Description
This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an
organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relating
to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are proposed
as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This
theoretical framework illuminates the specific rationales and practices of government that
enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The
analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated
regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket
chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel
empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales
and practices in a supply chain.
Governmentality in accounting and accountability: A case study
of embedding sustainability in a supply chain
Laura J. Spence
?
, Leonardo Rinaldi
Centre for Research into Sustainability, School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW200EX, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an
organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relat-
ing to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are pro-
posed as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This
theoretical framework illuminates the speci?c rationales and practices of government that
enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The
analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated
regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket
chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel
empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales
and practices in a supply chain. It explores the extent to which senior decision-takers
frame and use sustainability accounting to foster disciplinary effects based ostensibly upon
social and environmental goals. These are found in practice to be reformulated primarily
according to an economic (rather than social or environmental) regime of practice.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Social and environmental sustainability has developed
from a sub-political narrative on unsustainable patterns
of consumption into a practice of governing by institutional
actors in different contexts (Russell & Thomson, 2009).
Such transformation involves the problematization of orga-
nizational conduct, as a determining factor, and also the
identi?cation of subjects, as necessary actors that embed
sustainability into their decision-making processes. One
of the main arguments which has been made in support
of embedding the interlinking of economic, social and envi-
ronmental considerations within decision-making, is that it
would allow organizations to lay the foundations for effec-
tive corporate social, environmental, economic and ethical
governance (Owen, Swift, & Hunt, 2001; Unerman & Ben-
nett, 2004; Zadek, Pruzan, & Evans, 1997).
There is widespread acknowledgment and increasing
regulation underpinning the notion that business and
public sector organizations have environmental and social
responsibilities (Gray, Dey, Owen, Evans, & Zadek, 1997;
Gray, Owen, & Maunders, 1987; Unerman, Bebbington, &
O’Dwyer, 2007). Corporations claim that engaging in sus-
tainability is an important activity (ACCA, 2006; Account-
Ability, 2008). Nevertheless little, if any, of this discourse
is directed towards the analysis of rationalities and
practices that lie behind the embedding of the interlinking
economic, social and environmental considerations.
Correspondingly, there seems to have been widespread
acceptance within the academic literature about the condi-
tions under which embedding sustainability into corporate
decision-making is realized (with the notable exception of
Hopwood, Unerman, & Fries, 2010).
Drawing upon the above points, the aim of the paper is
to critically analyze the speci?c conditions under which
corporate engagement in sustainability is enacted,
maintained and transformed, through a set of regimes of
practice that seek to embed the social and environmental
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2012.03.003
?
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)1784276403.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.J. Spence), Leonardo.
[email protected] (L. Rinaldi).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452
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impact of corporate actions into decision-making along-
side economic impacts. The study provides theoretically
informed empirical insights into the extent to which senior
decision-takers frame and use sustainability accounting to
foster disciplinary effects, and its potential to facilitate the
governance of the self and others.
The theoretical framework used to address the aim of
the paper is based upon the concept of governmentality
proposed by Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1979, 2010;
Foucault, Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991; Foucault & Gor-
don, 1980; Foucault, Senellart, Ewald, & Fontana, 2007),
and further expanded by, among others, Dean (1995,
2007, 2009) for analyzing the speci?c conditions under
which particular forms of power emerge, exist and change;
those that try to shape, mobilize and work through the
choices, desires and aspirations of individuals and groups.
In terms used by Gouldson and Bebbington (2007, p. 12)
‘‘governmentality seeks to uncover and examine the often
invisible rationality which is behind an assemblage of ac-
tions and mechanisms that are in place to govern certain
actions.’’ While several research studies within the
accounting literature have addressed the foundation of
power and the development of governable selves
(Johansen, 2008; Neu, 2000b, 2006; Neu & Graham, 2004,
2006; Nyamori, 2009; O’Regan, 2010; Stein, 2008; Vollmer,
2003; Walker, 2010) and the mentalities of government
(Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008; Rose, 1999; Rose & Miller,
1992), Dean’s analytics of government has been rather dis-
regarded (with the exception of Russell & Thomson, 2009).
This paper therefore contributes to the sustainability
accounting literature by demonstrating the potential
power of this overlooked but valuable theoretical frame-
work. As sustainability is often portrayed in terms of pro-
grammatic aspirations of reform that involve the practice
of training – which constitutes forms of government and
self-government – employing the analytics of government
to analyze aspects of sustainability orientated accounting
practices might be expected to provide useful insights. In
addressing this objective, it is maintained that governmen-
tality is not restricted to the state or political institutions,
but is placed in a more general context (Lemke, 2001;
McKinlay, Carter, Pezet, & Clegg, 2010) that includes the
corporate domain (Dean, 2009).
In order to give a focus to the insights, our research aim
is addressed through the analysis of an exploratory case
study. We analyze the rationales and practices that
emerged during the implementation of a sustainability
accounting framework within the lamb supply chain of a
UK supermarket. This enables a reasonably clear overview
of a relatively short UK based chain, with limited variation
in external in?uences as would be more apparent in the
context of a global supply chain. Hence the focus of re-
search can be clearly trained on the analytics of govern-
ment utilized to in?uence sustainability practices in the
supply chain by the retailer.
Many aspects relating to the potential of supply-chain
accounting to in?uence the buyer/supplier relationship
(such as make or buy decisions, joint cost control, joint per-
formance measurement and open book accounting) have
been addressed by extant research (Baiman & Rajan,
2002; Dekker, 2003, 2004; Frances & Garnsey, 1996; Free,
2008; Seal et al., 2004; van der Meer-Kooistra & Vossel-
man, 2000). However, little academic research has exam-
ined the extent to which accounting for corporate social
and environmental impacts is in?uential in governing the
transition towards sustainability in the supply chain, and
the role it may play in fostering disciplinary effects based
upon social and environmental practices.
1
It has been ar-
gued that these practices have the potential ‘‘to establish
‘sustainable’ norms of acceptable behaviour and to divide
actions into ‘sustainable’ and ‘unsustainable’ as a precursor
to government intervention’’ (Russell & Thomson, 2009, p.
231).
The paper proceeds by describing the context and back-
ground to our empirical work on embedding sustainability
decision-making in the lamb supply chain of a UK super-
market. In the subsequent section governmentality is
introduced in more detail, particularly in terms of the prac-
tical application we use, drawing on Mitchell Dean’s ana-
lytics of government. An overview of our case-study
based methodological approach is given. The empirical
data is then presented using Dean’s four analytics of gov-
ernment as a guiding frame. The paper concludes by draw-
ing from the analysis to note the implications of our
?ndings, acknowledging the limitations of the work and
re?ecting on avenues for future research.
Context
Grocery retailing is exceedingly competitive, and eco-
nomically, socially and environmentally important, repre-
senting 11% of European Union Gross Domestic Product.
This makes the sector both a focus for policy and public
scrutiny, and is an instance where sustainability can be re-
garded as highly competitive territory with associated
prestigious industry awards. A growth sector in the UK de-
spite the economic climate, the £150.8 billion grocery
retailing market is dominated by a handful of multiple food
retailers.
2
These operate through supermarkets, superstores
and hypermarkets. We will refer to one such organization in
our case study as ‘the supermarket’, and the form more gen-
erally as ‘supermarkets’.
1
This argument was shaped by a review of six in?uential accounting
journals (Accounting, Organizations and Society, Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, The British Account-
ing Review, The European Accounting Review and Accounting Forum) over the
period 1990–2010. The review revealed that governmentality was effec-
tively mobilized in only 30 publications (Armstrong, 1994, 2006; Everett,
Neu, & Rahaman, 2007; Graham, 2010; Himick, 2009; Jeacle & Walsh, 2002;
Johansen, 2008; Knights & Collinson, 1987; Kornberger & Carter, 2010;
Lohmann, 2009; Mahama & Ming, 2009; McKinlay & Pezet, 2010; McKinlay
et al., 2010; Miller & O’Leary, 1987; Neu, 2000a, 2000b, 2006; Neu &
Graham, 2004, 2006; Neu & Heincke, 2004; Nyamori, 2009; O’Regan, 2010;
Radcliffe, 1998; Rahaman, Everett, & Neu, 2007; Richardson, 2009; Stein,
2008; Vaivio, 2006; Vollmer, 2003; Walker, 2010; Young, 1995) and in just
one case was the implementation of sustainability accounting as a
governing technology challenged (Russell & Thomson, 2009).
2
Data on the UK grocery retail sector is taken from the Institute of
Grocery Distributors. www.igd.com Accessed 13 January 2011. The term
multiple food retailer refers to ‘‘supermarkets with 600 sq. metres or more
of grocery sales area, where the space devoted to the retail sale of food and
non-alcoholic drinks exceeds 300 sq. metres and which are controlled by a
person who controls ten or more such stores’’ (Competition Commission,
2000, p. 8).
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 434
Managing the supply chain is a particularly important
arena for supermarkets, since without a reliable source of
products of consistent quality, they cannot satisfy cus-
tomer expectations. Supply chains are important more
generally because they are a means of enhancing organiza-
tional performance, since the chain rather than the individ-
ual organization is the level at which competitive
advantage can be gained (Li, Ragu-Nathan, Ragu-Nathan,
& Subba Rao, 2006).
As large organizations with global supply chains and of-
ten a global network of distribution outlets, the supermar-
kets are subject to a wide range of legal sustainability
regulation. At the time of this study, the most pressing of
these in the UK context related, for example, to the Euro-
pean Water Framework Directive and the UK’s mandatory
Carbon Reduction and Energy Ef?ciency Scheme. Further-
more, non-governmental organizations and the media are
quick to highlight the responsibility of supermarkets in
their social, environmental and economic contexts. Impor-
tantly, the assumed and actual responsibilities of super-
market chains are not restricted to their own head of?ce,
retail and distribution operations. Supermarkets also have
a substantial degree of extended responsibility for the
activities of their many and varied supply chains (EHRC,
2010). This is particularly true in terms of the growing
‘own brand’ products segment, where the food retailer is
intricately involved with production and the supply pro-
cess itself.
In the words of one member of our case study
organization:
‘‘the single biggest impact is the goods we source, not that
our own operations aren’t important, but in the scheme of
things, that is our biggest impact from an environmental
point of view. And therefore if you look at that, where
would those biggest impacts be? So if you looked at the
thousands of products that we sell, about 1400 of them
account for 50% of our sales and 50% of our volume, which
is phenomenal. And that’s things like milk, chicken, eggs,
bread, butter, bananas, and therefore you say actually
that’s where you need to. . .on those big supply chains,
that’s where you would focus your attention’’. (Senior
manager 5)
Moreover, UK supermarkets have come under consider-
able pressure to behave more responsibly, due to reports of
unacceptable treatment of suppliers as part of a national
level review of uncompetitive practices. A Competition
Commission report published in 2000 on UK supermarkets,
for example, was instigated by concerns relating to super-
markets with respect to the monopoly provisions of the
Fair Trading Act 1973 (Competition Commission, 2000).
The report re?ected a rising tide of concern in the UK at
the time relating to perceived high relative prices of UK
groceries, compared to other European countries and the
US, an apparent disparity between farm-gate and retail
prices, and the threat of out-of-town supermarkets to the
local high street. Findings included the note that unfair
practices were being imposed on suppliers by virtue of
the relative power of supermarkets, including ‘‘requiring
or requesting from some of their suppliers various non-
cost-related payments or discounts, sometimes retrospec-
tively; imposing charges and making changes to contrac-
tual arrangements without adequate notice; and
unreasonably transferring risks from the main party to
the supplier’’ (Competition Commission, 2000, p. 6). The
Competition Commission subsequently instigated an in-
quiry and consultation into the groceries market which in-
cluded investigation of supply chain issues and the
behavior of supermarkets towards their suppliers (Compe-
tition Commission, 2006). As a result since 2010, super-
markets have been subject to the Of?ce of Fair Trading’s
UK Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP), which is lar-
gely developed around encouraging responsible sourcing
(Competition Commission, 2009).
Supplier representatives such as the National Farmer’s
Union have been vocal in their support of improved treat-
ment of suppliers. In response to the news that implemen-
tation of GSCOP would be monitored by an independent
arbiter, the President of the National Farmer’s Union said
that this was a victory for common sense and that this
‘‘must be the year we begin to eradicate unfair dealing
and protect investment and innovation in British agricul-
ture for the bene?t of both farmers and growers and con-
sumers.’’ (NFU, 2010). In addition to alleged mistreatment
by retailers, the farming community itself has experienced
substantial pressures in recent years. These have included
economic challenges as a result of the rise of cheaper im-
ports, reduced protectionism, the complexities of the rela-
tively new EU Single Payment Scheme as a subsidy
mechanismand a range of problems associated with animal
health (e.g. foot and mouth disease, blue tongue, bovine TB).
Nevertheless, food security concerns mean that agricul-
ture remains a key strategic resource. This does not miti-
gate the sustainability issues which it embodies, and
which are in part re?ected by a shift in the EU Common
Agricultural Policy from production to land stewardship.
In the context of this article, livestock farming is most rel-
evant, which has poetically been said to cast a ‘long sha-
dow’ in terms of its environmental impact being among
the three most signi?cant contributors to environmental
problems (Steinfeld, Gerber, Wassenaar, Rosales, & de
Haan, 2006). Whether in direct sale as packaged meat, or
through input to own-brand products, the sustainability
of livestock production which feeds into the supermarkets
is a substantial area of concern in terms of sustainability.
This is ampli?ed by the fact that livestock production re-
quires long lead-times and commitment of substantial re-
sources by farmers in order to respond to demand and
associated conditions of supply.
It is in this wider context of an increasingly regulated,
monitored environment, with customers adding their
own pressures and demands, which supermarkets and their
suppliers have to operate. Unsurprisingly then, there is a
call for tools and mechanisms to assist the promotion of
sustainability within organizations and also within their
supply chains. One such mechanismis a tool for embedding
sustainability in decision-making which has been devel-
oped through a multi-sector, multi-stakeholder process
and is part of the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustain-
ability Project. The embedding sustainability in decision-
making tool is the key mechanism which we observe being
implemented in the case study analyzed in this paper.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 435
The framework puts forward a prototype of a sustain-
ability decision-making tool to help managers embed sus-
tainability within their day-to-day operations. The
underlying premise is that in order to be accountable for
sustainability impacts, organizations need to understand
the material impacts of their detailed activities. The objec-
tive of the tool is hence to ensure that sustainability factors
are taken into account when decisions about products and
services are made at all levels. More speci?cally, the
embedding sustainability in decision-making tool entails
three broad phases. The ?rst phase aims to give a broad
overview of the material sustainability issues in order to
develop a better understanding of the social, environmen-
tal and economic impact of a product or service category
over its life-cycle. The second phase consists of a more de-
tailed analysis of the speci?c product or service’s sustain-
ability impact over its life cycle. This is done by a
discursive process involving pertinent members of the
organization as well as supplier representatives (from
raw material production to manufacturing and distribu-
tion), consumers and perspectives from post-consumer
use. Finally, the third phase comprises the bringing to-
gether of the data generated in the previous phases and
its integration within the organization’s everyday opera-
tions (e.g. selecting new suppliers, buying, costing prod-
ucts and services, distributing and investing) (Accounting
for Sustainability, 2011). In the case study in question, be-
cause of the relevance of the sustainability impact of the
supply chain rather than just internal operations, this
meant seeking changes in response to data generated in
the process throughout the relevant supply chain. It is this
process which we observe and critically analyze through
our theoretical lens of governmentality.
Governmentality
Before proceeding a note on the language used in this
paper is important. We deal with issues of government,
governance and governmentality. We use these in the
sociological senses relating to in?uence, accountability
and control rather than the political sense of the na-
tional/regional Government. While the sociological litera-
ture is quite clear that the term ‘‘government’’ applies
outside of the political context, here we seek where possi-
ble to emphasize governance and governmentality in order
to avoid confusion. Hence the site of governance can be the
mundane workspace, home or public setting without a
suggestion that national politicians are the governors in
question. Indeed, employers, parents and local community
organizations can also be governors in these contexts. If we
are referring to national or local Government, we will make
this explicit. We should also be clear that we by necessity
seek to focus on only one dimension of governmentality.
