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预算编制外文翻译中英文
2020
英文
Budget making:
The theatrical presentation of accounting
discourse
Lawrence Corrigan
Abstract
This interpretative
research engages with calls for a visual turn in
accounting by
presenting
stagy
empirical
illustrations
of
municipal budgeting that
draw
upon
Goffman’s dramaturgical framework. The
budget is theorized as visual and theatrical.
Analysis
of
video
recordings
of
budget
meetings
and
on-scene
observation
of
budget-making
at
a
site
of
city
management
reveal
visual
triggers,
rhetoric,
and
framing that constitute
budgeting as visual discourse. A central
impression presented
in this paper is
that of uncontrollability. The apparatus of
budgeting is complex and
grows in an
undisturbed way, given that budget
actors seem to be passive in taking
leadership
roles
to
substantively
promote
change.
This
paper
draws
attention
to
numerous
elements
of
budget-making
that
highlight
visual
accounting
as
part
of
its
apparatus.
This
view
is
in
contrast
to
classic
theories
of
controllability
that
claim
Weberian
bureaucratic
ideals
of
rationality,
efficiency,
and
professionalism.
Two
scholarly
contributions
are
claimed.
First,
this
paper
joins
a
growing
academic
conversation about
visual accounting, and extends this discussion
with an exemplar of
management
accounting. Until recently, the visual has been
inappropriately neglected
in accounting
research, particularly in studies of the public
sector. Second, this paper
applies
Goffman’s
dramaturgy, an underused
perspective in the accounting literature
and a thought-provoking methodology
with a capacity for what may be regarded as
“visual critique”.
Keywords
：
Visual
accounting
，
Municipal administration
，
Budget
，
Dramaturgy
，
Accounting discourse
Introduction
The accounting
milieu, and social life in general, is immensely
visual. This paper
calls attention to
influential
visual
material
in
performances of accounting
authority
and contributes to
a nascent academic conversation around critical
visual analysis in
1
accounting (Brown, 2010, Davison, 2015,
Davison et al., 2015, Malsch and Gendron,
2009, Meyer et al., 2013). A broad
definition of the visual is employed in this
paper;
for example, pictures, diagrams,
spreadsheets, ritual enactments, videos, web
pages,
television screens, graphs, and
artefacts in the physical spaces where interaction
takes
place.
Accounting
researchers
have
been
interested
in
the
visual
for
at
least
several
decades. However,
unlike other disciplines such as the humanities
and social studies,
this stream of
research has not been prominent. “Visuality has
been neglected despite
accounting
having
a
strong
visual
resonance”
(Brown,
2010,
p.
486).
Th
e
call
for
more
visual research in accounting began in earnest
with a special issue of Accounting,
Auditing & Accountability Journal
(AAAJ, 2009). It was suggested that
“there was a
blind
spot
with
regard
to
the
visual
in
both
accounting
and
organization
s
tudies”
(Davison
& Warren, 2009, p. 845). Davison (2015) also
argues that until recently the
visual
has
been
mostly
absent
in
accounting
studies.
Important
for
the
focus
of
my
paper,
Davison’s
(2015)
synthesis of 83 articles in the
visual accounting field, which
reveals
an infrequent use of drama-based theoretical
approaches, claims that there has
been
“no
work
on
the
public
sector
or
on
management
accounting”
(p.
148).
This
opinion is supported by Meyer et al.
(2013)who claim that visual modes of meaning
construction
in
organization
and
management
research
remain
inactive
and
require
more
quantity and contrasting types of methodologies.
Lapsley, Miller, and Panozzo
(2010, p.
305)
call for accounting research based
on “visualizing and calculating the
city”
b
ecause
they
have
found
that
municipalities
have
received
little
attention
regarding
the
visual.
Thus,
the
visual
turn,
nearly
a
decade
after
its
introduction
in
AAAJ, is still in need of a variety of
empirical illustrations of its theoretical
concepts.
This paper answers the call
for a visual turn in accounting by paying
attention to
how
actors
in
municipal
administration
use
visual
images
to
achieve
financial patronage1
in
budget
practices.
It
does
so
intertextually
by
bringing dramaturgy(Goffman,
1959, Goffman,
1967,
Goffman,
1974)
explicitly
into
the
emerging
literature
on
visual
accounting.
The
following
sampling
of
articles
illustrates the
rather eclectic nature of this literature.
