“What a wonderful world!”: human relatedness, social space and accountability through action in a top-level amateur choir
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 22 June 2021
Issue publication date: 3 February 2022
Abstract
Purpose
During choir rehearsals, a conductor continuously holds choir members accountable for what they do and how they sing. Hence, members are held accountable through action. This allows a conductor to emphasize his/her expertise and underline his/her authority. Choir members typically respond in certain ways when this is done, for instance by commenting on the feedback they receive or by trying to improve their singing. The interplay between these accounts, how they develop over time, and what they (do not) accomplish in terms of human relatedness are the focus of this study. We use Bauman's (1993) conceptualization of social space to investigate these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
By providing reasons for their conduct and behaving in a certain way, a conductor and choir members, but also a choir's management, can alter their position in social space. Thereby, they solidify or change how they relate to other individuals in the choir. Bauman assumes that processes of social spacing require so-called “misunderstandings”. We examine seven misunderstandings that occurred in a particular rehearsal of a top-level amateur choir, analyzing their impact on human relatedness. Video analysis methods, interviews and photo-elicitation are the main research methods used.
Findings
We find both short-term and long-term effects of misunderstandings on human relatedness, and offer two extensions of Bauman's (1993) conception of social space. Firstly, we assert that there is a reflective side to processes of social spacing that needs to be taken into account when changes in human relatedness are discussed. Secondly, we find that the emotional impact of accountability on how individuals behave ought not to be underestimated, as this can have lasting effects on how people relate to one another.
Originality/value
This research makes two contributions to the extant literature. It is shown how accountability through action unfolds when people engage in leisurely activity, and how this affects the way they relate to one another – in sometimes unintentional and unpredictable ways. It also extends a well-known theoretical framework on social space that has seen little application in the accounting literature. This framework is adapted so that it may be used more fruitfully in future accounting studies.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, Lee Parker, as well as Be Albronda, Roland Speklé, Lukas Goretzki, David Otley, Chris Ford, Florian Gebreiter, Francesco Chiaravalloti, Elaine Harris, Robert Scapens, Carolyn Cordery, David Yates, Stephen Jollands, Özlem Arikan, and members of the accounting research group of the University of Roehampton, participants of the Management Accounting Research Group (MARG) conference organized by the Aston Business School in Birmingham in 2016 and 2017, the British Accounting and Finance (BAFA) conference in Birmingham in 2019, the Management Control Association (MCA) conference in Groningen in 2017, and participants of the European Network in Research on Organisational and Accounting Change (ENROAC) conference in Galway and Roehampton in 2015 and 2019 for their comments and suggestions on previous (and very different) drafts of this paper. A special word of thanks goes out to Fenneke Bouwman, who was kind enough to offer her services as a photographer when we attended the choir rehearsal studied in this paper.
Citation
De Loo, I. and Kamminga, P. (2022), "“What a wonderful world!”: human relatedness, social space and accountability through action in a top-level amateur choir", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 271-299. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-07-2019-4061
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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