We acknowledge that the embedding sustainability in
decision-making tool and its associated processes are not
the only sources of power and in?uence in the supply
chain. The socio-economic-political and environmental
contexts of supply chain sustainability are many, but since
we seek here to use governmentality as a lens for under-
standing accountability, we have chosen to keep our focus
narrow and as a result understand the accounting perspec-
tive in detail rather than broadly seeking to map out the
wider in?uences. The limitations of this work are discussed
in more detail in the conclusion.
In recent years social, environmental, economic and
ethical governance and accountability mechanisms have
become increasingly common within corporate life. This
has been motivated by a number of factors including legit-
imacy issues, institutional pressures, and stakeholders con-
cerns (Bansal, 2005; Cho & Patten, 2007; Cho, Roberts, &
Patten, 2010; Dillard, Rigsby, & Goodman, 2004; Hoffman,
1999; O’Dwyer, 2003, 2005; O’Sullivan and O’Dwyer, 2009;
Owen & Swift, 2001; Owen et al., 2001; Patten, 1992; Such-
man, 1995; Unerman, 2007; Unerman & Bennett, 2004;
Unerman & O’Dwyer, 2006; Wright & Rwabizambuga,
2006). Additionally, the development of social and envi-
ronmental accounting over the last 40 years (Bebbington
& Gray, 2001; Gray, 2002, 2010) has contributed to the
widespread adoption of corporate sustainability reporting
(ACCA, 2006, 2007, 2008; Gray, Kouhy, & Lavers, 1995; Mil-
ne & Gray, 2007), and sustainability orientated perfor-
mance measurement systems (Bebbington, 2009; Epstein,
2008; Epstein & Manzoni, 2006; Frame & Cavanagh,
2009; Russell & Thomson, 2009). These developments re-
quire, on the one hand forms of knowledge of social and
environmental sustainability, on the other hand an
increasing set of rules, or norms, to take account of the im-
pact of corporate actions upon the profoundly intertwined
social, environmental and economic dimensions of
operations.
Our conceptual perspective for understanding the role
of accounting in advancing sustainability is the literature
on the concept of governmentality, as introduced by Fou-
cault, on the operations of power in modern society. Fou-
cault identi?es governmentality as ‘‘the ensemble formed
by institutions, procedures, analysis and re?ections, calcu-
lations and tactics that allows the exercise of this very spe-
ci?c albeit complex form of power’’ (Foucault et al., 2007,
p. 108). Therefore, governmentality encompasses actions
of governance as well as the rationales and beliefs implicit
in those actions. Dean (2009, p. 18) also describes such a
form of power as being concerned with the conduct of con-
duct and therefore ‘‘any more or less calculated and ra-
tional activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities
and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms
of knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working
through the desires, aspirations, interests and beliefs of
various actors, for de?nite but shifting ends and with a di-
verse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects
and outcomes.’’ Hence we are concerned as we have sug-
gested in our introduction with the activities, technologies,
authorities and regimes of control which seek to create a
change in practice within a given setting, that of the super-
market supply chain in our case. To be clear, the practices
we are concerned with relate to activities intended to pro-
mote sustainability within that supply chain, as de?ned by
the lead actor, that is, the supermarket as embodied in the
actions of its senior managers.
The remainder of this section discusses the four analyt-
ics of government as we have identi?ed them from previ-
ous theoretical research in this area as a potentially
valuable lens in accounting and accountability research.
436 L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452
The analytics of government
Dean’s analytics of government represents a powerful
critical tool. It offers opportunities to engage in the interro-
gationof the taken-for-granted. One font of critical potential
comes fromthe difference between claims and objectives of
programs and rationales of governance. In particular, we
contend that Dean’s framework allows valuable insights
into sustainability accounting and its relationship with the
governing structures of the case study supply chain.
Research using the analytics of government arises from
the conscious rejection of the a-priori distribution of power
and location of rule within institutions, whether they be
political or placed in a more general everyday context
(Dean, 2009; Lemke, 2001; McKinlay et al., 2010). Power,
therefore, is not seen as residing within a speci?c struc-
tural allocation, but rather as being constituted by loose
and changing collections of governmental rationalities
and practices. In the context of the present research, Dean’s
analytics of government framework explores the speci?c
conditions under which a program of corporate engage-
ment in sustainability comes into being and is maintained
and transformed within its supply chain, through a set of
regimes of practices that aim at embedding the social
and environmental impact of business activities into deci-
sion-making.
Regimes of practice tend to be numerous and inter-
weaving in organizational settings. They involve and often
connect collegial (such as boards, committees or represen-
tatives) and individual (such as employees, shareholders,
managers, customers or suppliers) institutional agents, so
that we give them the attribute of a system (such as con-
trol system, rewarding system, reporting system). These
regimes of practice are mutually in?uenced by one another
so that forms of support, correlations, antagonism and, at
the extreme, colonization, may occur (Dean, 2009). Re-
gimes of practice are inspired and shaped by various forms
of knowledge and are capable of de?ning the object of such
regimes by systematizing apposite ways of dealing with
them, setting the aim of the practice and de?ning the insti-
tutional settings.
Part of the challenge in this paper is to take the theoret-
ical frame of governmentality and to use the concept to
facilitate understanding of a practical case. In order to use
the analytics of government it is ?rst necessary to proble-
matize the regime of practice. Since we are interested in
the transformation of practices and processes, it is neces-
sary to understand the nature of the shift and hence focus
for the application of the analytics. Thus we need to re?ect
critically on how it is that the conduct of ourselves and
others is molded and created (Dean, 2009, p. 38). This re-
quires us to look beyond the taken-for-granted meanings
and accounts of reporting lines and in?uence, and to inter-
rogate the available evidence afresh. The focus of concern is
the conduct of ‘governors’ (parents, politicians, professions,
and corporations) and the ‘governed’ (children, citizens,
customers, workers, consumers, and suppliers). It is this
orientation and problematization which prompts us to ana-
lyze the minutae of how a supermarket engages with sup-
pliers to improve practices in line with a sustainability
agenda.
The analytics of government set these regimes of prac-
tice at the heart of the analysis and seeks to ascertain their
intrinsic logic. Dean’s framework is able to analyze these
practices along four interlinked yet relatively autonomous
dimensions. We summarize these dimensions as (1) ?elds
of visibility analytic; (2) techne analytic; (3) episteme ana-
lytic; and (4) identity formation analytic. Dean outlines
these vectors of analysis by building particularly on the
work of Deleuze (1991, p. 159) on ‘dispositif’ i.e. of con-
crete social apparatuses. While we have drawn on the as-
pects of power in Foucault’s work, it should be noted that
this is not as central as could be assumed. In fact, his work
is not so much about power as it is about the subject (Fou-
cault, 1982, p. 778). This necessarily engages with power
issues, but as with our work, we are most interested in
the creation of the subjects of the governmentality pro-
cesses. Accordingly, we describe the analytics in more de-
tail below and adopt the dimensions in analyzing the
empirical data in this case and divide the remainder of this
section along the four lines of inquiry.
Fields of visibility analytic
In the ?elds of visibility analytic, we ask what are the
?elds of visibility that distinguishes a regime of govern-
ment, which are their particular characteristics and by
what means do they seek to illuminate some objects and
obscure others (Dean, 2009, p. 41). Thus management ?ow
charts, maps, organograms, graphs and tables de?ne the
objects and subjects of governance. Jeremy Bentham’s pan-
opticon, with its visual surveillance of prisoners or other
kinds of subjects such as school pupils, patients or workers
in a circular building through a single central tower, is the
iconic example of this (Foucault, 1979). Such diagrams
show us how individuals are connected, relate to each
other and are constituted in space. The panopticon is how-
ever rather an idealized structure. We instead are focusing
on a setting with multiple opportunities for fracturing the
sources of light. It is because of this complexity that we fo-
cus on a relatively uncomplicated supply chain context. In
doing so we seek to manage our research and render it tan-
gible. As Deleuze (1991, p. 160) argues ‘‘Visibility cannot
be traced back to a general source of light which could
be said to fall upon pre-existing objects; it is made of lines
of light which form variable shapes inseparable from the
apparatus in question.’’ Dean also notes that we can iden-
tify different regimes of practice with certain forms of vis-
ibility (Dean, 2009, p. 41). He argues, apposite to this
paper, for example that risk management strategies pres-
ent social and urban spaces as ?elds of risk of crime or
damage, where lack of visibility constitutes high risk.
Hence in applying this analytics of government we are
seeking to identify the characteristic forms or ?elds of vis-
ibility, and thereby understanding ways of seeing and per-
ceiving subjects in the regime in question. In doing so we
must be particularly sensitive to aspects which are hidden
from our view by the focus on the process of embedding
sustainability in the supply chain, and conversely seek to
understand how and why our attention is being directed
to other areas by the actors concerned and the ?eld of vis-
ibility associated with the embedding sustainability in
decision-making tool.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 437
Techne analytic
The techne of government are the technical means
adopted to achieve the ends of governance and realize
the illuminated values. As Miller and Rose (1990) point
out, intervention is an important part of governance, and
it is in the fulcrum of action around interventions that
we can observe how subjects are acted upon. Accordingly
we should ask ‘‘by what means, mechanisms, procedures,
instruments, tactics, techniques, technologies and vocabu-
laries is authority constituted and rule accomplished?’’
(Dean, 2009, p. 42). A distinction is drawn here between
governmentality as a manifestation of values and ideology
– sustainability in this case – and governmentality as tech-
nique. Without technical means, intended outcomes will
not be met. That is to say, it is highly unlikely to change re-
gimes of practice relating to sustainability by talk alone, no
matter how well informed or convincing a discourse is em-
ployed. Thus techne are speci?c ways of acting, intervening
and directing, made up of particular types of practical
rationality (‘expertise’ and ‘know-how’), and relying upon
de?nite mechanisms, techniques, and technologies. Such
technologies may be apparently humble and mundane
mechanisms such as techniques of notation, systems of
training, professional specialisms and vocabularies (Miller
& Rose, 1990). Techne of government also may contribute
to impose limits to what ends are achievable, cause disso-
nance when employed, create new problems, be re-em-
ployed for unexpected ends, misappropriated and indeed
simply poorly employed or under-resourced. The technol-
ogies associated with the embedding sustainability in deci-
sion-making tool, and the other mechanisms engaged with
to alter behavior inevitably draw our attention particularly
for this aspect of the analytic of governmentality.
Episteme analytic
The third dimension of the analytics of government is
called the episteme. This refers to the discourses and rhet-
orics of value, expertise, language and forms of thought
employed in the practices of governing. This vector of anal-
ysis has been described as the ‘‘purposive attempts to
organize and reorganize institutional spaces, their rou-
tines, rituals and procedures, and the conduct of actors in
speci?c ways’’ (Dean, 2009, p. 43). Work in the ?eld of pro-
fessional nursing has linked trust to governmentality as a
mechanism to reduce complexity and as a component in
the management by professionals of populations and
themselves (Gilbert, 2005). This perspective acknowledges
the investment of professional activity with a moral supe-
riority to justify intervention in the activities of others.
Trust can also take the role of facilitating the practices of
governing in collaborative environments (Coletti, Sedatole,
& Towry, 2005). Episteme is hence understood as distinc-
tive ways of thinking and questioning, relying on de?nite
vocabularies and procedures for the production of truth
(e.g. those derived from the social, human and behavioral
sciences). Helpful here is the observation that one of the
features of government is that ‘‘authorities and agencies
must ask questions of themselves, must employ plans,
forms of knowledge and know-how, and must adopt vi-
sions and objectives of what they seek to achieve’’ (Dean,
2009, p. 43). In the context of the research presented here,
this has particular resonance for the very basis on which
we privilege knowledge gathered in accounting and
accountability processes. The tension of producing quanti-
?able measurements from qualitatively aggregated (all be
it informed) impressions of sustainability is a core issue
important in this case and with rami?cations across sus-
tainability accounting as a regime of practice, and organi-
zational and professional activity.
Identity formation analytic
Identity is an immensely important and in?uential as-
pect of organizational and social research. The workplace
is a ‘‘pre-eminent site for contestations about the nature
of human identity, and for attempts to shape and reshape
the identity of individuals’’ (Miller & Rose, 2008, p. 174).
In order to understand the genealogy of identity we must
address the practices acting upon human beings and their
conduct, and the systems of thought which provide the
foundation and context for them. In terms of this analytics
of government then, we are concerned with understanding
characteristic ways of forming subjects, selves, persons, ac-
tors or agents. To be precise, Dean suggests that it is iden-
ti?cation of people and groups as taking on a particular
role and characteristics associated with it that is important
rather than a pre–ascribed identity per se. Here is implied a
performance of government as a means of acting on con-
duct (Dean, 2009, p. 44). The nature of the relationship
formed with others and the personal trust embedded with-
in them (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) are important
aspects of the identity enacted. Stakeholder theory and
supply chain management would have us expect a particular
sample of actors and roles as important in the supermarket
supply chain. Rather than import these actor-identities and
their assumed roles into our analysis, in our study we seek
to understand the identity of – for example – farmers who
supply meat processors who in turn supply supermarkets,
through the governmentality process which co-creates
their identities.
While an analytics of government constitutes a perspec-
tive on questions of authority and power, it is not purely
subjective, rather it requires acceptance of no absolute
truth. Deleuze (1991, p. 162) notes that universals should
be repudiated, since the universal explains nothing, rather
it is the universal statement or assumption, which needs
to be explained. The evaluation of the analytics of govern-
ment requires us to compare the intelligibility and under-
standing yielded from alternative accounts of a particular
regime (Dean, 2009, p. 33). It is this which we try to do in
detail by examining the accounts of the managers in our
sample seeking to govern supply chain sustainability.
Furthermore, the four analytics of government de-
scribed here are not discrete, rather they presuppose
one another. While each is relatively autonomous, it
should be recognized that regimes of practice cannot be
reduced to a single dimension. Investigating the analytics
of government using these four axes as analytical lenses
allows us better to understand the transformation of re-
gimes. Hence it is to be expected that in examining the
?elds of visibility, techne, episteme and identity formation
of governance of supply chain sustainability, there will be
cross-over between analytical axes, and reiteration.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 438
Nevertheless the examination is expected to reveal the
shift to supply chain sustainability as a transformation
of regimes of practice in a manner made more compre-
hensible by this multidirectional analysis than would be
evident by other mechanisms less sentient to observing
power, requirements for accountability and subjecti?ca-
tion of others.
Against this background we propose to operationalize
Dean’s analytics of government framework to gain better
understanding of the transformation of a regime of prac-
tice. In doing so we show how the implementation of social
and environmental accounting shapes forms of power,
rationales and practices in governing supply chain
sustainability.
Data and methodology
The evidence in this study was collected using semi-
structured in-depth personal interviews with eight senior
managers between February and April 2009 as the fore-
most body of data. The case study organization is a UK
based supermarket, which will be anonymous for reasons
of con?dentiality. The main aim of the interviews was to
acquire in-depth understanding of the accounts given of
the rationales and practice that emerged during the imple-
mentation of a sustainability accounting framework with
the purpose of embedding sustainability in decision-
making.
The perspectives obtained were used to develop an
understanding of the extent to which accounting for corpo-
rate social and environmental impacts is in?uential in gov-
erning the transition towards sustainability in the supply
chain, and the role it may play in fostering disciplinary ef-
fects based upon social and environmental practices. The
interviews were administered through a small set of broad
open-ended questions and were conducted by the
researchers on the interviewees’ company premises.
Open-ended questions were used to encourage the inter-
viewees to take an active role in an open and unrestrained
dialogue with the interviewers (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005;
Ghauri, 2004; Horton, Macve, & Struyven, 2004; Patton,
2004). The interviews ranged from 45 minutes to one and
a half hours in duration.