Bettner, Frandsen, and McGoun
2
(2010)discuss
the
prevalent
visual
culture
of
accounting
–
a
culture
that
teaches
us
how to
visually see knowledge patterns. They claim that
it is possible to also “hear”
patterns
(listening to accounting) to aurally find
knowledge. Brown (2010)considered
challenges and prospects of accounting
and visual cultural studies. She concluded that
this confluence enables strategic
accounting to critique and resist dominant modes
of
thinking. Meyer et al. (2013) show
how visuals disguised as information, rather than
argument,
become
reified
–
enhancing
their
power
to
dominate,
even
though
such
domination
is
seldom
made
explicit.
It
has
been
suggested
elsewhere
that
visual
accounting
in
annual
reports
is
laden
with
vestiges
of
archaic
religious
symbolism
(Davison, 2004),
including visuals that often adopt sacred images
of ascension. Visual
accountability
has
also
been
explored
in
the
context
of
accounting
for
municipal
projects
(Czarniawska,
2010);
the
article
discusses
interpretative
frameworks
for
studying city management and enriches
the discussion by including visual reporting of
the author’s photographs.
Although the above introduction
indicates a lack of visual accounting literature
using drama-based theory, especially
related to the public sector, some extant studies
are particularly relevant to this
paper. Mueller (2017) noted that accounting
research
has
occasionally
called
upon
Goffmanian
ideas
(Mueller
lists
seven
articles
with
publication dates
reaching back to 1985) but he claims that no
systematic work has
yet been of
significance in the field of accounting. Mueller
(2017)addresses that gap
by
taking
dramaturgy
seriously
and
applying
aspects
of
the
interaction
order
to
the
performance of strategy in
organizations. The dramaturgy of interactions is a
theme
that
runs
throughout
Goffman’s
work.
In
the
area
of
social
accounting, Jones
(2011)
uses
Goffman’s
concept
of
impression
management
to
assess
the
use,
abuse,
and
visual
impact
of
graphs
in
environmental
accounting.
Jones
(2011) notes
the
extensive accounting literature
concerned with earnings management and he broadens
this idea toward presentational
management such as accounting narratives and
graphs.
Following
a
dramaturgical
framework
(Goffman,
1959),
my
research
examines
the budget
processes of Halifax Regional Municipality where
operational boundaries
give
rise
to
fierce
contests
concerning
political
allocation
of
scarce
resources.
3
“Theatrical”
analysis
of
accounting
discourse
helps
us
realize
that
impression
management in
budgeting involves skillful use of imagery. This
paper contributes to
visual
accounting
by
focusing
on
municipal
budgeting.
Specifically,
accounting
researchers
are
encouraged
to
understand
budget-making
as
visual
and
theatrical
rather
than
uncritically
seeing
budgeting
as
an
all-too-
mundane
administrative
practice. If one wishes to imagine
accounting as a visual theatrical performance,
what
succeeds
at
receiving
(or
what
fails
to
receive)
public
funding
should
be
of
great
interest. The budget processes of the
Halifax City Council may be seen as theatrical
experience
where
interests
of
the
actors
are
sustained
only
by
submitting
to
staged
performances in an
organized dispute over operating and capital
financing. This paper
examines how the
visual is involved in argument and counter-
argument surrounding
the
formal
performance
of
municipal
budget
ratification.
Goffman
refers
to
these
performances as
“expression games” (1969, p. 10), where the
structure of interactions
is dependent
on the control and asymmetry of information.
Accordingly, “the budget”
is socially
constructed and complex; it can swiftly convert
from a single object into a
web
of
thousands
of
individual
budget
line
items
and
a
host
of
assumptions,
calculations,
legal
commitments,
and
wild
guesses.
Municipal
budgeting
is
also
affected
by
a
polyphonic
voice3 (Bakhtin,
1981)
because
many
competing
bits
and
pieces of advice (mostly
unasked for) independently reach the ears of
elected officials
in
the
lead-up
to
formal
meetings
of
the
Council.
Strategic
visualization
(numbers,
words, images, as well as accounting
storytelling) is needed to respond to polyphonic
overtones
and
to
communicate
overwhelming
budget
texts.
In
the
Halifax
budget
story to follow, the
players (municipal management, elected officials,
staff members,
the
news
media,
others)
visually
and
theatrically
perfo
rm
a
“good”
budget
even
though
it
imposes
an
unwanted
tax
increase.
Higher
tax
rates
are
embedded
in
a
complex
set
of
accounting
calculations
and
able
to
“disappear
from
view”
even
though
the subject of taxation remains in plain sight of
the municipal actors.
Theoretical
framework
–
dramaturgy
Dramaturgy is
a
qualitative
research
tradition
that
grew
from
Goffman’s
(1959)notion of
social performances. Dramaturgy accepts a
fundamental belief in the
4
theatricality
of
organizing
and
resonates
with
dramatic
visual
elements
that
are
integral to budget accounting. Goffman
used the language of theatre and called upon
numerous
dramaturgical
terms
to
expound
on
the
presentation
of
self
in
social
situations.
