Accountablity and ethnicity in a religious setting: the Salvation

Army in France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Sweden

Vassili JOANNIDESSupervised by Nicolas BERLAND and

Trevor HOPPER

July 1st 2009Université Paris Dauphine

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Research question

How can everyday (religious) conduct reflect influences of ethnicity on accountability practices?

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Concepts (1/2)Conduct / practice (see Certeau, 1984)

translation of one’s values, beliefs and norms into the practice of everyday life

Religion: (see Eliade, 1951; Durkheim, 1898; Weber, 1922)- an individual encounter with the Holy- a collective pattern of beliefs and values- shaped by norms issued and enforced by a clergy

Ethnicity: (see Eriksen, 1993; Banks, 1999; Fenton, 1999; Weber, 1922)

– The subjective belonging to a community– Based upon kinship, ancestry, language, inherited religious

beliefs and practices, values and norms

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Concepts (2/2)

Accountability: see Roberts & Scapens, 1985; Ahrens, 1996; Law, 1996; Lévinas, 1985

- a system whereby people are demanding and giving reasons for (daily) conduct- a discursive practice using a commonly agreed language, viz. Accounting, which is a visual representation of oneself in terms of assets/liabilities, debits/credits- a cascade of a Higher-Stakeholder approximations in the guise of evaluation and knowledge

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Knowledge debates addressed1. On accountability as a cultural practice (as

Hopwood, 1994 or Ahrens & Chapman, 2007; Jeacle, 2009; Jørgensen and Messner, 2009)

2. On accounting and accountability as a spirituality in churches (e.g. as Quattrone, 2004, 2009; Karim & Gambling, 1991)

3. On culture/ethnicity influencing accounting and accountability practices (as Efferin, 2002; Efferin & Hopper, 2007)

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‘Walk their walk, talk their talk and write their story’• Full-time involvement in the Salvation Army

as an ethnic and religious insider and social outsider.

• Data: diary field notes, video and audio files (from services and other activities), internal documents, conversations / interviews, reflexive practices.

• Categories emerged from field observations

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Ethnicity in the Salvation Army• France:

1/3 Haitians (majority in one parish)1/3 Congolese (alone in two parishes)1/3 White French (same parish as Haitians and smaller town parishes)

• Switzerland: German-Swiss (alone)

• United Kingdom:90% WASPs (alone)10% Zimbabweans (alone in one parish)

• Sweden: only Vikings (alone)

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The Salvation Army accountability system (1/2)

A covenant-based accounting spirituality whereby people are expected to balance a formal God T-account

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The Salvation Army accountability system (2/2)

Social workDemonstrations before civil societyUniform wearing

New soulsNew financial supports

Sunday donationsResponse to appealsLegacies

Faithfulness

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Three styles of accountability

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Contributions

• Empirical: – ethnicity in the Salvation Army– a church setting in non Anglo-Saxon contexts

• Theoretical: – a framework on accountability– the sacred-secular approach is probably not appropriate

to understand linkages between accounting and religion– Ethnicity seems to be an appropriate concept/cultural

unit to approach diversity in organisations and understand why conduct and (management/accounting/control) practices might vary

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Accountability and controls

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Archival dataData type Detailed archives

Ethnography Notes in diaries:- Services- Other activities-THQ meetings- Social outsider experiences

Internal documents - Reports on meetings- Internal reports- Orders and Regulations- Guidelines- Correspondance

Video / Audio files - Services- Outdoors activities (demonstrations, concerts…)- Private events (child consecration, mariage, funeral…)- Validation interviews

Various memos - Informal conversations- Opinion on people, activities, services… 14

Research design

Conclusions

Ontological assumptions / purposes

Epistemological stance (interdisciplinary perspectives)

Methodology choices

Contribution to scientific knowledge

Research designSacred-secular / Hofstede

Religious practice / ethnicity

Ontology Realist outsiders: explain to draw universal and general laws

Nominalist/idealist insiders: understand accounting phenomena (within the church or ethnic community)

Interdisciplinary epistemology

Reality is in people’s discourses understood through other disciplines than accounting

Light positivism

Reality is constructed in day-to-day life and can be understood through disciplines directed at these practices

Light constructivism

Methodology choices Semi-structured interviews/Questionnaires

Ethnography / auto-ethnography

Scientific knowledge Homogeneous and comparable

Scattered, heterogenesous and incomparable

Accountability origins

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Witness• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1a-SgLDcU• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax6R9zobgyw• http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Wr6SFLUtlcM&feature=PlayList&p=CFDF6964E094F022&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=27

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di054ksGWWM• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST9dAxSKLtw

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