There were two primary reasons for selecting senior
managers for the interviews. First, all respondents had, to
various degrees, an input into the operationalization of
the embedding sustainability into decision-making tool,
in most cases having the power to take high pro?le deci-
sions, thus being able to in?uence the subsequent stages
of the organization’s operations with regard to the speci?c
supply chain chosen for the analysis. Second, individuals at
a senior level could be expected to have a broad perspec-
tive on the company’s activity and therefore may be
viewed as able to address questions on the rationales be-
hind the implementation of the framework.
Complementing the senior manager interviews from
the supermarket, were interviews with a sheep farmer, a
key lamb processor supplying the retailer, and a represen-
tative from the National Farmer’s Union. These perspec-
tives enabled us to ?esh out the discourse of the managers.
All interviews were digitally recorded and subsequently
transcribed. The data were analyzed by an iterative process
of manual elaborative (or ‘top down’) coding in order to
identify patterns therein relating to governmentality
(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003, p. 104). The framework of
the analytics of government was used as a loose guiding
lens through which to observe the data. Nevertheless every
effort was taken to ensure that the reading of the data al-
lowed for other aspects to emerge beyond those prescribed
in the four elements of the analytics, or for the possibility
that no data related meaningfully to a given analytic. The
procedure followed was one of identifying relevant text,
repeated ideas and themes which provided the fabric of
the theoretical narrative presented below. Both authors
went through the process of analyzing the data indepen-
dently, with the assessment by the lead author being re-
viewed, revised and supplemented by the observations of
the second author through a collaborative dialogue. The
analysis of the transcriptions was accompanied by the
study of the notes taken during and immediately after
the interviews, and aided by further listening to the audio
recordings. This helped to re-elaborate the various intona-
tions given to the interview, thus functioning as an aid to
make sense of meanings.
Finally, another body of data was drawn from observa-
tions made while examining Sustainability Reports pro-
duced as part of the organization’s annual corporate
reporting cycle in the last 5 years; other publicly available
documents mentioned in these regular reports (such as the
Grocery Supply Code of Practice and Code of Conduct for
Socially Responsible Sourcing), and internal documenta-
tion made available by the supermarket.
The governmentality theoretical perspective was
adopted as a lens through which to interpret the research
data, especially the four analytics of ?elds of visibility,
techne, episteme and identity formation, thus enabling the
production of the subsequent narrative. Where practices
could be understood from more than one analytic, they
have not been repeated in order to enable a coherent nar-
rative. We have addressed practices in the analytic which
we believe to be most pertinent. While we sought to stay
open to the possibility of an additional analytic emerging
which lay outside the four identi?ed by Dean, none was
noted in our analysis. Having identi?ed practices which
are indicators of transformation of the regime of supply
chain sustainability practice, in the discussion we seek to
show how the issues we have investigated work to facili-
tate governmentality, drawing out relative issues of in?u-
ence and accountability.
Hence our contribution in applying the accountability
lens on suppliers and their customer organization as they
go through a process of enhancing supply chain sustain-
ability is to illuminate the application of power and control
using the analytical framework of governmentality.
The lamb supply chain and sustainability
With social, environmental and ?nancial aspects of sus-
tainability coming into play, the lamb supply chain faces a
dif?cult challenge in balancing the sometimes competing
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 439
aspects of sustainability evident in triple bottom line
accounting.
3
In addition to being socially, economically
and politically important (ensuring food security), particular
environmental areas of concern arise in relation to land deg-
radation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage,
pollution and loss of biodiversity. Despite being commonly
less problematic than cow and pig farming, the sustainabil-
ity issues around sheep farming are many and varied. The is-
sues operate at a number of levels, are not mutually
exclusive, and lack clear evidence on what the best preven-
tative policies are.
On the other hand, proponents of sheep farming are
quick to point out the way in which British sheep farms, of-
ten small family-run ventures, alleviate some social as-
pects of sustainability by providing much needed income
and employment in rural areas. Farmers are often pre-
sented as stewards of the countryside, taking pride in their
natural and traditional methods to rear lambs, which pre-
serve the British landscape for future generations.
Perhaps most fundamentally, taking the economic as-
pect of sustainability into account, the sheep-farming sec-
tor is not particularly prosperous, with farmers sometimes
selling products at below production cost and farm num-
bers unsurprisingly in decline. The economic aspect of sus-
tainability – that is, economic survival – is of key
importance in this case study as will become clear.
It should not be forgotten that the lamb supply chain
consists of far more than just farmer and supermarket,
although this would be problematic enough. While these
are the highest-pro?le participants in the chain, other
intermediaries also have a role to play and any attempt
at embedding sustainability within the chain needs to take
this into account.
At each stage of the supply chain, of course, a wide
range of environmental, ?nancial and social aspects of sus-
tainability in relation to factors such as energy use, water
use, transport, animal welfare, employment conditions,
economic survival, packaging and waste disposal are rele-
vant in different measure. Fig. 1 illustrates the standard
chain for the case study company.
Assessment of the analytics of government within the
lamb supply chain
The problematization of the supermarket and its suppli-
ers’ practices were triggered by the adoption of the frame-
work for embedding sustainability in decision-making,
which was one element of a wider overt commitment to
a program of enhancing sustainability. The implementa-
tion of this new regime of practice led to tighter sustain-
ability policies that spread over lamb suppliers and
challenged their extant praxis. The analytics of govern-
ment framework proved to be particularly effective in this
context since it places the supermarket’s regimes of prac-
tice at the centre of the investigation and seeks to discover
secondary
farmer
haulier
livestock
market
abattoir
lamb
processor
primary
farmer
multiple
food
retailer
consumer
waste
disposal
May operate as a collective producer group
Fig. 1. Lamb supply chain.
Table 1
Analytics of the governing of sustainability within the supermarket’s lamb supply chain.
1. Fields of visibility 2. Techne
Sustainability as an economic issue Meetings, training and surveying
Diagrammatic representations of power and authority Operating engagement
Investment in embedding sustainability process Auditing and monitoring
Self-portrayal and external recognition as sustainability leaders Rule compliance
Financial incentives
3. Episteme 4. Identify formation
Quanti?cation of qualitative measures Agents framed as stakeholders
Quality, competition and risk Stakeholder labeling and ranking:
Cost-bene?t analysis Customer as principal
Supermarket as agent of customer desires
NGOs as customer-in?uencers
Processor as conduit of message to farmers
Farmers as a valuable commodity
Compensatory relationship between aspects of sustainability
3
The triple bottom line concept was developed to meet the needs of
businesses engaged or interested in sustainability and emerged in the late
1990s to convey an image of concurrent concern and sensitivity to three
aspects of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. It involves
accounting, reporting and managing economic, environmental and social
performance, simultaneously pursued, and assessing how these can be
utilized to achieve economic, environmental and social objectives. The
triple bottom line concept has been used to describe a number of
applications by organizations but also suffered severe criticism due to its
intrinsic limitations (Adams, Frost, & Webber, 2004; Brown, Dillard, &
Marshall, 2009; Colbert & Kurucz, 2007; Elkington, 1997; Gray & Milne,
2002, 2004; Norman & MacDonald, 2004; Painter-Morland, 2006; Richard-
son, 2004).
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 440
the hidden rationality that is behind an array of behaviors
and mechanisms that are in place to govern sustainability
(Dean, 2009; Gouldson & Bebbington, 2007). Table 1 sum-
marizes the key aspects of the analytics of governing sus-
tainability which we ?nd in the supermarket’s lamb
supply chain as analyzed in this section.
Fields of visibility analytic
The ?elds of visibility analytic reveals how the domi-
nant power of the supermarket in the process of embed-
ding sustainability in the supply chain enables the
prioritizing of aspects of sustainability most important to
them. Hence despite inclusion in the process of identifying
sustainability issues for which supply chain members
could be held accountable, in fact it is the leading role of
the supermarket and the drive to mitigate risks for them
that determines which aspects are to be made visible.
The cost of the process of implementing the embedding
sustainability in decision-making tool itself – in terms of
staff time, and the payment of the facilitating consultants
– gives the embedding of sustainability some visible inter-
nal credibility. This is complemented by legitimacy given
to sustainability governance within the organization by
the high level commitment backed up by Board member
responsibility for aspects of the corporate responsibility
agenda. The sustainability governance agenda is under-
pinned by this high pro?le involvement, with vocal and
evident support from senior management via public media
(e.g. staff video messages on the environment and media
appearances promoting sustainability) and private mecha-
nisms (e.g. accountability through the appraisal system).
Dean (2009, p. 41) notes the use of diagrams of power
and authority in illuminating the operation of particular
regimes. In the case in hand the spreadsheet resulting from
phase 2 of the embedding sustainability in decision-mak-
ing tool (see Fig. 2) is the visible artefact of governmental-
ity, that is the documented description giving de-facto
authority to the supermarket to in?uence the sustainabil-
ity activities of suppliers.
For lamb, for example, the identi?ed most vulnerable
areas were seen to be those in Fig. 3. Note that the most
environment
Use of GMOs
(GMOs present in feed)
Impact on local
biodiversity
(linked to the feed)
Greenhouse Gas
Emissions
(energy use throughout
the supply chain)
Waste
(abbatoir waste)
Land degradation
(due to grazing)
workers/local
community
Minimum living wage
(low income for farmers)
Working hours
(farmers working more
than 48 hours a week)
Workforce wellbeing
(high stress and suicide
rate amongst farmers)
suppliers’
livelihoods
Product sold below
cost of production
(unfavorable market
dynamics/ subsidies)
consumers
Consumers’ harm/
health
(no nutritional labeling)
Consumer obesity
(no fat content labeling)
Excessive packaging
Recycling of
packaging
Energy use for
consumption
High Severe Critical
Note: The high, severe, critical risk rating are net
sustainability risk ratings reached through
escalation and mitigation of the gross risk rating,
taking knowledge uncertainty into account
Fig. 3. High, severe or critical UK lamb sustainability risks.
’
’
’
’
Fig. 2. Case study organization’s artefact of governmentality.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 441
critical issues visibly identi?ed in Fig. 3 are seen from the
supermarket’s point of view and all relate to consumer is-
sues in terms of the potential economic effect on the orga-
nization rather than because this is where the greatest
social or environmental impact is.
In a report on the phase 2 meeting, it is noted that high,
severe, and critical UK lamb sustainability risks should be
prioritized according to the following criteria:
1. issues for prioritized action: issues for which (the
supermarket) has direct responsibility, or control (e.g.
labeling on products),
2. issues for medium term action: issues where (the
supermarket) has direct in?uence (e.g. supplier
standards),
3. issues for longer term consideration: issues for which
there are wider in?uences and pressures, and for which
partnership responses would be required (e.g. farmer
subsidies) (Source: internal document).
Point 2 above is thus the visual representation of the
authority of the supermarket to seek to govern its supply
chain in terms of sustainability. Thus the framework for
embedding sustainability in decision-making adopted sur-
faced in particular the rationales of sustainability and in
turn the resources the supermarket could map and moni-
tor. However, as is shown in Fig. 3, despite environmental
and social ?elds being identi?ed within the supermarket as
amongst the most important when it came to control, cal-
culation and communication of sustainability of and with-
in the given supply chain, they were also logically
conceptualized as drivers for economic success. One senior
manager claimed that:
‘‘Sustainable, for us, means continuing to be able to supply
the products that we wish to supply or that our customers
want, now and in the future and then recognising that
they’ll be subject to increasingly constrained external cir-
cumstances.’’ (Senior manager 3)
The social and environmental impacts were seen as
increasing the supermarket’s sensitivity to external pres-
sure, thereby encouraging a responsive approach. These
features of the retail environment were viewed as exposing
companies to potential threats that, allegedly, needed to be
managed to avoid losing market share:
‘‘...because whether you consider sustainability to be ?nan-
cial, physical, actual supply of whatever is in question, if
we don’t have something to put on our shelves to sell,
we are not a sustainable business because we are shop-
keepers.’’ (Senior manager 1)
The economic rationale was recognized as very impor-
tant in implementing the supermarket’s sustainability re-
form among all the managers interviewed, and was used
as a ?lter for making sustainability a visible part of busi-
ness practice. Sustainability was therefore primarily per-
ceived as having competitive meaning and that it could
be dealt with through market-orientated regimes of prac-
tice. As a result, performance indicators and managerial
tools that enabled the visualization of priorities according
to this view, and issues that are generally considered as
critical to any sustainability strategy were only given visi-
bility on a pragmatic basis:
‘‘we were asked to look at water [use..], the last two years
it just rained in the UK and we would be laughed out of a
room if I mentioned water to farmers. . . . It’s much more
[about] using just our own integrity and judgement about
what we can talk about, which bits we can move forward
at which times and which we can’t.’’ (Senior manager 2)
Indeed at the most fundamental level even the word
‘sustainability’ was purposely shadowed from the dis-
course and kept ‘invisible’ thus limiting the accountability
of the supermarket’s program of change:
‘‘I try hard not to use the word ‘sustainability’ in my daily
conversations, because it can be quite a loaded word for
people, it usually implies some kind of additional cost to
the business.’’ (Senior manager 3)
In some contradiction to this approach, the visibility of
the program to embed sustainability was nevertheless but-
tressed – and perhaps was even adopted – as a result of the
strategic decision by the supermarket to be ‘leaders’ in the
sustainability area rather than ‘fast followers’ or ‘credible
players’. The self-perception of the organizational partici-
pants is thus one of taking the moral sustainability high
ground over and above competitors, though they felt this
was not always recognized. This was evident in the inter-
views, with one respondent being vocal about the failings
of competing supermarkets and non-governmental organi-
zations in the sustainability area. For example, one respon-
dent voiced his frustration that:
‘‘some [competitors] have been able to successfully wrap
themselves in the clothes of sustainability without really
doing very much. . ..What I say consistently is that it is also
the responsibility of those people who are [. . .] in the non-
governmental side to ensure that those corporations that
are on the cutting edge, are rewarded for being on the cut-
ting edge.’’ (Senior manager 4)
The examples of visibility presented here show how the
supermarket de?nes the ?elds of visibility of important as-
pects of sustainability in the supply chain for which the
suppliers are required to be accountable. Using the dia-
grams and processes given credibility by their association
with the embedding sustainability in decision-making tool,
the supermarket allows little space for recourse by the
suppliers. By leading the meetings, determining the partic-
ipants, and having the majority in?uence over what is seen
as high vulnerability areas, they govern the process using
the decision-making tool as a framework. Areas of high
vulnerability for the company are brought into the light,
and areas of low vulnerability – which might well be
important to farmers, but are less so to the supermarket
– are left in the shade. The invited supplier representatives
are bit-players in the process, though notably have consid-
erable power relative to non-invited suppliers. These sup-
pliers might be considered to be the ?rst among equals,
and trusted friends notwithstanding the enduring power
differential between supermarket and supplier.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 442
The ?elds of visibility referred to above set in train a
particular formulization of sustainability in the lamb sup-
ply chain rather narrower than – and somewhat dissonant
with – the broad sustainability agenda of environmental,
social and economic sustainability. As we have noted, the
visibility analytic shows this to be primarily economic in
nature, focusing on competitive market issues and trans-
lating sustainability into contemporary business language.
The remaining three analytics of government illustrate
how this re-formulization is further embedded in the re-
gimes of practice established to seek to in?uence sustain-
ability in the supply chain.
Techne analytic: procedures and norms for the
accomplishment of rationales of governmentality
In this section we explore how the conceptions of sus-
tainability and the consequently constituted visibilities of
government are linked to technologies and practices set
up by the supermarket. The technologies of government
applied by the supermarket could be related to various
ends, these included: education, normalization, and secu-
rity. The identi?ed rationales, the technical means to
accomplish them and the superintending authorities or
norms that relate to the lamb supply chain are illustrated
in Table 2 and discussed further below.