Goffman’s
ontological
stance
includes
the
notion
that
the
indi
vidual
is
a
crafter of the self. In
this respect, Goffman stands-out among symbolic
interactionists
as one who leans toward
a subjectivist orientation (although not all would
agree with
a categorization of Goffman
as a symbolic interactionist, as discussed in
Baert, 1998).
Indeed,
dramaturgy
is
difficult
to
situate
paradigmatically.
The
philosophical
assumptions
underlying
dramaturgy
arise
from
an
ontological
position
that
implies
nominalism while also approaching an
objective attitude toward realism.
As
indicated in
the previous
section, dramaturgy has been sparingly
applied in
accounting
research. Goffman’s dramaturgical
framework has been used to question
taxable business profits (Edgley,
2010), examine auditor facework (Johed &
Catasú
s,
in
press),
problematize
the
development
of
accounting
narratives
(Beattie,
2014),
understand
stigma
related
to
accounting
professionalism
(Jeacle,
2008),
and
expose
aspects
of
impression
management
(Sk?rb?k
&
Tryggestad,
2010).
To
date,
dramaturgy
has
not
been
meaningfully
used
to
engage
with
the
visual
turn
in
accounting
since
“the
visual
has
often
been
(erroneously)
regarded
either
as
empty
decoration or as transparent
information” (Davison, 2015, p. 122). This is
surprising
because, theoretically,
dramaturgy and visual studies share several
fundamental tenets
–
Chart 1
outlines seven key concepts of visual studies,
along with selected citations
that
elaborate these ideas. Each of the seven visual
studies concepts is matched with a
comparative dramaturgical concept.
These draw upon seminal Goffman publications
that
fundamentally
recognize
the
theatricality
and
visuality
of
social
life.
A
central
pattern
evident
from
the
comparison
outlined
in Chart
1 is
that
dramaturgical
and
visual artefacts have a
capacity to establish and organize what comes to
be accepted as
knowledge. This often
manifests as telling “a story of the situation”
(Lorino, Mourey,
& Schmidt, 2017, p.
43) in a way that is meaningful for future action.
For
this
paper,
four
selected
dramaturgical
tools
are
central.
Each
of
these
is
briefly outlined below.
5
?Regions:
(see
Benford
&
Hunt,
1992)
According
to
dramaturgy,
performances
depend upon segregation of social space
into the front region and backstage. The front
region is a physical space associated
with visual masks, or persona. The front region
contains
a
variety
of
fixed
trappings
called
a
setting
and
features
fronts
of
human
actors,
which
include
personal
appearance,
manner,
clothing,
badges,
gender,
race,
age,
gestures,
voice,
credentials,
and
a
host
of
other
visual
insignia.
Actors
do
not
necessarily
continue
the
same
performance
when
the
audience
is
not
present.
The
back
region
is
the
place
“where
the
impression
fostered
by
the
performance
is
knowingly contradicted as a matter of
course” (Goffman, 1959, p
. 115).
Dramaturgy
has it that one’s authentic
self is usually found in the backstage of social
life.
?Performance
(see Biehl-
Missal,
2011):
Performance
may
be
thought
of
as
all
acting that serves to influence other
participants. Performances involve the efforts of
individuals toward convincing others
(and themselves) that their claims are genuine.
Performance includes several elements
as follows. Dramatic realization is the process
whereby
individuals
infuse
their
activity
with
signs
to
more
convincingly
convey
“facts” that otherwise might remain
ambiguous.
Idealization is the tendency
of actors
to present “officially
accredited values” (Goffman, 1959, p. 45) for
their audience to
witness.
Mystification involves
the
maintenance
of
rituals
and
visualization.
These
create an approving audience in awe of
the performance.
?Audience
(see Hogan,
2010):
Impressions
are
scripted
for
the
benefit
of
an
audience. From a visual point of view,
theatre sites can be disorderly. They include
mostly appreciative outward signals
such as applause or shouts of bravo. Booing and
heckling
is
also
possible,
as
is
the
neutral,
albeit
annoying,
propensity
of
audience
members to forget
to turn off their cellphones. Critique by the
municipal audience is
often
restrained
by
dramaturgical
techniques
in
the
budget
process.
Municipal
taxpayers and citizen lobbyists are
able to
resist through performances of
their own
through
social
media
and
by
political
efforts
beyond
the
formal
meetings
in
the
Council Chamber.
