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Canning, Mary
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Canning, Mary
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Canning, Mary
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- PublicationInstitutional work and regulatory change in the accounting professionIndependent oversight bodies such as the PCAOB in the U.S. and the POB in the U.K. pervade the international accounting regulatory environment. Their existence has been hailed as marking an end to self-regulation of the accounting profession. This paper examines how, and with what effect, individuals within one such oversight body attempted to reconfigure the regulatory field of accounting in Ireland. We mobilise the concept of institutional work to theorise the interrelated nature of the forms of institutional work these individuals engaged in as they sought to realise regulatory change. The paper advances prior theorisations of the recursive relationship between different forms of institutional work and patterns of institutional change and stability. We unveil a more refined, nuanced categorisation of institutional work within efforts to instigate regulatory change. We show how specific forms of institutional work interact and mutually reinforce or displace one another as regulators seek to establish power and legitimacy in a regulatory field. The role and nature of work rejection e whereby regulators initially reject certain forms of work but later embrace them e is unveiled within a change process where shifting regulatory logics both shape and are shaped by the forms of institutional work undertaken. The paper provides a counterpoint to prior research by illustrating how socio-political factors enabled more than constrained the impact of the institutional work undertaken by individuals within an independent oversight body. It concludes with a call for research focusing on how targets of regulation in accounting engage in institutional work as they respond to efforts to restrict their autonomy.
791Scopus© Citations 65 - PublicationRegulation and governance of the professions: institutional work and the demise of 'delegated' self-regulation of the accounting professionWhile professions are now widely viewed as primary societal institutional agents (Scott, 2008) assuming central roles in creating, disrupting and maintaining prevailing institutions (Currie, Lockett, Finn, Martin, & Waring, 2012; Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence, Suddaby & Leca, 2009, 2011; Suddaby & Viale, 2011), they are also often the objects of institutional change efforts, especially regarding how they are regulated. Nowhere has this change been more profound than in the accounting profession. In the last 15 years as the profession has evolved to embrace and serve globalised enterprise, it has come under increased scrutiny. This is especially evident in the steady imposition of independent oversight bodies established to supervise key aspects of its governance. This represents a major disruption to a regulatory regime that prevailed for almost a century in several western European jurisdictions (Canning & O'Dwyer, 2013; Caramanis, Dedoulis, & Leventis, 2015; Hazgui & Gendron, 2015; Malsch & Gendron, 2011; Quack & Schubler, 2017).
162 - PublicationGender Equality and Sexual Consent in the Context of Commercial Sexual Exploitation: A study by the Sexual Exploitation Research Programme UCD, in collaboration with the National Women’s Council(National Women's Council, 2022-09-21)
; ; ; Building a society so that women can live free from violence and harassment is at the core of achieving equality for women in Ireland and globally. Sexual exploitation, harassment and violence are a cause and consequence of gender discrimination and must be located within a gender equality framework. The current sex trade is heavily gendered and migrant women make up an average of 84% of women in prostitution across 13 European countries. In Ireland, the profile of women in the sex trade (estimated to be 1,000 women at any one time) is of young, vulnerable migrants from the Global South and impoverished regions of Central and Eastern Europe. In the vast majority of cases the buyer is male, well-educated, with a medium to high income, whereas women find themselves in prostitution as a result of being trafficked, coerced, compelled by extreme poverty, or lack of other means of financial survival. Legalised regimes in Europe have resulted in an exponential growth in demand, with an estimated 400,000 women and girls in the German sex trade, with evidence of worsening conditions and severe exploitation that has profound consequences for women’s physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health. However, despite this evidence, there is growing pressure, particularly on young women, to understand prostitution within the framework of the neo-liberal concepts of individual agency, choice and autonomy and as a legitimate form of work which can be safely regulated in the market economy as with any other commercial transaction. This study set out to critically examine gender equality and the phenomenon of consent in the context of the commercial sex trade.26 - PublicationAudit quality and inspection in the Netherlands: The importance of an intellectual approach to experiential learning and practice advancementRecent reported failings of audit practice and the extent of fines and sanctions issued against major audit firms in the Netherlands have resulted in severe criticism of the Dutch accounting profession. This paper contemplates how a noted Dutch tradition of excellence in auditing has shifted to one dominated by notions of inadequacy. It considers the content of AFM inspection reports, analyses various elements of the profession’s response to the criticisms being made of the quality of auditing, reflects on the scale and nature of identified problems, assesses the implications for the standing and future development of the auditing profession in the Netherlands and explores the scope for meaningful experiential learning and practice advancement.
329 - PublicationProcesses of auditability in sustainability assurance - the case of materiality constructionThis study examines how financial audit-styled concepts such as materiality are transferred to non-financial audit arenas. Drawing on a case study of assurors working within a Big 4 professional services firm, we uncover a number of interrelated features of the materiality determination and assessment process within sustainability assurance (assurance on sustainability reports). We illustrate how assuror flexibility, underpinned by assuror intuition, is central to uncovering assurance technologies deemed capable of addressing the materiality of ambiguous sustainability data. Assurors with no financial audit background retrospectively rationalise their intuition using the assumed authority of structured financial audit methodologies. This facilitates the tentative translation of financial audit knowledge to the sustainability assurance domain. Collaborative, holistic decision making processes inform the assurors’ continual construction of materiality and are characterised by alliances of (accountant and non-accountant) ‘expert’ assurors merging formal and tacit knowledge. These alliances seek social cohesion within sustainability assurance teams in order to establish a social consensus among assurors around the materiality determination and assessment process. Our analysis develops and extends Power’s theorisation of how new areas are made auditable and advances our understanding of the more practical aspects of non-financial assurance services offered by Big 4 professional services firms.
186Scopus© Citations 36