A number of governing technologies were directed at
educating suppliers. These comprised engaging with farm-
ers through regional meetings and supporting training
programmes. This education of suppliers leads us to inter-
pret the practical rationality of sustainability accounting
and accountability as a bureaucratic and regulatory
framework employed by the supermarket, propagating
the reformulated meaning of sustainability identi?ed in
the previous section and ultimately leading the suppliers
to echo the supermarket’s perspectives on sustainability.
During the interviews, extensive reference was made to
the supermarket’s engagement with regional producers
groups. These groups developed from existing live market
groups or other collaborative activities and made it feasible
for the supermarket to have a face-to-face relationship
with some of the many thousand lamb suppliers. Facili-
tated on behalf of the supermarket by a major intermedi-
ary lamb processor that had close contact with farmers,
the engagement process was technically operationalized
through periodical meetings where, among other things,
groups were considered as sounding boards and test beds
for the supermarkets’ sustainability initiatives, and used
to set up pilot schemes. This is very much work in progress,
as the lamb processer notes:
‘‘Really, at this stage, it’s for me to get these groups of
farmers together, to just look at what savings can be made
and what the knock-on effects can be and what other
things we can do.’’ (Supplier 1)
In this context, various forms of sustainability account-
ing were used to foster different types of accountability
within the supplier base, such as environmental security,
and legal/regulatory compliance. Taking environmental
security, for instance, in collaboration with an independent
not-for-pro?t organization, the supermarket helped to de-
velop a carbon foot-printing tool for the lamb sector. Once
established the supermarket intended to require farmers
to measure their carbon use and energy cost against it, thus
transforming it into an environmental/economic decision-
making tool for suppliers. Additionally legal and regulatory
accountability was also spread to suppliers through the
maintained necessity to comply with sustainability direc-
tives, plans or programs – both at national and interna-
tional level. To reinforce its disciplinary power, explicit
mention of penalties for non-compliance were also made
(e.g. delisting, taxes and fees).
A further governing technology pursuing educational
ends is supporting the training of farmer’s in sustainability
issues. The ?rst step however was to enable more wide-
spread communication than is feasible through the regio-
nal groups. Communicating with lamb suppliers was
achieved by the supermarket setting up a scheme to pro-
vide farmers with computers and software, and then work
with regional development agencies to train them to use it.
As is clear in the following quotation, this takes a very
practical form on the ground and is undertaken in partner-
ships with both the intermediary supplier and Regional
Development Agencies:
‘‘because of the huge diversity and farmers working in iso-
lation and tending to be older, it was very obvious that
they weren’t really aware of their course of production,
they had no way of communicating with the outside world,
it was incredibly time consuming for us to communicate.
Because we have to go to the farmers, to their regions, talk
to them, so we actually then have set up some pilot
schemes where we provide the farmers with computers
and software and then we engage with the RDAs to actu-
ally train them to use it.’’ (Senior manager 2)
One manager was frank about the initial motivations for
communication. He openly referred to the supermarket’s
will to set best practice and:
‘‘start to make [suppliers] look at different things in differ-
ent part of the business.’’ (Senior manager 3)
Table 2
Techne, norms and rationales of government in the supermarket’s lamb supply chain.
Techne of government Norms Rationale of government
Meeting, training Bureaucratic and regulatory frameworks Education
Operating engagement Social and environmental standards Normalization
Auditing, monitoring Established internal/external regimes Regulation
Compliance, endorsement Security
Financial incentives Eligibility speci?cations Market-orientated
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 443
In doing so the supermarket not only problematized
supplier extant operations, but also became the de-facto
authority superintending the attainment of best practice
in its supply chain that, in turn, ascended to the visible
norm against which supplier conduct was measured. How-
ever, despite the claim that developing this means of com-
munication was intended to extend farmers’
understanding of the economic, social and environmental
impact of their operation, in practice a ?nancial focus
was maintained by encouraging farmers to monitor and
account for expenditure and exploit cost reduction.
It is also worth noting that the supermarket hosts ethi-
cal and technical supplier training workshops and carries
out a supplier survey. They position themselves in these
activities as experts and reliable sources of information
for farmers, proving they are following sustainable behav-
iors by their association with trusted sustainability non-
governmental or not-for-pro?t organizations such as the
Carbon Trust or the Forest Stewardship Council.
As indicated in Table 2, a further governing technology
employed by the supermarket was to normalize suppliers
and was embodied in the series of what we have called
‘operational engagements’ with farmers undertaken by
the organization. Formally conceived to communicate with
lamb suppliers about social and environmental issues
material to the supermarket’s business, they gradually
changed into a ranking process. Suppliers were categorized
into a hierarchical staged table according to mutuality of
goals. The table comprised three groups: ‘business part-
ners’, those who could ‘help the supermarket to do its
job’ and those who the supermarket ‘need to inform about
what it is doing’. In this context such techne not only con-
tributed to render suppliers visible, but also acted as a
dividing practice, playing a crucial role in establishing
‘‘an order amongst entities and create the dynamics of
improving or declining’’ (Kornberger & Carter, 2010,
p. 333). The norms of such dynamics are instituted by
the standards accepted by the supermarket whereas sus-
tainability accounting based calculative practices allowed
the measurement of deviance from the norms, becoming
the tools for assessing the place of a supplier in the rank-
ing. This techne of government relies on the formation of
an arti?cially established competition among farmers di-
rected towards meeting the supermarket norms fueled by
the explicit association between considerable turnover
transformations and high grades in the relationship with
the supermarket. A senior manager largely responsible
for the lamb supply chain was direct in addressing eco-
nomic pressures suffered by the sheep sector, claiming that
in order to maintain the end goal of security of supply:
‘‘we’ve got to have pro?t there, we want to see people
make a living, and that will encourage the next generation
to come through into the industry, make it something that
people want to be involved in’’ (Senior manager 5)
A number of governing technologies were inspired by
regulatory rationales based upon legitimized norms of sus-
tainable behavior and substantiated by well-established
external regimes, of which suppliers were in some cases
aware. As part of its collective efforts to manage supply
chain sustainability the UK supermarket sector has been
instrumental in setting up a sector-based mechanism for
measuring supplier ethical data through the ‘‘Supplier Eth-
ical Data Exchange’’ (SEDEX). This is an online resource
where ethical audit data is recorded on individual suppli-
ers who supply to supermarkets. The supermarket is in-
volved in this scheme and also expects suppliers to
comply with its own in-house responsible sourcing code
of conduct. Associated with this, there are surveillance
technologies such as an auditing and monitoring system,
carried out in part by product technologists for branded
goods. At the time of the research it is unclear what (if
any) disciplinary system is in place for non-compliance.
The most formal technology is embedded in the legal
framework of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, which
governs the hire and working conditions of temporary
workers important in the agriculture arena (though less
so in livestock farming than other areas). The supermarkets
themselves are governed by British Retail Consortium glo-
bal standards and sustainability guidelines (BRC, 2001,
2006), particularly on food safety and the controversial
Grocery Supply Code of Practice and an accompanying
ombudsperson designed to protect contracted suppliers
from unfair practices (Competition Commission, 2006,
2009). This later technology, interestingly, is supported
by the National Farmers Union but argued to be unneces-
sary by the British Retail Consortium (Smithers, 2010).
The program of reforming sustainability practices is
also interlaced with security rationales aimed at develop-
ing technologies to instruct farmers how to act in order
to avoid negative economic, social and environmental
repercussions. These technologies (mainly endorsement
and rule-compliance processes) related to a multiplicity
of issues such as, for example, the shortage of lamb supply,
social and environmental impact of supplier’s actions, and
compliance with animal health and welfare standards.
The ?nal type of techne of governmentality noted in Ta-
ble 2 is that of ?nancial incentives driven by a market-ori-
entated approach. As well as the basic ?nancial reward of
continuing as a listed supplier for the supermarket, farmers
have the option of pursuing grants through environmental
schemes. As a meat processer noted:
‘‘Even the [farmers who] perhaps aren’t driven by the eth-
ics of lamb production and maintaining the area as well as
they can, most of them are . . . in a stewardship scheme so
they’re driven ?nancially to do that.’’ (Supplier 1)
For example, the UK Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs, through its Environmental Stewardship
Scheme, and the equivalent Tir Gofal in Wales, directly af-
fect the approach of farmers who respond to the market
opportunity to bolster income.
As we have shown, the techne of governmentality offer a
range of architecture by which farmers and lamb suppliers
are in?uenced to account for their sustainability practices.
While these are not all creations of the supermarket, the
implicit and explicit approval by the supermarket for
engaging with these approaches acts as a legitimization
of the actions of suppliers who respond to the technologies
to advance their sustainability credentials.
The following section looks into how certain forms of
knowledge, calculative practices, and expertise are linked
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 444
to the technologies of government set up by the supermar-
ket to achieve the established rationales.
Episteme analytic: forms of knowledge, calculative practices,
and expertise underlying the supermarket’s ethos
The authority given to forms of knowledge in the
accountability processes relating to sustainability in the
supply chain is one of the most problematic areas for the
case study company. Despite an external representation
of measurable and measured accounts of sustainability is-
sues, the managers interviewed acknowledged their frus-
tration that such measures were based often on
subjective assessments. As a senior manager observed:
‘‘I think a lot of what has been done initially, and I think
food miles is a classic example of that, has been based on
intuition and opinion. And when you start to look at the
facts and you look at total lifecycle analysis, you look at
what part transport plays, which is pretty little in the
main.’’ (Senior manager 1)
The same respondent put this clearly herself when
referring to the dif?culty of embedding the sustainability
decision-making tool:
‘‘I think the biggest issue [..] is judgement calls versus
objective calls based around hard facts and data and that’s
probably the nub of the challenge really.’’ (Senior manager
1)
On the one hand, the supermarket establishes goals and
targets, published in the annual corporate responsibility
report, against which they record progress in at least qual-
itative terms, noting progress such as ‘achieved’ or
‘achieved and ongoing’ against goals relating to fair trade,
animal welfare, maximizing British supply and so on. The
published version of knowledge is given the appearance
of being measurable and concrete. In their formal docu-
mentation on corporate responsibility they note, for exam-
ple, the importance of materiality in their actions:
‘‘We set our targets by focusing on materiality. We are
guided by those areas which are of interest to our stake-
holders. By taking this approach we can maximize our
impact and connect sustainability with commercial per-
spectives.’’ (Source, paraphrased from a company docu-
ment on corporate responsibility).
On the other hand, the managers interviewed showed
considerable frustration at the complexity of sustainability
issues and the dif?culty of either measuring them in any
meaningful way or ?nding an expert whose advice was
reliable. One senior manager noted, ‘‘where does the exper-
tise sit?’’ on sustainability, adding:
‘‘there’s very little on it because it’s an emerging science.
And for the next ten years, that’s going to be a rich scene
while people work out what the best truth is’’. (Senior
manager 1)
The drive to work out this ‘best truth’ is to make deci-
sions relating to sustainability more ef?cient and sustain-
ability issues calculable. She developed this further:
‘‘When you get to the environment, a) a lot of these things
you can’t see, they’re not visible, they are hidden, they are
in the supply chain somewhere else . . .and they are not
easy to measure. And the science is emerging and I suppose
it’s like all sciences, when they’re emerging, experts don’t
agree on them, so you’ll get an expert view here that is
180 degrees from an expert view over there’’. (Senior man-
ager 1)
This conundrum between needing to present ‘progress’
on sustainability issues while knowing that the measures
are inadequate is ampli?ed when trying to project infor-
mation up the supply chain. We observed that much of
the discourse from the supermarket side is around devel-
oping trust, which is regarded as the requisite of fruitful
partnerships, within which ‘‘personal relationships are
key connectors in the enactment process’’ (Frances & Garn-
sey, 1996, p. 606). The lamb processor in our case study
clari?ed this:
‘‘my job is to really give con?dence to the farmers, to keep
in the lamb business. And I’ve got to let my fellow directors
know that I’m con?dent that whatever supply is out there,
we will get our fair share of that supply and to do that,
farmers have got to want to sell us their lambs, [the super-
market] have got to want to buy meat from us.’’ (Supplier
1).
Accounting mechanisms have a dual role in eliciting
trust (Coletti et al., 2005) and at the same time constituting
the information infrastructure that contributes to support-
ing the rhetoric of collaboration, partnership and business
integration (Free, 2008). Hence, one of the main emphases
of the supply chain accounting literature has been the
exploration of ‘trust’ and its relation with ‘control’ between
independent parties for the processes of cooperation or
within its construction (Bracht & Feltovich, 2009; Frances
& Garnsey, 1996; Free, 2007). Trust is therefore increas-
ingly being viewed as a precondition for improved perfor-
mance and competitive success in composite business
environments such as the lamb supply chain (Free, 2008).
In this context communication matters even if it is
made up of exaggerated announcements about trusting
intentions. As King (2002) and Cooper, DeJong, Forsythe,
and Ross (1989) suggest, communication mechanisms
have the potential to create familiarity between the super-
market and suppliers thus facilitating the formation of re-
ciprocal trust. This in turn, gives the supermarket the
opportunity to pursue an array of self-interested intentions
in the rhetoric of ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’ and ‘busi-
ness integration’ (Free, 2008).
Hence we see the importance of using the episteme
analytic of government to open trusted communication
lines and keep farmers locked into the supermarket supply
chain both by supporting their survival and preventing
their defection to other competing customers.
To accommodate this paucity of scienti?cally credible
knowledge, forms of knowledge more familiar to the
supermarket managers and more closely within their con-
trol are instead drawn upon. One driving perspective is the
location of the notion of sustainability within concepts of
quality, competition and risk:
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 445
‘‘[M]y view is. . . that sustainability is just one dimension of
quality. . . .[Sustainability] is just another thing to com-
pete on. . .. I’m sure that location will remain the main rea-
son for choosing a supermarket and price and promotion is
the second reason for choosing supermarkets for as long as
any of us can see. But as access becomes easier and easier,
and as you know, price neutralizes itself, if you like, and
everyone’s competitive on price. . ., then people will seek
out other dimensions to compete on.’’ (Senior manager 4)
He then reinforced his thought asserting that:
‘‘[sustainability] is something that customers will pay
for. . ... people are prepared to pay for beyond the calori?c
value of the food. And [. . .] that’s, for me, where it ?ts. It’s a
dimension of quality in that sense: pure ingredient. [. . .]
Ethical sourcing, environmentally sound sourcing [. . .] all
of these things are just dimensions of quality.’’
By arguing this he seems to place sustainability as a form
of calculation and presupposes the establishment of ac-
cepted criteria used to collect and analyze data employed
to assess it. This rationality of sustainability is bound up
with a multitude of technical means (usually speci?ed in
terms of performance measures) for the achievement of
speci?c ends, whether they be minimizing carbon footprint,
supporting local communities or delivering healthy, safe,
tasty, fresh food for customers. A tangible example of quan-
titative technology that contributes to render what is
understood to be incalculable susceptible to calculation
and/or monetary appraisal is the development of a sustain-
ability performance scorecard that establishes targets and
measurable improvements based on a baseline perfor-
mance. The scorecard, constructed through calculative
accounting practices, also renders visible a set of interlinked
responses to the new competitive arena of sustainability
thus reducing quality to a quanti?able form (Kornberger &
Carter, 2010). One senior manager explains that:
‘‘we’ve actually developed an environmental scorecard, so
we look at recycling, calibration, they’re all part of the cal-
culator but I suppose it’s the practical tool that allows
farmers to understand it and make changes.’’ (Senior man-
ager 2)
Another key role of the scorecard seems to be the place-
ment of the principle of ‘‘self-assessment’’ within the gov-
erning process of the farmers. As the interviewee later
maintained:
‘‘we’re going up every single farm track, sitting down with
the farmer, collating the ?gures, talking him through it and
then when he gets his ?gures back, what they mean. So
we’ve developed [a green light system] for each element
[. . .] and [the farmer] can see [how they are doing rela-
tively] so it’s a bit of healthy competition.’’ (paraphrased
from Senior manager 2)
The green light system is therefore used as a means to
visually present an account of what the supermarket per-
ceives as ‘‘sustainable’’ and therefore as a technology of
governance in?uencing farmers’ perceptions. However,
the green light system was introduced not only as a control
technology but also as a performance representation that
aims at illustrating the assessment of farmers’ compliance
with the supermarket’s pre-determined sustainability
norms. Thus deliberately attempting to classify and in?u-
ence the performance and behavior of farmers (Manochin,
Brignall, Lowe, & Howell, 2011).
