Accountability when Professionals Start to Disintegrate: Evidence from Emerging Economies in Asia: Critical Perspectives on Accounting

This paper attempts to empirically investigate the phenomenon of accountability when trust in professionals, such as accountants, lecturers, police officers, teachers, and civil servants, starts to break down within emerging economies in Asia, such as Malaysia, China, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. This research adopted hybrid ethnography methodology by analysing offline faceto-face interviews, online interviews, online opinions and interviews with government officials
via social media. These primary and secondary data were analysed using thematic analysis. By interviewing respected professionals, such as teachers, police officers, accountants, lecturers and civil servants, the findings indicate the presence of multiple layers of accountability and differing levels of impostors. As such, it is not possible to classify accountability as a mere function of good or bad professionals because there are several degrees of goodness and several types of hypocrisy. This study offers insights into policy reform for both accounting and nonaccounting institutions. More than one standard of accountability exists due to the technical and moral differentials embedded in professional accountability. Apart from the issue of multiple standards, there are mediating elements, such as income levels, legal and economic infrastructure, and a country’s stage of development (such as underdeveloped, emerging, and developed economies). All of these affect the level of accountability to a greater or lesser extent, for example, the higher the stage of development, the more accountable the professionals.