently balance and reconcile logics of efficiency and effectiveness. To support our contentions, we unpack a number of distinct control and accountability-related themes underlying the four papers included in this Special Issue. We reflect on how these themes offer future empirical and theoretical research directions for accounting and accountability research in the realm of NGO/non-profit organizations and in organizations more generally.

This paper illuminates how a journal and its editor can initiate and foster a stream of high quality and influential research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Organizations and Society's (AOS's) and Anthony Hopwood's nurturing of research into key aspects of accounting for social sustainability for several decades before this research area became established. Our discussion unveils how the initiation of unique research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers driven primarily by passion. Through the steering of a journal editor, subsequent work can proceed to combine this passion with academic rigour and produce research insights that can benefit society by positively influencing policy and practice. It is this attention to rigour that we argue needs to be central to future research in accounting for social sustainability (and accounting for sustainability more broadly) if it is to continue producing purposeful knowledge. We offer several substantive directions for future research aimed at producing such knowledge.

Advocacy movements play an increasingly prominent role in shaping corporate social responsibility (CSR) management and reporting practices. Prior research mainly studies advocacy movements who form and operate on the periphery of the organizational field(s) they seek to alter. We know comparatively little about how these movements materialize within fields and use established field networks, resources and power structures to transform CSR and CSR reporting norms. This paper examines how an advocacy movement formed and evolved within the Dutch investment field to embed a suite of social and environmental accountability mechanisms therein. We examine the evolution of VBDO, a membership association which promotes and polices corporate accountability among Dutch listed companies and investment institutions. We depict how a movement of diverse actors materialized in and around VBDO to stimulate responsible investment and sophisticated CSR reporting in the investment field. Insights from social movement theory and institutional work are integrated with Stark’s (2009) concept of organizing dissonance to theorise the conditions underpinning the movement’s emergence and influence. We uncover how rankings work - the co-creation, dissemination and policing of CSR benchmarks - and (institutional) work censorship - the strategic self-censoring of institutional work - coalesced to cultivate constructive collaborations among movement actors. We show how this enabled the creation of accountability mechanisms that facilitated VBDO’s transition into an influential and unique boundary organization. Our analysis extends prior research by revealing the role of institutional work in cultivating cooperation between advocacy movements and the targets of their reforms. By illustrating how actors’ opposing value frames co-existed peacefully as VBDO’s accountability mechanisms evolved, we offer a counterpoint to studies suggesting that compromise underpins the organization of dissonance among actors constructing corporate accounts.