Essays on Chinese Culture and Accountability

This thesis comprises three empirical essays revolving on the influence of socio-cultural space on organisational accountability practices. The first essay is entitled 'An exploratory study of corporate social responsibility in Chinese private enterprises', which adopts a post-disciplinary control theoretical perspective to discuss the interactions and interplay between enterprises and the government on CSR activities, and to analyse the motivational logic of spontaneous CSR production and change in Chinese private enterprises. The second essay, entitled 'Revisiting possibilities and limits of accountability through the lens of Chinese drinking culture', explores the influence of the institutional setting on the forms of accountability, and analyses the widespread phenomenon of social accountability in Chinese accounting practices in the light of the works of Roberts (1991) and Messner (2009), enriching the understanding of the possibilities and limits of accountability. The third essay entitled 'A gender perspective on accounting accountability: the implications of Chinese drinking culture', is an extension of the second essay based on accounting accountability, explores how the socio-cultural context influences and constructs gendered accounting accountability workplaces. The three pieces employ qualitative research through interviews and field observations, to examine the characteristics of accountability practices from both CSR and accounting accountability aspects in Chinese enterprises. It analyses the interactions and tensions between the institutional environment and the accountability relationship, providing empirical experience through the lens of socio-cultural space for the relevant accounting accountability production literature