accounting in human rights organizations
On Wednesday 5 October 2016 Galina Goncharenko will hold a trial lecture on a prescribed topic and defend her thesis for the PhD degree at NHH.
Prescribed topic for the trial lecture:
What is accounting in human rights organizations? Principles, standards and practice
Trial lecture:
10:15 in Jebsen Centre NHH
Title of the thesis:
Essays on Financial Accountability of Human Rights Organizations
Summary:
Establishing a bridge between research on accountability and user-need research in nonprofit accounting, this dissertation explores the phenomenon of financial accountability of human rights organizations (HROs). It does this by examining how financial reporting mechanisms are being employed to satisfy growing accountability demands and by studying how the distinct pressures from stakeholders and financial reporting regulation interact to shape the accountability practices of HROs. Relying on a socio-constructivist perspective on accounting, this dissertation applies several empirical and methodological approaches, including netnography, analysis of Internet-based discussions, and the use of real-life constructs that are embedded in interview sessions. The dissertation consists of three essays.
The first essay explores the main accountability concerns of HRO professionals within the nonprofit community. It argues that HROs face the highest level of financial accountability demands among non-profit organizations (NPOs) due to the attention they must pay to the propriety of their donors and their own concerns for public expectations and scrutiny. The essay shows a linkage between the complexities in performance measurement and accounting and the difficulties for organizations to demonstrate legitimacy and accountability. The essay advances a significant argument for the development of a special accounting framework for NPOs.
The second essay reveals the accounting information needs of institutional donors and examines their reasoning and their motives for high financial accountability demands. It demonstrates that as they supplement accounting standard setters, powerful stakeholders might create alternative reporting systems using their own patterns of governance. Exercising a great deal of influence over the settings in which HROs operate and by demanding not only financial accounting, but also management accounting information, donors interfere significantly with the operationalization of HROs. This challenges the independence of the missions of HROs and affects the practical aspects of their working agendas.
The third essay explores the role of financial reporting and accounting regulation in the foreign funding restrictions of HROs in selective settings. The study contributes to critical accounting literature by examining the spectrum of governing purposes for which accounting mechanisms could be applied, and by considering the interplay between accounting and various notions of justification, politics and power.
Defense:
12:15 in Jebsen Centre, NHH
Members of the evaluation committee:
Associate professor Daniel Johanson (leader of the committee), Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law, NHH
Professor Frode Mellemvik, Nord University Business School, Nord University
Professor (emeritus) Salme Näsi, School of Business and Economics, University of Tampere
Supervisors:
Professor Norvald Monsen (principal supervisor), Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law, NHH
Professor Dorothea Greiling, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
Professor Johan Christiaens, Ghent University, Belgium
The trial lecture and thesis defence will be open to the public. Copies of the thesis will be available from presse@nhh.no.