?Impression
management
(see Goffman,
1971, Solomon
et
al.,
2013):
Goffman
discusses two types
of management of impressions: what we say, and
what we do. The
6
former
is
information
that
we
“give”,
and
is
believed
to
be
substantially
under
our
control; those impressions that are
communicated in what we do while we say things,
i.e., the information that we “give
off”, are believed to be less under our control.
Thus
audiences have access to visual
and tacit signs that the performer is unable to
manage.
These signs may be used as a
check of expressive behaviour that is given from
behind
a
mask.
Scholars
have
gone
as
far
as
to
say
that
“impression
management
may
be
called upon as a general umbrella
framework for visual analysis” (Davison, 2015, p.
134).
Conclusion
This paper contributes to the
conversation around visual analysis in accounting
research
(Davison,
2015, Davison
et
al.,
2015, Jones,
2011, Malsch
and
Gendron,
2009).
The
call
for
critical
visual
research,
especially
in
the
field
of
management
accounting
and
public
sector
management
stems
from
a
deficit
of
the
visual
in
case-
based
studies
of
accounting.
The
“visual
turn”
has
produced
a
persuasive
theoretical
grounding and discussion over the past decade.
However, the visual turn in
accounting
is
still
in
need
of
a
variety
of
empirical
illustrations
of
its
theoretical
concepts.
By examining
the budget
processes of the Halifax Regional
Municipality,
this paper
pays attention to how actors in municipal
administration use visual images
in
practice. Following Goffman’s dramaturgical
framew
ork, this research accepts the
notion
that
municipal budgeting is
dramatic.
The
reputation
of
budgeting
(and
accounting generally) as mundane
administrative work is unwarranted (Jeacle, 2008).
Seeing accounting discourse as
“theatrical” helps us realize that Goffman’s
concepts
of
performing
regions,
performance,
audience,
and
impression
management
in
budgeting
involve
skillful
use
of
imagery.
Since
the
municipal
budget
is
a
socially-
constructed vision of a contested and ever-
changing reality, its
construction
depends
upon
how
municipal
actors
perform
their
accounting
authority.
These
performances are
infused with a broad range of visual phenomena.
A
central
impression
presented
in
this
paper
is
that
of
uncontrollability.
The
apparatus
of
budgeting
is
complex
and
grows
in
an
undisturbed
way,
given
that
budget actors seem to be passive in
taking leadership roles in order to substantively
7
promote
change. Power
(2013)
understands
“apparatus”
in
the
context
of
Foucault’s
(1977,
p.
195)
notion
of
“dispositif”,
whic
h
is
a
system
of
thinking
that
has
a
dominant strategic
function as negotiations produce dispositions. I
support this view
by
dramaturgically
calling
attention
to
numerous
elements
of
budget-making
that
highlight
visual
accounting
as
part
of
its
apparatus.
This
includes
budget
process
diagrams,
accounting
spreadsheets
with
detailed
budget
line-items,
engineering
photographs of capital project sites,
ritual enactments of dramatistic managers, videos
“explaining” tax policy, municipal web
pages, television sc
reens showing the
elected
officials in action, and other
visualizations that “construct controllability
boundaries”
(Gendron
&
Spira,
2009,
p.
97).
This
view
is
in
contrast
to
classic
theories
of
controllability.
For
example, Ouchi
(1979)
considers
various
approaches18 that
influence
the
boundaries
of
controllability,
including
a
bureaucratic
control
philosophy based on
Weber’s (2002)
“ideal” bureaucracy. This model is
characterized
by
hierarchical
authority
relations,
personal
scrutiny,
and
defined
spheres
of
competence subject to
impersonal rules. Theoretically, the Weberian
bureaucratic goal
is to be rational,
efficient, and professional. Thus, the budget
process may be seen as a
control
mechanism
for
behaviour. Ouchi
(1979)stresses
that
it
is
of
fundamental
importance to
establish which form of control is most efficient.
However, this paper
does
not
emphasize
efficiency
or
rational
control.
I
focus
instead
on
trying
to
understand
the
complexity
of
budget
control.
On
the
one
hand,
visual
accounting
highlig
hts ritual enactments
that collectively construct a “meta image” that
the budget
is
under
control.
On
the
other
hand,
this
paper
indicates
a
backstage
(as
captured
through analysis of
the frontstage) in which the individual actors
involved, especially
the
councillors, seem to lack sufficient
power to “control” the budget. This impression
of uncontrollability raises an
important question: Is backstage uncontrollability
of the
budget
in
line
with
democratic
accountability?
This
paper
has
dramaturgically
engaged
with
this
question
by
showing
that
stakeholder
views
of
reality
may
be
constructed
with
visual
accounting,
and
that
corporate
drama
may
interfere
with
classic notions of controllability.
The research milieu for this paper has
several limitations as well as opportunities
8