Another approach was the location of the notions of
‘‘management’’ and ‘‘improvement’’ within sustainability:
‘‘what’s the point in doing all these measurements if you
don’t do anything with it? And we encourage the farmers
to come to local meetings where we talk through ‘well
where you’ve got the reds, these are the kind of things
you do, so we need you to test your soil and then we’ll
go out and do a deal to get a cheaper nutrient testing of soil
or soil analysis or silage analysis.’’ (Senior manager 2)
Therefore, the green light system also takes the role of a
prioritizing technology, able on the one hand to identify
areas that need attention while on the other hand to create
a supermarket ranking-list of issues of concern.
In this light the business ethos of the supermarket
seems to be relying on a sustainability rationale framed
as calculative practice based on ranking tables, accounting
reports and cost-bene?t analyses that establish priority of
events in order to assess the relative merits of a range of
options. As one manager indicated, how the supermarket
had responded to some EU environmental pressures within
the lamb supply chain seemed straightforward in claiming:
‘‘[. . .] what we did was prioritize those big things so that
we could work out where our biggest impact was going
to be’’ (Senior manager 5)
She developed this further by identifying a quantitative
form of sustainability based on processes aimed at identi-
fying targets with calculative accounting practices:
‘‘we’ve made big strides on the way that we source things,
the amount of packaging we use, the ef?ciency of the sup-
ply chains, recycling. The fact that we won’t send by the
end of next year [. . .] any food waste to land?ll, all of those
kinds of things, yes, tick the box’’. (Senior manager 1)
We may begin to acknowledge how sustainability met-
rics can be connected to the ‘technologies of performance’
(Dean, 2009, p. 197) that is the setting of ‘standards,
benchmarks, performance indicators and quality controls
to monitor, measure, and render calculable the perfor-
mance of the various agents involved’, to use Dean’s
(2009) language.
The concept of risk, which is evoked in some instances,
also plays a role in this representation. The risk of not being
sustainable often was not related to the detriment of the
environment or society by either the supermarket or its
lamb suppliers (such as, for example, anaerobic spoilage
or job layoffs) but to loss of market opportunities or capital
costs (in the form of security of supply, fees or taxes)
against which the supermarket aims to protect itself.
Consequently, as the effects of the negative social and
environmental outcomes are often incalculable, this form
of rationality that uses non-economic capital and assigns
it an economic value based on accounting and marketing
expertise, resembles another exercise to make calculable
what in effect seems not to be.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 446
The combined effect of quantitative technology and cal-
culative rationality shown above is helpful to explain how
certain aspects of sustainability were governed within the
supply chain. When describing the consistent investment
made to collect all the necessary data and work out
whether a certain way of producing livestock was more
or less environmentally-friendly than the ordinary way,
one manager was con?dent in justifying the cost with an
overriding bene?t, quali?ed in this case by productiveness:
‘‘[. . .] it can be more cost effective because even if some of
the elements cost you more to do the right thing environ-
mentally, overall, you manage the supply chain more effec-
tively.’’ (Senior manager 1)
By the same token, one manager provided an example
of the way environmental issues were tackled by the orga-
nization within one of those chains. She was very relaxed
to point out that:
‘‘[. . .] for example, we have moved out of battery hens into
completely eggs from hens that haven’t been kept in cages,
if you talk to the [trade association], they will say the most
environmentally-friendly way to produce eggs is by bat-
tery farming. It’s more ef?cient, there’s less impact on the
environment, emissions are managed better [. . .]. Now,
we would argue that because we always produce our
free-range eggs by planting trees, so they’re woodland eggs
[. . .] you can’t produce the eggs unless the chickens have
got tree cover, which means all of our woodland egg farms
plant trees, but also we donate a penny a pack to plant
trees’’ (Senior manager 1)
The perspective presented above seems to support
interpretations of a compensatory trade-off relationship
between the various dimensions of sustainability within
the livestock supply chain, implying that positive outcomes
in one of them could offset negative outcomes in others.
Some researchers argue that these instances where sub-
objectives may lead to maximizing or, perhaps more likely,
minimizing objective functions, will not be the ultimate
goal of the natural system but ‘‘just a recognition that cer-
tain socially-created impacts have absolute bene?t or detri-
ment to the natural system’’ (Brown et al., 2009, p. 220).
This analytic demonstrates the importance of investi-
gating all axes of the analytics of government. Looking only
at the governing technologies would give the impression
that the supermarket could present a perfect image of its
superior knowledge on sustainability issues to suppliers
(not withstanding external elements outside of their con-
trol). The lens of the episteme analytic shows, however,
how the forms of knowledge generated are presented as
if they were scienti?cally precise when they are often
based on informed estimates at best and supposition at
worst. As has been shown throughout the analysis, forms
of knowledge of sustainability issues are reformulated to
be calculable in the traditional episteme of the business.
The formation of identities: capacities, qualities and statutes
attributed to agents
This section is concerned with how the supermarket
promotes, fosters and attributes certain identities,
capacities, qualities and/or statutes to particular agents
through which governmentality operates. In doing so, as
shown in Table 1, they use the approach taken to account
for different roles and identities as a means of prioritizing
stakeholders. Calculative practices thus enable the
acknowledgment of ?nancial impact on the ?rm and asso-
ciated rankings of importance.
Identity formation is not so much assigned as created,
not least by the axes of governmentality discussed above.
Hence rather than notions of identity being allocated by
a label, the governmentality process co-creates identities.
Indeed, the supermarket in this case seeks to identify the
actors as their respective stakeholders. This in turn gives
each party an implicit or sometimes explicitly ranked role
to play in the supermarket’s governance of supply chain
sustainability, which the protagonists may not identify
with themselves.
From the supermarket’s point of view, the importance
of the commercial perspective as embodied in the primacy
of the customer group, cannot be underestimated. Non-
governmental organizations such as the Royal Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Compassion in World
Farming, and the Farm Animal Welfare Council, are seen as
key stakeholders only because they ‘‘in?uence our custom-
ers hugely’’ (senior manager 1). Our interviewed managers
spoke repeatedly about the need for their business to re-
spond to customer demand ?rst and foremost. Ultimately,
without customer support, the drive to advance sustain-
ability in supply chains evaporates:
‘‘at the end [of the day], there’s no point pursuing what we
believe is the more sustainable agenda if consumers are
actually not buying into that and rewarding (our compet-
itors) with their custom [. . .] I start ?rst and foremost from
customers.’’ (Senior manager 4)
At the time of the research, however, there was a per-
ceived support from customers, and the senior manage-
ment positioned this as the main reason for pursuing a
sustainability agenda. This identi?es customers as the
number one stakeholder and the principals of any sustain-
ability program. Moreover, it self-identi?es the supermar-
ket as merely the agent of the customer’s wishes. Acting in
contrast to the foregoing analysis positioning the case
study company as the governor of the supply chain, on sev-
eral occasions managers sought to downgrade the role of
the supermarket itself, saying ‘we are just a bunch of gro-
cers’ and ‘we are shopkeepers’. This rather contradicts the
positioning of the supermarket as leaders in sustainability
noted in relation to the visibility analytic and the vocal
noti?cation given to the researchers of the good works
the supermarket was doing and the string of sustainability
awards they were receiving. Again, employing the range of
analytics helps to highlight some of the contradicting dis-
courses which are employed.
In the context of this paper the identity formulated for
the supplier group is of particular interest. Practices of
improvement were used to divide suppliers into popula-
tions on the basis of those with the capacity to improve
and those without. The recognition of these ‘‘dividing prac-
tices’’ (Dean, 2009, p. 158) is important because they con-
tribute to construct, de?ne and make visible a dichotomy
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 447
between views of regularity and abnormality, thus giving
rise to forms of normalizing power exercised by the
supermarket. For example, suppliers were divided into
key/minor, close/far, overseas/UK, visited/unvisited, sup-
ported/unsupported, trained/untrained, capable/unskilled,
branded/own brand, small/big. Other examples include
suppliers divided into lower/higher risk, small/big branded,
national/local, new/old, good relationship/not-so-good
relationship, fairtrade/non-fairtrade and freedom food/
non-freedom food. By demarcating the difference between
the sustainable and the unsustainable, an ideal-type iden-
tity for suppliers was conceptualizedandcontrastedagainst
an arguably less desirable type. As a result existing practices
were problematizedand the exertionof supermarket power
to either restore or attain an apparently more sustainable
(or less unsustainable) course of action gained legitimacy.
Within this group of suppliers, the meat processors are
seen as dominant. Importantly they are identi?ed as active
intermediaries and communication channels for the super-
market because the base of farmers is so large and they
rely on the processors to convey any messages they wish
to get through to farmers. They are identi?ed as business
partners rather than the ?rst tier suppliers, which they
are in literal terms, and hence they take on a role of con-
duit, and the voice of the supermarket as well as their eyes
and ears on the ground. A senior manager said:
‘‘We go out and meet local groups very much with the pro-
cessor as they have a big part to play in communicating as
well because we’ll just never get to meet them all’’ (i.e. the
farmers) (Senior manager 2)
Hence control of sheep farmers is directed very much
through the meat processors as agents acting on the super-
market’s behalf, Finally the farmers themselves are critical
actors for the supermarket in the lamb supply chain,
although this has changed. There has been a shift in their
identity from interchangeable product providers to much
more valued – and needed – partners:
‘‘I would say the tables have turned in that we really need
every farmer who’s out there. I can’t afford for any farmer
to go out of business, so it’s just a different mentality’’.
(Senior manager 2)
This is especially pertinent in the livestock sector be-
cause it is a contracting industry, so there is competition
between supermarkets to ensure that they secure supply
and farmers are a competitive tool and valuable commod-
ity. There is some dif?culty in getting farmers to accept
this shift and adopt a new identity of valued partner as is
noted from the farmer groups:
‘‘So I would say it’s work in progress, getting to the supply
base, then a sustained period of time where you have to
just talk, build trust, they either say nothing or spend a
whole meeting airing their grievances. And they say noth-
ing because they are scared of saying the wrong thing
because we’re their customer and you have to do three
or four meetings of that before you get to ‘right, what
are the key challenges?’ listing them all out and then start
to thrash out ideas as to how you can address them.’’
(Senior manager 2)
This claim seems to support the insight put forward by
Mayer et al.’s (1995) model of trust whereby personal rela-
tionships are perceived as key connectors in the partnership
enactment process (Frances & Garnsey, 1996; Free, 2008;
Lewicki & Bunker, 1996; Powell, 1996; Tomkins, 2001).
As a result of the new identity, farmers are portrayed as
both members of the lamb supply chain and recognized by
the impact that each one of them can have on the local
community and ecological environment. Hence the associ-
ation of individual subjects in the administrative category
of ‘‘lamb suppliers’’ give rise to a new form of governable
subject where individual duties of accountability become
socialized. The implications of the fostered duality of sub-
jects can be twofold. On the one hand the supermarket can
give rise to issues of compensation, by which sustainability
is enhanced provided that the virtuous behavior of some
agents compensate for the poor behavior of others; on
the other hand, to enhance sustainability the supermarket
does not necessarily have to engage with each and every
one of its farmers, but with those whose impact is regarded
as the most signi?cant from the supermarket perspective.
The process and activities of identity formation are
revealing in this research. The simplistic approach gener-
ally taken of stakeholder analysis belies a complexity in
the roles that the supermarket requires of others in the
supply chain. Lamb processors are not just suppliers, but
are the supermarket’s agents in respect of farmers. The
supermarket itself is – in some contrast to the other ana-
lytics of government – positioned as the agents of the cus-
tomer-as-principal. Farmers are positioned as a precious,
non-renewable resource and agents of sustainability in
their own right. The power of the supermarket is thus
played down, or at least the complexity of their position
is conveyed, and the extent to which their power relies
on the successful formation of the identity of others
revealed.
From the perspective of the analytics of government,
the examined embedding of sustainability within deci-
sion-making, and the problematization of farmers’ activi-
ties, shows the mechanisms to ‘‘restructure’’ their
conduct by the supermarket. They state quite clearly;
‘‘we’ve had to really signi?cantly move farmers’ thinking’’ (Se-
nior manager 2). An analytics of government shows the
importance of sustainability orientated calculative prac-
tices in the constitution, governance and shaping of partic-
ular reform agendas.
Combining the four analytics of government; visibility,
techne, episteme and identity formation has, we argue, en-
abled a range of insights into the sustainability account-
ability process. In the ?nal section we summarize the
?ndings and re?ect on the response we can give to the sta-
ted aims of this paper. We consider the limitations of this
study and potential fruitful avenues for future research.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to critically analyze the
speci?c conditions under which corporate engagement in
sustainability is enacted, maintained and transformed,
through a set of regimes of practice that seek to embed
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 448
the social and environmental impact of corporate actions
into decision-making. We have achieved this using the
analytics of government as a guiding framework for under-
standing a supermarket seeking ostensibly to enhance sus-
tainability in its supply chain. We interviewed members of
the supply chain both internal and external to the super-
market, coupled with analysis of supplementary written
and web-based information. Our focus on senior managers
within the supermarket, and the implementation of a deci-
sion-making tool which aimed to embed sustainability in
the supply chain, allowed for a rich and relevant set of data
on embedding sustainability in business practice.
Our key contribution emerges from an examination of
the conditions under which businesses practice engaging
in sustainability. The governmentality lens has enabled
us to appraise how sustainability as a regime of practice
is enacted, maintained and transformed not just within
one organization, but across the organizational boundaries
of the supply chain. We used Mitchell Dean’s typology of
analytics of governmentality relating to the ?elds of visibil-
ity, techne, episteme and identity formation to guide our
analysis. We ?nd that senior decision-takers seek to embed
the social and environmental impact of corporate actions
into decision-making alongside economic impacts, refra-
ming the discourses accordingly. Thus this study provides
theoretically informed empirical insights into the extent
to which senior decision-takers frame and use sustainabil-
ity accounting to foster disciplinary effects, and its poten-
tial to facilitate the governance of the self and others.
We argue from a methodological point of view that a
governmentality lens has enabled new and distinctive
explanations of practices in the supermarket supply chain.
More speci?cally, drawing from our data, we ?nd that the
supermarket creates ?elds of visibility around the sustain-
ability concept which promote its own agenda of mitigat-
ing threats to its competitiveness and reputation as a
sustainability leader. This involves the re-formulization of
sustainability in economic terms and its rede?nition in
?nancial business language. Identifying the techne of gov-
ernmentality used as a means of control and in?uence over
the regimes of practice used by suppliers, enables us to
understand the technologies used to embed the preferred
formulation of sustainability. The episteme analytic high-
lights the challenges and contradictions of presentations
of data about sustainability as ‘scienti?c’, although it is
sometimes based on anecdotal, impressionistic qualitative
measures. Finally the identity formation analytic high-
lights the way in which the supermarket uses the preced-
ing analytics to form identities for the different
stakeholder groups and prioritize and rank them. The
self-identi?cation of the supermarket as agents of cus-
tomer desires highlights a contradiction to the ‘sustainabil-
ity leader’ mantel identi?ed by the visibility analytic. It is
this level of detail and the illumination of different per-
spectives, which the analytics of government has enabled
us to uncover, which we consider make the governmental-
ity approach particularly valuable. By showing how a re-
gime of sustainability has been enacted in this case, we
provide a foundation for future research which can mean-
ingfully address more complex empirical contexts, with
the advantage of seeing how governmentality can be
applied in practice. This is particularly relevant to the
application of accounting regimes around sustainability,
and indeed both within and across organizations. The
analytics of government led by the supermarket combine
with other ongoing activities to further legitimize the
governance activities and operationalization of accounting
for sustainability in the supply chain. Future research
could usefully follow other tools and accounting standards
in a similar way.
