Accounting and accountability in Local Government : a critical constructivist grounded theory approach

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand the interrelationship between accounting and accountability in local government in Zimbabwe. Fieldwork was undertaken in one large city council from October 2005 to March 2006 and also in February 2007. Local government authorities in Zimbabwe are responsible for delivering a wide range of public services including housing, healthcare, waste management and water distribution. The question, therefore, is how accountable are these organisations to their stakeholders? The exploratory nature of this study called for a qualitative approach. The methodology employed is termed Critical Constructivist Grounded Theory. This is because the study is located along a continuum with Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) on the one end and Critical Theory on the other, with the thesis positioned towards Critical Theory. CGT is used because the researcher agrees with Charmaz (2006: 10) who asserts that 'finished grounded theories are constructions of reality'. The thesis gives rich descriptions of organisational micro contexts such as poor organisational culture, resource mismanagement, self-interest, the limited role of accounting information, the quality of consultations and links these to macro conditions of the political environment. The substantive theory generated from this study is that the City Council's overarching concern was portraying a semblance of accountability. This core phenomenon influenced accounting and accountability practices in this organisation. The thesis suggests that genuine accountability is required in order to solve the problems faced by the organisation studied. However the study reveals that the majority of the service recipients did not have a voice in the decisions made by, neither were they able to scrutinise the performance of, this organisation. The findings of the thesis are discussed in the light of existing accounting literature as well as Jiirgen Habermas's theory of communicative action and Pierre Bourdieu's notions of field and capital. Habermas is a German philosopher and a critical theorist. His range of interests includes the concept of the public sphere, democracy and emancipation. Bourdieu was a French sociologist who was interested in many issues including culture, class and power relations, social suffering and domination. The concepts of these two thinkers are used to give a language to discuss what seems to be going on.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

ASCII CitationAtomBibTeXData Cite XMLDublin CoreDublin CoreEP3 XMLEndNoteHTML CitationHTML CitationHTML ListJSONMETSMODSMPEG-21 DIDLOpenURL ContextObjectOpenURL ContextObject in SpanRDF+N-TriplesRDF+N3RDF+XMLRIOXX2 XMLReferReference ManagerSimple Metadata