As an additional contribution from a theoretical stand-
point, our work points towards a potential augmentation
of governmentality theory with the concept of trust. Previ-
ous research which explores the links between trust and
governmentality are very limited (exceptions being Gil-
bert, 2005; Owen & Powell, 2006). Our research points to
a ?ner grained understanding of the trust element in gov-
ernmentality than has hitherto been noted, by identifying
it in the episteme and identity formation analytics in par-
ticular. Broadly speaking, we note the role of trust as a
facilitator of governmentality. Further research which ex-
pands on this link would be of value in the application of
governmentality in future studies.
While our work opens up new avenues for research,
there are also limitations which should be recognized
and which we have sought to attend to accordingly. We ar-
gue that the novelty of our analytical approach justi?es a
single case focus. Our narrow focus on a relatively simple
supply chain which involves only a handful of tiers of sup-
ply all in the same country, has enabled us to concentrate
on the analytics of government in a context relatively
unencumbered by the range of different legislative re-
gimes, cultures and practices compared to that which
would be evident in a global supply chain. Having demon-
strated the value of the approach, future research could
take the further step of tackling more complex, global sup-
ply chains and assessing further the analytics of govern-
ment internationally. Work building on ours should seek
to develop the approach which we have been able to estab-
lish here as a useful one, and apply it to a variety of
accounting practices. We believe that this would offer fur-
ther useful insights into how accounting is utilized, and
can better be formulated, communicated and applied, as
a means to in?uence regimes of practice.
The constraints of our research project meant that we
were reliant on the accounts given by respondents of the
practices enacted by themselves and others. Respondents
had the opportunity to seek to promote elements which
they felt re?ected a positive light on their work and to pre-
vent us visualizing aspects they preferred us not to iden-
tify. We sought to verify the accounts given with
publically available data and by cross-referencing informa-
tion gained from the range of respondents, probing further
particularly when con?icting information was received.
Considerable insight might be gained by engaging in longi-
tudinal participant-observation which gives the opportu-
nity to collect data of suf?cient validity to substantiate
claims more convincingly.
We have focused on a linear vector of governmentality,
that is, within the context of sustainability in the supply
chain between farmer and supermarket. As a result, it is
possible that factors quite outside of this section of the
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 449
supply chain were acting decisively on our respondents
and the organizations they represented in terms of sustain-
ability (e.g. suppliers to farmers, abattoirs, transporters).
The phenomenon of the supermarket’s extended responsi-
bility for supplier behavior is evident. We nevertheless
acknowledge that a useful expansion of the current re-
search might be to embrace the consumer more explicitly
as part of the supply chain. Our simpli?cation and trunca-
tion of the supply chain does not fully explore the in?u-
ences on the supermarket who we have staged as the
governor. Indeed, they too are subject to governmentality
processes which we have implied but not explored in de-
tail. Not least of these is the voracity of the competitive
environment, the complex way in which such organiza-
tions are involved in guiding and advising on the formation
of soft and hard law relating to sustainability, the in?uence
of shareholders, and the evolving nature of accounting
standards and practices relating to sustainability. These
might each be fruitful areas for development and contrib-
ute to research projects in their own right.
Throughout the research we have observed the transla-
tion of sustainability into economic dimensions as a recur-
ring theme, and acknowledged the practice of economic
control presented in the guise of sustainability. This ?nd-
ing has important implications beyond this study. We see
in each element of the analytics of government that the
sustainability discourse is embedded in the familiar eco-
nomic language of accountability. It is not our intention
here to make a pejorative judgment of this phenomenon.
Nor do we seek to denigrate improved awareness and
implementation of social and environmental accounting
practices. Our contribution is to illuminate the governmen-
tality and accountability issues which are a part of embed-
ding sustainability in supply chain decision-making, and to
show the detail and intricacy of technologies and mentali-
ties which enable this.
We must conclude that sustainability by no means sub-
jugates the hegemony of commercial priorities. The eco-
nomic drivers are more deeply embedded in our case
study company than environmental and social drivers,
and these consistently win out. Embedding sustainability
in decision-making is bound, in the current paradigm of
business, to mean translating sustainability imperatives
into economic ones. Our work demonstrates that we are
still a long way from a new business model which priori-
tizes sustainability. The incremental steps which are being
taken to work toward more sustainable practices may have
the unintentional affect of reducing the potential of a more
holistic approach into the straight jacket of market mecha-
nisms. This has both scholarly and practical implications for
the development of sustainability. An optimistic assess-
ment would be that the economic language needs to be
adopted in order to allow conversations about sustainabil-
ity to be considered legitimate business discourses, and to
get a foothold into contemporary business practice. What
we observe here, however, is that even when a large,
well-resourced powerful company with a leadership openly
committed to sustainability makes a serious attempt at
embedding sustainability in supply chain decision-making,
there remain overwhelming institutionalized regimes of
practice preventing a shift away from the economic and
?nancial imperatives. Full recognition and explication of
this is crucial for policy makers, business leaders and
researchers alike if substantive change is to be affected.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful com-
ments of two anonymous reviewers, the editors of this spe-
cial issue, Jeffrey Unerman and Chris Chapman, and
colleagues who shared their thoughts on this paper: Bren-
dan O’Dwyer (University of Amsterdam) and Roel Boom-
sma (University of Amsterdam). Earlier versions of the
paper were presented at the 2010 Centre for Social and
Environmental Accounting Research International Con-
gress at the University of St. Andrews and the 2011 ‘Devel-
oping corporate responsibility theory: Exploring the value
of governmentality’ workshop, European Association of
Business in Society/Royal Holloway, University of London.
Our thanks are also due to the Accounting for Sustainabil-
ity Project and our case study company and individual
respondents. All errors remain the responsibility of the
authors.
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doc_136104534.pdf
This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an
organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relating
to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are proposed
as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This
theoretical framework illuminates the specific rationales and practices of government that
enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The
analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated
regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket
chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel
empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales
and practices in a supply chain.
Governmentality in accounting and accountability: A case study
of embedding sustainability in a supply chain
Laura J. Spence
?
, Leonardo Rinaldi
Centre for Research into Sustainability, School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW200EX, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an
organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relat-
ing to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are pro-
posed as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This
theoretical framework illuminates the speci?c rationales and practices of government that
enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The
analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated
regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket
chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel
empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales
and practices in a supply chain. It explores the extent to which senior decision-takers
frame and use sustainability accounting to foster disciplinary effects based ostensibly upon
social and environmental goals. These are found in practice to be reformulated primarily
according to an economic (rather than social or environmental) regime of practice.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Social and environmental sustainability has developed
from a sub-political narrative on unsustainable patterns
of consumption into a practice of governing by institutional
actors in different contexts (Russell & Thomson, 2009).
Such transformation involves the problematization of orga-
nizational conduct, as a determining factor, and also the
identi?cation of subjects, as necessary actors that embed
sustainability into their decision-making processes. One
of the main arguments which has been made in support
of embedding the interlinking of economic, social and envi-
ronmental considerations within decision-making, is that it
would allow organizations to lay the foundations for effec-
tive corporate social, environmental, economic and ethical
governance (Owen, Swift, & Hunt, 2001; Unerman & Ben-
nett, 2004; Zadek, Pruzan, & Evans, 1997).
There is widespread acknowledgment and increasing
regulation underpinning the notion that business and
public sector organizations have environmental and social
responsibilities (Gray, Dey, Owen, Evans, & Zadek, 1997;
Gray, Owen, & Maunders, 1987; Unerman, Bebbington, &
O’Dwyer, 2007). Corporations claim that engaging in sus-
tainability is an important activity (ACCA, 2006; Account-
Ability, 2008). Nevertheless little, if any, of this discourse
is directed towards the analysis of rationalities and
practices that lie behind the embedding of the interlinking
economic, social and environmental considerations.
Correspondingly, there seems to have been widespread
acceptance within the academic literature about the condi-
tions under which embedding sustainability into corporate
decision-making is realized (with the notable exception of
Hopwood, Unerman, & Fries, 2010).
Drawing upon the above points, the aim of the paper is
to critically analyze the speci?c conditions under which
corporate engagement in sustainability is enacted,
maintained and transformed, through a set of regimes of
practice that seek to embed the social and environmental
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2012.03.003
?
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0)1784276403.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.J. Spence), Leonardo.
[email protected] (L. Rinaldi).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Accounting, Organizations and Society
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aos
impact of corporate actions into decision-making along-
side economic impacts. The study provides theoretically
informed empirical insights into the extent to which senior
decision-takers frame and use sustainability accounting to
foster disciplinary effects, and its potential to facilitate the
governance of the self and others.
The theoretical framework used to address the aim of
the paper is based upon the concept of governmentality
proposed by Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1979, 2010;
Foucault, Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991; Foucault & Gor-
don, 1980; Foucault, Senellart, Ewald, & Fontana, 2007),
and further expanded by, among others, Dean (1995,
2007, 2009) for analyzing the speci?c conditions under
which particular forms of power emerge, exist and change;
those that try to shape, mobilize and work through the
choices, desires and aspirations of individuals and groups.
In terms used by Gouldson and Bebbington (2007, p. 12)
‘‘governmentality seeks to uncover and examine the often
invisible rationality which is behind an assemblage of ac-
tions and mechanisms that are in place to govern certain
actions.’’ While several research studies within the
accounting literature have addressed the foundation of
power and the development of governable selves
(Johansen, 2008; Neu, 2000b, 2006; Neu & Graham, 2004,
2006; Nyamori, 2009; O’Regan, 2010; Stein, 2008; Vollmer,
2003; Walker, 2010) and the mentalities of government
(Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008; Rose, 1999; Rose & Miller,
1992), Dean’s analytics of government has been rather dis-
regarded (with the exception of Russell & Thomson, 2009).
This paper therefore contributes to the sustainability
accounting literature by demonstrating the potential
power of this overlooked but valuable theoretical frame-
work. As sustainability is often portrayed in terms of pro-
grammatic aspirations of reform that involve the practice
of training – which constitutes forms of government and
self-government – employing the analytics of government
to analyze aspects of sustainability orientated accounting
practices might be expected to provide useful insights. In
addressing this objective, it is maintained that governmen-
tality is not restricted to the state or political institutions,
but is placed in a more general context (Lemke, 2001;
McKinlay, Carter, Pezet, & Clegg, 2010) that includes the
corporate domain (Dean, 2009).
In order to give a focus to the insights, our research aim
is addressed through the analysis of an exploratory case
study. We analyze the rationales and practices that
emerged during the implementation of a sustainability
accounting framework within the lamb supply chain of a
UK supermarket. This enables a reasonably clear overview
of a relatively short UK based chain, with limited variation
in external in?uences as would be more apparent in the
context of a global supply chain. Hence the focus of re-
search can be clearly trained on the analytics of govern-
ment utilized to in?uence sustainability practices in the
supply chain by the retailer.
Many aspects relating to the potential of supply-chain
accounting to in?uence the buyer/supplier relationship
(such as make or buy decisions, joint cost control, joint per-
formance measurement and open book accounting) have
been addressed by extant research (Baiman & Rajan,
2002; Dekker, 2003, 2004; Frances & Garnsey, 1996; Free,
2008; Seal et al., 2004; van der Meer-Kooistra & Vossel-
man, 2000). However, little academic research has exam-
ined the extent to which accounting for corporate social
and environmental impacts is in?uential in governing the
transition towards sustainability in the supply chain, and
the role it may play in fostering disciplinary effects based
upon social and environmental practices.
1
It has been ar-
gued that these practices have the potential ‘‘to establish
‘sustainable’ norms of acceptable behaviour and to divide
actions into ‘sustainable’ and ‘unsustainable’ as a precursor
to government intervention’’ (Russell & Thomson, 2009, p.
231).
The paper proceeds by describing the context and back-
ground to our empirical work on embedding sustainability
decision-making in the lamb supply chain of a UK super-
market. In the subsequent section governmentality is
introduced in more detail, particularly in terms of the prac-
tical application we use, drawing on Mitchell Dean’s ana-
lytics of government. An overview of our case-study
based methodological approach is given. The empirical
data is then presented using Dean’s four analytics of gov-
ernment as a guiding frame. The paper concludes by draw-
ing from the analysis to note the implications of our
?ndings, acknowledging the limitations of the work and
re?ecting on avenues for future research.
Context
Grocery retailing is exceedingly competitive, and eco-
nomically, socially and environmentally important, repre-
senting 11% of European Union Gross Domestic Product.
This makes the sector both a focus for policy and public
scrutiny, and is an instance where sustainability can be re-
garded as highly competitive territory with associated
prestigious industry awards. A growth sector in the UK de-
spite the economic climate, the £150.8 billion grocery
retailing market is dominated by a handful of multiple food
retailers.
2
These operate through supermarkets, superstores
and hypermarkets. We will refer to one such organization in
our case study as ‘the supermarket’, and the form more gen-
erally as ‘supermarkets’.
1
This argument was shaped by a review of six in?uential accounting
journals (Accounting, Organizations and Society, Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, The British Account-
ing Review, The European Accounting Review and Accounting Forum) over the
period 1990–2010. The review revealed that governmentality was effec-
tively mobilized in only 30 publications (Armstrong, 1994, 2006; Everett,
Neu, & Rahaman, 2007; Graham, 2010; Himick, 2009; Jeacle & Walsh, 2002;
Johansen, 2008; Knights & Collinson, 1987; Kornberger & Carter, 2010;
Lohmann, 2009; Mahama & Ming, 2009; McKinlay & Pezet, 2010; McKinlay
et al., 2010; Miller & O’Leary, 1987; Neu, 2000a, 2000b, 2006; Neu &
Graham, 2004, 2006; Neu & Heincke, 2004; Nyamori, 2009; O’Regan, 2010;
Radcliffe, 1998; Rahaman, Everett, & Neu, 2007; Richardson, 2009; Stein,
2008; Vaivio, 2006; Vollmer, 2003; Walker, 2010; Young, 1995) and in just
one case was the implementation of sustainability accounting as a
governing technology challenged (Russell & Thomson, 2009).
2
Data on the UK grocery retail sector is taken from the Institute of
Grocery Distributors. www.igd.com Accessed 13 January 2011. The term
multiple food retailer refers to ‘‘supermarkets with 600 sq. metres or more
of grocery sales area, where the space devoted to the retail sale of food and
non-alcoholic drinks exceeds 300 sq. metres and which are controlled by a
person who controls ten or more such stores’’ (Competition Commission,
2000, p. 8).
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 434
Managing the supply chain is a particularly important
arena for supermarkets, since without a reliable source of
products of consistent quality, they cannot satisfy cus-
tomer expectations. Supply chains are important more
generally because they are a means of enhancing organiza-
tional performance, since the chain rather than the individ-
ual organization is the level at which competitive
advantage can be gained (Li, Ragu-Nathan, Ragu-Nathan,
& Subba Rao, 2006).
As large organizations with global supply chains and of-
ten a global network of distribution outlets, the supermar-
kets are subject to a wide range of legal sustainability
regulation. At the time of this study, the most pressing of
these in the UK context related, for example, to the Euro-
pean Water Framework Directive and the UK’s mandatory
Carbon Reduction and Energy Ef?ciency Scheme. Further-
more, non-governmental organizations and the media are
quick to highlight the responsibility of supermarkets in
their social, environmental and economic contexts. Impor-
tantly, the assumed and actual responsibilities of super-
market chains are not restricted to their own head of?ce,
retail and distribution operations. Supermarkets also have
a substantial degree of extended responsibility for the
activities of their many and varied supply chains (EHRC,
2010). This is particularly true in terms of the growing
‘own brand’ products segment, where the food retailer is
intricately involved with production and the supply pro-
cess itself.
In the words of one member of our case study
organization:
‘‘the single biggest impact is the goods we source, not that
our own operations aren’t important, but in the scheme of
things, that is our biggest impact from an environmental
point of view. And therefore if you look at that, where
would those biggest impacts be? So if you looked at the
thousands of products that we sell, about 1400 of them
account for 50% of our sales and 50% of our volume, which
is phenomenal. And that’s things like milk, chicken, eggs,
bread, butter, bananas, and therefore you say actually
that’s where you need to. . .on those big supply chains,
that’s where you would focus your attention’’. (Senior
manager 5)
Moreover, UK supermarkets have come under consider-
able pressure to behave more responsibly, due to reports of
unacceptable treatment of suppliers as part of a national
level review of uncompetitive practices. A Competition
Commission report published in 2000 on UK supermarkets,
for example, was instigated by concerns relating to super-
markets with respect to the monopoly provisions of the
Fair Trading Act 1973 (Competition Commission, 2000).
The report re?ected a rising tide of concern in the UK at
the time relating to perceived high relative prices of UK
groceries, compared to other European countries and the
US, an apparent disparity between farm-gate and retail
prices, and the threat of out-of-town supermarkets to the
local high street. Findings included the note that unfair
practices were being imposed on suppliers by virtue of
the relative power of supermarkets, including ‘‘requiring
or requesting from some of their suppliers various non-
cost-related payments or discounts, sometimes retrospec-
tively; imposing charges and making changes to contrac-
tual arrangements without adequate notice; and
unreasonably transferring risks from the main party to
the supplier’’ (Competition Commission, 2000, p. 6). The
Competition Commission subsequently instigated an in-
quiry and consultation into the groceries market which in-
cluded investigation of supply chain issues and the
behavior of supermarkets towards their suppliers (Compe-
tition Commission, 2006). As a result since 2010, super-
markets have been subject to the Of?ce of Fair Trading’s
UK Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP), which is lar-
gely developed around encouraging responsible sourcing
(Competition Commission, 2009).
Supplier representatives such as the National Farmer’s
Union have been vocal in their support of improved treat-
ment of suppliers. In response to the news that implemen-
tation of GSCOP would be monitored by an independent
arbiter, the President of the National Farmer’s Union said
that this was a victory for common sense and that this
‘‘must be the year we begin to eradicate unfair dealing
and protect investment and innovation in British agricul-
ture for the bene?t of both farmers and growers and con-
sumers.’’ (NFU, 2010). In addition to alleged mistreatment
by retailers, the farming community itself has experienced
substantial pressures in recent years. These have included
economic challenges as a result of the rise of cheaper im-
ports, reduced protectionism, the complexities of the rela-
tively new EU Single Payment Scheme as a subsidy
mechanismand a range of problems associated with animal
health (e.g. foot and mouth disease, blue tongue, bovine TB).
Nevertheless, food security concerns mean that agricul-
ture remains a key strategic resource. This does not miti-
gate the sustainability issues which it embodies, and
which are in part re?ected by a shift in the EU Common
Agricultural Policy from production to land stewardship.
In the context of this article, livestock farming is most rel-
evant, which has poetically been said to cast a ‘long sha-
dow’ in terms of its environmental impact being among
the three most signi?cant contributors to environmental
problems (Steinfeld, Gerber, Wassenaar, Rosales, & de
Haan, 2006). Whether in direct sale as packaged meat, or
through input to own-brand products, the sustainability
of livestock production which feeds into the supermarkets
is a substantial area of concern in terms of sustainability.
This is ampli?ed by the fact that livestock production re-
quires long lead-times and commitment of substantial re-
sources by farmers in order to respond to demand and
associated conditions of supply.
It is in this wider context of an increasingly regulated,
monitored environment, with customers adding their
own pressures and demands, which supermarkets and their
suppliers have to operate. Unsurprisingly then, there is a
call for tools and mechanisms to assist the promotion of
sustainability within organizations and also within their
supply chains. One such mechanismis a tool for embedding
sustainability in decision-making which has been devel-
oped through a multi-sector, multi-stakeholder process
and is part of the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustain-
ability Project. The embedding sustainability in decision-
making tool is the key mechanism which we observe being
implemented in the case study analyzed in this paper.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 435
The framework puts forward a prototype of a sustain-
ability decision-making tool to help managers embed sus-
tainability within their day-to-day operations. The
underlying premise is that in order to be accountable for
sustainability impacts, organizations need to understand
the material impacts of their detailed activities. The objec-
tive of the tool is hence to ensure that sustainability factors
are taken into account when decisions about products and
services are made at all levels. More speci?cally, the
embedding sustainability in decision-making tool entails
three broad phases. The ?rst phase aims to give a broad
overview of the material sustainability issues in order to
develop a better understanding of the social, environmen-
tal and economic impact of a product or service category
over its life-cycle. The second phase consists of a more de-
tailed analysis of the speci?c product or service’s sustain-
ability impact over its life cycle. This is done by a
discursive process involving pertinent members of the
organization as well as supplier representatives (from
raw material production to manufacturing and distribu-
tion), consumers and perspectives from post-consumer
use. Finally, the third phase comprises the bringing to-
gether of the data generated in the previous phases and
its integration within the organization’s everyday opera-
tions (e.g. selecting new suppliers, buying, costing prod-
ucts and services, distributing and investing) (Accounting
for Sustainability, 2011). In the case study in question, be-
cause of the relevance of the sustainability impact of the
supply chain rather than just internal operations, this
meant seeking changes in response to data generated in
the process throughout the relevant supply chain. It is this
process which we observe and critically analyze through
our theoretical lens of governmentality.
Governmentality
Before proceeding a note on the language used in this
paper is important. We deal with issues of government,
governance and governmentality. We use these in the
sociological senses relating to in?uence, accountability
and control rather than the political sense of the na-
tional/regional Government. While the sociological litera-
ture is quite clear that the term ‘‘government’’ applies
outside of the political context, here we seek where possi-
ble to emphasize governance and governmentality in order
to avoid confusion. Hence the site of governance can be the
mundane workspace, home or public setting without a
suggestion that national politicians are the governors in
question. Indeed, employers, parents and local community
organizations can also be governors in these contexts. If we
are referring to national or local Government, we will make
this explicit. We should also be clear that we by necessity
seek to focus on only one dimension of governmentality.
We acknowledge that the embedding sustainability in
decision-making tool and its associated processes are not
the only sources of power and in?uence in the supply
chain. The socio-economic-political and environmental
contexts of supply chain sustainability are many, but since
we seek here to use governmentality as a lens for under-
standing accountability, we have chosen to keep our focus
narrow and as a result understand the accounting perspec-
tive in detail rather than broadly seeking to map out the
wider in?uences. The limitations of this work are discussed
in more detail in the conclusion.
In recent years social, environmental, economic and
ethical governance and accountability mechanisms have
become increasingly common within corporate life. This
has been motivated by a number of factors including legit-
imacy issues, institutional pressures, and stakeholders con-
cerns (Bansal, 2005; Cho & Patten, 2007; Cho, Roberts, &
Patten, 2010; Dillard, Rigsby, & Goodman, 2004; Hoffman,
1999; O’Dwyer, 2003, 2005; O’Sullivan and O’Dwyer, 2009;
Owen & Swift, 2001; Owen et al., 2001; Patten, 1992; Such-
man, 1995; Unerman, 2007; Unerman & Bennett, 2004;
Unerman & O’Dwyer, 2006; Wright & Rwabizambuga,
2006). Additionally, the development of social and envi-
ronmental accounting over the last 40 years (Bebbington
& Gray, 2001; Gray, 2002, 2010) has contributed to the
widespread adoption of corporate sustainability reporting
(ACCA, 2006, 2007, 2008; Gray, Kouhy, & Lavers, 1995; Mil-
ne & Gray, 2007), and sustainability orientated perfor-
mance measurement systems (Bebbington, 2009; Epstein,
2008; Epstein & Manzoni, 2006; Frame & Cavanagh,
2009; Russell & Thomson, 2009). These developments re-
quire, on the one hand forms of knowledge of social and
environmental sustainability, on the other hand an
increasing set of rules, or norms, to take account of the im-
pact of corporate actions upon the profoundly intertwined
social, environmental and economic dimensions of
operations.
Our conceptual perspective for understanding the role
of accounting in advancing sustainability is the literature
on the concept of governmentality, as introduced by Fou-
cault, on the operations of power in modern society. Fou-
cault identi?es governmentality as ‘‘the ensemble formed
by institutions, procedures, analysis and re?ections, calcu-
lations and tactics that allows the exercise of this very spe-
ci?c albeit complex form of power’’ (Foucault et al., 2007,
p. 108). Therefore, governmentality encompasses actions
of governance as well as the rationales and beliefs implicit
in those actions. Dean (2009, p. 18) also describes such a
form of power as being concerned with the conduct of con-
duct and therefore ‘‘any more or less calculated and ra-
tional activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities
and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms
of knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working
through the desires, aspirations, interests and beliefs of
various actors, for de?nite but shifting ends and with a di-
verse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects
and outcomes.’’ Hence we are concerned as we have sug-
gested in our introduction with the activities, technologies,
authorities and regimes of control which seek to create a
change in practice within a given setting, that of the super-
market supply chain in our case. To be clear, the practices
we are concerned with relate to activities intended to pro-
mote sustainability within that supply chain, as de?ned by
the lead actor, that is, the supermarket as embodied in the
actions of its senior managers.
The remainder of this section discusses the four analyt-
ics of government as we have identi?ed them from previ-
ous theoretical research in this area as a potentially
valuable lens in accounting and accountability research.
436 L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452
The analytics of government
Dean’s analytics of government represents a powerful
critical tool. It offers opportunities to engage in the interro-
gationof the taken-for-granted. One font of critical potential
comes fromthe difference between claims and objectives of
programs and rationales of governance. In particular, we
contend that Dean’s framework allows valuable insights
into sustainability accounting and its relationship with the
governing structures of the case study supply chain.
Research using the analytics of government arises from
the conscious rejection of the a-priori distribution of power
and location of rule within institutions, whether they be
political or placed in a more general everyday context
(Dean, 2009; Lemke, 2001; McKinlay et al., 2010). Power,
therefore, is not seen as residing within a speci?c struc-
tural allocation, but rather as being constituted by loose
and changing collections of governmental rationalities
and practices. In the context of the present research, Dean’s
analytics of government framework explores the speci?c
conditions under which a program of corporate engage-
ment in sustainability comes into being and is maintained
and transformed within its supply chain, through a set of
regimes of practices that aim at embedding the social
and environmental impact of business activities into deci-
sion-making.
Regimes of practice tend to be numerous and inter-
weaving in organizational settings. They involve and often
connect collegial (such as boards, committees or represen-
tatives) and individual (such as employees, shareholders,
managers, customers or suppliers) institutional agents, so
that we give them the attribute of a system (such as con-
trol system, rewarding system, reporting system). These
regimes of practice are mutually in?uenced by one another
so that forms of support, correlations, antagonism and, at
the extreme, colonization, may occur (Dean, 2009). Re-
gimes of practice are inspired and shaped by various forms
of knowledge and are capable of de?ning the object of such
regimes by systematizing apposite ways of dealing with
them, setting the aim of the practice and de?ning the insti-
tutional settings.
Part of the challenge in this paper is to take the theoret-
ical frame of governmentality and to use the concept to
facilitate understanding of a practical case. In order to use
the analytics of government it is ?rst necessary to proble-
matize the regime of practice. Since we are interested in
the transformation of practices and processes, it is neces-
sary to understand the nature of the shift and hence focus
for the application of the analytics. Thus we need to re?ect
critically on how it is that the conduct of ourselves and
others is molded and created (Dean, 2009, p. 38). This re-
quires us to look beyond the taken-for-granted meanings
and accounts of reporting lines and in?uence, and to inter-
rogate the available evidence afresh. The focus of concern is
the conduct of ‘governors’ (parents, politicians, professions,
and corporations) and the ‘governed’ (children, citizens,
customers, workers, consumers, and suppliers). It is this
orientation and problematization which prompts us to ana-
lyze the minutae of how a supermarket engages with sup-
pliers to improve practices in line with a sustainability
agenda.
The analytics of government set these regimes of prac-
tice at the heart of the analysis and seeks to ascertain their
intrinsic logic. Dean’s framework is able to analyze these
practices along four interlinked yet relatively autonomous
dimensions. We summarize these dimensions as (1) ?elds
of visibility analytic; (2) techne analytic; (3) episteme ana-
lytic; and (4) identity formation analytic. Dean outlines
these vectors of analysis by building particularly on the
work of Deleuze (1991, p. 159) on ‘dispositif’ i.e. of con-
crete social apparatuses. While we have drawn on the as-
pects of power in Foucault’s work, it should be noted that
this is not as central as could be assumed. In fact, his work
is not so much about power as it is about the subject (Fou-
cault, 1982, p. 778). This necessarily engages with power
issues, but as with our work, we are most interested in
the creation of the subjects of the governmentality pro-
cesses. Accordingly, we describe the analytics in more de-
tail below and adopt the dimensions in analyzing the
empirical data in this case and divide the remainder of this
section along the four lines of inquiry.
Fields of visibility analytic
In the ?elds of visibility analytic, we ask what are the
?elds of visibility that distinguishes a regime of govern-
ment, which are their particular characteristics and by
what means do they seek to illuminate some objects and
obscure others (Dean, 2009, p. 41). Thus management ?ow
charts, maps, organograms, graphs and tables de?ne the
objects and subjects of governance. Jeremy Bentham’s pan-
opticon, with its visual surveillance of prisoners or other
kinds of subjects such as school pupils, patients or workers
in a circular building through a single central tower, is the
iconic example of this (Foucault, 1979). Such diagrams
show us how individuals are connected, relate to each
other and are constituted in space. The panopticon is how-
ever rather an idealized structure. We instead are focusing
on a setting with multiple opportunities for fracturing the
sources of light. It is because of this complexity that we fo-
cus on a relatively uncomplicated supply chain context. In
doing so we seek to manage our research and render it tan-
gible. As Deleuze (1991, p. 160) argues ‘‘Visibility cannot
be traced back to a general source of light which could
be said to fall upon pre-existing objects; it is made of lines
of light which form variable shapes inseparable from the
apparatus in question.’’ Dean also notes that we can iden-
tify different regimes of practice with certain forms of vis-
ibility (Dean, 2009, p. 41). He argues, apposite to this
paper, for example that risk management strategies pres-
ent social and urban spaces as ?elds of risk of crime or
damage, where lack of visibility constitutes high risk.
Hence in applying this analytics of government we are
seeking to identify the characteristic forms or ?elds of vis-
ibility, and thereby understanding ways of seeing and per-
ceiving subjects in the regime in question. In doing so we
must be particularly sensitive to aspects which are hidden
from our view by the focus on the process of embedding
sustainability in the supply chain, and conversely seek to
understand how and why our attention is being directed
to other areas by the actors concerned and the ?eld of vis-
ibility associated with the embedding sustainability in
decision-making tool.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 437
Techne analytic
The techne of government are the technical means
adopted to achieve the ends of governance and realize
the illuminated values. As Miller and Rose (1990) point
out, intervention is an important part of governance, and
it is in the fulcrum of action around interventions that
we can observe how subjects are acted upon. Accordingly
we should ask ‘‘by what means, mechanisms, procedures,
instruments, tactics, techniques, technologies and vocabu-
laries is authority constituted and rule accomplished?’’
(Dean, 2009, p. 42). A distinction is drawn here between
governmentality as a manifestation of values and ideology
– sustainability in this case – and governmentality as tech-
nique. Without technical means, intended outcomes will
not be met. That is to say, it is highly unlikely to change re-
gimes of practice relating to sustainability by talk alone, no
matter how well informed or convincing a discourse is em-
ployed. Thus techne are speci?c ways of acting, intervening
and directing, made up of particular types of practical
rationality (‘expertise’ and ‘know-how’), and relying upon
de?nite mechanisms, techniques, and technologies. Such
technologies may be apparently humble and mundane
mechanisms such as techniques of notation, systems of
training, professional specialisms and vocabularies (Miller
& Rose, 1990). Techne of government also may contribute
to impose limits to what ends are achievable, cause disso-
nance when employed, create new problems, be re-em-
ployed for unexpected ends, misappropriated and indeed
simply poorly employed or under-resourced. The technol-
ogies associated with the embedding sustainability in deci-
sion-making tool, and the other mechanisms engaged with
to alter behavior inevitably draw our attention particularly
for this aspect of the analytic of governmentality.
Episteme analytic
The third dimension of the analytics of government is
called the episteme. This refers to the discourses and rhet-
orics of value, expertise, language and forms of thought
employed in the practices of governing. This vector of anal-
ysis has been described as the ‘‘purposive attempts to
organize and reorganize institutional spaces, their rou-
tines, rituals and procedures, and the conduct of actors in
speci?c ways’’ (Dean, 2009, p. 43). Work in the ?eld of pro-
fessional nursing has linked trust to governmentality as a
mechanism to reduce complexity and as a component in
the management by professionals of populations and
themselves (Gilbert, 2005). This perspective acknowledges
the investment of professional activity with a moral supe-
riority to justify intervention in the activities of others.
Trust can also take the role of facilitating the practices of
governing in collaborative environments (Coletti, Sedatole,
& Towry, 2005). Episteme is hence understood as distinc-
tive ways of thinking and questioning, relying on de?nite
vocabularies and procedures for the production of truth
(e.g. those derived from the social, human and behavioral
sciences). Helpful here is the observation that one of the
features of government is that ‘‘authorities and agencies
must ask questions of themselves, must employ plans,
forms of knowledge and know-how, and must adopt vi-
sions and objectives of what they seek to achieve’’ (Dean,
2009, p. 43). In the context of the research presented here,
this has particular resonance for the very basis on which
we privilege knowledge gathered in accounting and
accountability processes. The tension of producing quanti-
?able measurements from qualitatively aggregated (all be
it informed) impressions of sustainability is a core issue
important in this case and with rami?cations across sus-
tainability accounting as a regime of practice, and organi-
zational and professional activity.
Identity formation analytic
Identity is an immensely important and in?uential as-
pect of organizational and social research. The workplace
is a ‘‘pre-eminent site for contestations about the nature
of human identity, and for attempts to shape and reshape
the identity of individuals’’ (Miller & Rose, 2008, p. 174).
In order to understand the genealogy of identity we must
address the practices acting upon human beings and their
conduct, and the systems of thought which provide the
foundation and context for them. In terms of this analytics
of government then, we are concerned with understanding
characteristic ways of forming subjects, selves, persons, ac-
tors or agents. To be precise, Dean suggests that it is iden-
ti?cation of people and groups as taking on a particular
role and characteristics associated with it that is important
rather than a pre–ascribed identity per se. Here is implied a
performance of government as a means of acting on con-
duct (Dean, 2009, p. 44). The nature of the relationship
formed with others and the personal trust embedded with-
in them (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) are important
aspects of the identity enacted. Stakeholder theory and
supply chain management would have us expect a particular
sample of actors and roles as important in the supermarket
supply chain. Rather than import these actor-identities and
their assumed roles into our analysis, in our study we seek
to understand the identity of – for example – farmers who
supply meat processors who in turn supply supermarkets,
through the governmentality process which co-creates
their identities.
While an analytics of government constitutes a perspec-
tive on questions of authority and power, it is not purely
subjective, rather it requires acceptance of no absolute
truth. Deleuze (1991, p. 162) notes that universals should
be repudiated, since the universal explains nothing, rather
it is the universal statement or assumption, which needs
to be explained. The evaluation of the analytics of govern-
ment requires us to compare the intelligibility and under-
standing yielded from alternative accounts of a particular
regime (Dean, 2009, p. 33). It is this which we try to do in
detail by examining the accounts of the managers in our
sample seeking to govern supply chain sustainability.
Furthermore, the four analytics of government de-
scribed here are not discrete, rather they presuppose
one another. While each is relatively autonomous, it
should be recognized that regimes of practice cannot be
reduced to a single dimension. Investigating the analytics
of government using these four axes as analytical lenses
allows us better to understand the transformation of re-
gimes. Hence it is to be expected that in examining the
?elds of visibility, techne, episteme and identity formation
of governance of supply chain sustainability, there will be
cross-over between analytical axes, and reiteration.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 438
Nevertheless the examination is expected to reveal the
shift to supply chain sustainability as a transformation
of regimes of practice in a manner made more compre-
hensible by this multidirectional analysis than would be
evident by other mechanisms less sentient to observing
power, requirements for accountability and subjecti?ca-
tion of others.
Against this background we propose to operationalize
Dean’s analytics of government framework to gain better
understanding of the transformation of a regime of prac-
tice. In doing so we show how the implementation of social
and environmental accounting shapes forms of power,
rationales and practices in governing supply chain
sustainability.
Data and methodology
The evidence in this study was collected using semi-
structured in-depth personal interviews with eight senior
managers between February and April 2009 as the fore-
most body of data. The case study organization is a UK
based supermarket, which will be anonymous for reasons
of con?dentiality. The main aim of the interviews was to
acquire in-depth understanding of the accounts given of
the rationales and practice that emerged during the imple-
mentation of a sustainability accounting framework with
the purpose of embedding sustainability in decision-
making.
The perspectives obtained were used to develop an
understanding of the extent to which accounting for corpo-
rate social and environmental impacts is in?uential in gov-
erning the transition towards sustainability in the supply
chain, and the role it may play in fostering disciplinary ef-
fects based upon social and environmental practices. The
interviews were administered through a small set of broad
open-ended questions and were conducted by the
researchers on the interviewees’ company premises.
Open-ended questions were used to encourage the inter-
viewees to take an active role in an open and unrestrained
dialogue with the interviewers (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005;
Ghauri, 2004; Horton, Macve, & Struyven, 2004; Patton,
2004). The interviews ranged from 45 minutes to one and
a half hours in duration.
There were two primary reasons for selecting senior
managers for the interviews. First, all respondents had, to
various degrees, an input into the operationalization of
the embedding sustainability into decision-making tool,
in most cases having the power to take high pro?le deci-
sions, thus being able to in?uence the subsequent stages
of the organization’s operations with regard to the speci?c
supply chain chosen for the analysis. Second, individuals at
a senior level could be expected to have a broad perspec-
tive on the company’s activity and therefore may be
viewed as able to address questions on the rationales be-
hind the implementation of the framework.
Complementing the senior manager interviews from
the supermarket, were interviews with a sheep farmer, a
key lamb processor supplying the retailer, and a represen-
tative from the National Farmer’s Union. These perspec-
tives enabled us to ?esh out the discourse of the managers.
All interviews were digitally recorded and subsequently
transcribed. The data were analyzed by an iterative process
of manual elaborative (or ‘top down’) coding in order to
identify patterns therein relating to governmentality
(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003, p. 104). The framework of
the analytics of government was used as a loose guiding
lens through which to observe the data. Nevertheless every
effort was taken to ensure that the reading of the data al-
lowed for other aspects to emerge beyond those prescribed
in the four elements of the analytics, or for the possibility
that no data related meaningfully to a given analytic. The
procedure followed was one of identifying relevant text,
repeated ideas and themes which provided the fabric of
the theoretical narrative presented below. Both authors
went through the process of analyzing the data indepen-
dently, with the assessment by the lead author being re-
viewed, revised and supplemented by the observations of
the second author through a collaborative dialogue. The
analysis of the transcriptions was accompanied by the
study of the notes taken during and immediately after
the interviews, and aided by further listening to the audio
recordings. This helped to re-elaborate the various intona-
tions given to the interview, thus functioning as an aid to
make sense of meanings.
Finally, another body of data was drawn from observa-
tions made while examining Sustainability Reports pro-
duced as part of the organization’s annual corporate
reporting cycle in the last 5 years; other publicly available
documents mentioned in these regular reports (such as the
Grocery Supply Code of Practice and Code of Conduct for
Socially Responsible Sourcing), and internal documenta-
tion made available by the supermarket.
The governmentality theoretical perspective was
adopted as a lens through which to interpret the research
data, especially the four analytics of ?elds of visibility,
techne, episteme and identity formation, thus enabling the
production of the subsequent narrative. Where practices
could be understood from more than one analytic, they
have not been repeated in order to enable a coherent nar-
rative. We have addressed practices in the analytic which
we believe to be most pertinent. While we sought to stay
open to the possibility of an additional analytic emerging
which lay outside the four identi?ed by Dean, none was
noted in our analysis. Having identi?ed practices which
are indicators of transformation of the regime of supply
chain sustainability practice, in the discussion we seek to
show how the issues we have investigated work to facili-
tate governmentality, drawing out relative issues of in?u-
ence and accountability.
Hence our contribution in applying the accountability
lens on suppliers and their customer organization as they
go through a process of enhancing supply chain sustain-
ability is to illuminate the application of power and control
using the analytical framework of governmentality.
The lamb supply chain and sustainability
With social, environmental and ?nancial aspects of sus-
tainability coming into play, the lamb supply chain faces a
dif?cult challenge in balancing the sometimes competing
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 439
aspects of sustainability evident in triple bottom line
accounting.
3
In addition to being socially, economically
and politically important (ensuring food security), particular
environmental areas of concern arise in relation to land deg-
radation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage,
pollution and loss of biodiversity. Despite being commonly
less problematic than cow and pig farming, the sustainabil-
ity issues around sheep farming are many and varied. The is-
sues operate at a number of levels, are not mutually
exclusive, and lack clear evidence on what the best preven-
tative policies are.
On the other hand, proponents of sheep farming are
quick to point out the way in which British sheep farms, of-
ten small family-run ventures, alleviate some social as-
pects of sustainability by providing much needed income
and employment in rural areas. Farmers are often pre-
sented as stewards of the countryside, taking pride in their
natural and traditional methods to rear lambs, which pre-
serve the British landscape for future generations.
Perhaps most fundamentally, taking the economic as-
pect of sustainability into account, the sheep-farming sec-
tor is not particularly prosperous, with farmers sometimes
selling products at below production cost and farm num-
bers unsurprisingly in decline. The economic aspect of sus-
tainability – that is, economic survival – is of key
importance in this case study as will become clear.
It should not be forgotten that the lamb supply chain
consists of far more than just farmer and supermarket,
although this would be problematic enough. While these
are the highest-pro?le participants in the chain, other
intermediaries also have a role to play and any attempt
at embedding sustainability within the chain needs to take
this into account.
At each stage of the supply chain, of course, a wide
range of environmental, ?nancial and social aspects of sus-
tainability in relation to factors such as energy use, water
use, transport, animal welfare, employment conditions,
economic survival, packaging and waste disposal are rele-
vant in different measure. Fig. 1 illustrates the standard
chain for the case study company.
Assessment of the analytics of government within the
lamb supply chain
The problematization of the supermarket and its suppli-
ers’ practices were triggered by the adoption of the frame-
work for embedding sustainability in decision-making,
which was one element of a wider overt commitment to
a program of enhancing sustainability. The implementa-
tion of this new regime of practice led to tighter sustain-
ability policies that spread over lamb suppliers and
challenged their extant praxis. The analytics of govern-
ment framework proved to be particularly effective in this
context since it places the supermarket’s regimes of prac-
tice at the centre of the investigation and seeks to discover
secondary
farmer
haulier
livestock
market
abattoir
lamb
processor
primary
farmer
multiple
food
retailer
consumer
waste
disposal
May operate as a collective producer group
Fig. 1. Lamb supply chain.
Table 1
Analytics of the governing of sustainability within the supermarket’s lamb supply chain.
1. Fields of visibility 2. Techne
Sustainability as an economic issue Meetings, training and surveying
Diagrammatic representations of power and authority Operating engagement
Investment in embedding sustainability process Auditing and monitoring
Self-portrayal and external recognition as sustainability leaders Rule compliance
Financial incentives
3. Episteme 4. Identify formation
Quanti?cation of qualitative measures Agents framed as stakeholders
Quality, competition and risk Stakeholder labeling and ranking:
Cost-bene?t analysis Customer as principal
Supermarket as agent of customer desires
NGOs as customer-in?uencers
Processor as conduit of message to farmers
Farmers as a valuable commodity
Compensatory relationship between aspects of sustainability
3
The triple bottom line concept was developed to meet the needs of
businesses engaged or interested in sustainability and emerged in the late
1990s to convey an image of concurrent concern and sensitivity to three
aspects of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social. It involves
accounting, reporting and managing economic, environmental and social
performance, simultaneously pursued, and assessing how these can be
utilized to achieve economic, environmental and social objectives. The
triple bottom line concept has been used to describe a number of
applications by organizations but also suffered severe criticism due to its
intrinsic limitations (Adams, Frost, & Webber, 2004; Brown, Dillard, &
Marshall, 2009; Colbert & Kurucz, 2007; Elkington, 1997; Gray & Milne,
2002, 2004; Norman & MacDonald, 2004; Painter-Morland, 2006; Richard-
son, 2004).
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 440
the hidden rationality that is behind an array of behaviors
and mechanisms that are in place to govern sustainability
(Dean, 2009; Gouldson & Bebbington, 2007). Table 1 sum-
marizes the key aspects of the analytics of governing sus-
tainability which we ?nd in the supermarket’s lamb
supply chain as analyzed in this section.
Fields of visibility analytic
The ?elds of visibility analytic reveals how the domi-
nant power of the supermarket in the process of embed-
ding sustainability in the supply chain enables the
prioritizing of aspects of sustainability most important to
them. Hence despite inclusion in the process of identifying
sustainability issues for which supply chain members
could be held accountable, in fact it is the leading role of
the supermarket and the drive to mitigate risks for them
that determines which aspects are to be made visible.
The cost of the process of implementing the embedding
sustainability in decision-making tool itself – in terms of
staff time, and the payment of the facilitating consultants
– gives the embedding of sustainability some visible inter-
nal credibility. This is complemented by legitimacy given
to sustainability governance within the organization by
the high level commitment backed up by Board member
responsibility for aspects of the corporate responsibility
agenda. The sustainability governance agenda is under-
pinned by this high pro?le involvement, with vocal and
evident support from senior management via public media
(e.g. staff video messages on the environment and media
appearances promoting sustainability) and private mecha-
nisms (e.g. accountability through the appraisal system).
Dean (2009, p. 41) notes the use of diagrams of power
and authority in illuminating the operation of particular
regimes. In the case in hand the spreadsheet resulting from
phase 2 of the embedding sustainability in decision-mak-
ing tool (see Fig. 2) is the visible artefact of governmental-
ity, that is the documented description giving de-facto
authority to the supermarket to in?uence the sustainabil-
ity activities of suppliers.
For lamb, for example, the identi?ed most vulnerable
areas were seen to be those in Fig. 3. Note that the most
environment
Use of GMOs
(GMOs present in feed)
Impact on local
biodiversity
(linked to the feed)
Greenhouse Gas
Emissions
(energy use throughout
the supply chain)
Waste
(abbatoir waste)
Land degradation
(due to grazing)
workers/local
community
Minimum living wage
(low income for farmers)
Working hours
(farmers working more
than 48 hours a week)
Workforce wellbeing
(high stress and suicide
rate amongst farmers)
suppliers’
livelihoods
Product sold below
cost of production
(unfavorable market
dynamics/ subsidies)
consumers
Consumers’ harm/
health
(no nutritional labeling)
Consumer obesity
(no fat content labeling)
Excessive packaging
Recycling of
packaging
Energy use for
consumption
High Severe Critical
Note: The high, severe, critical risk rating are net
sustainability risk ratings reached through
escalation and mitigation of the gross risk rating,
taking knowledge uncertainty into account
Fig. 3. High, severe or critical UK lamb sustainability risks.
’
’
’
’
Fig. 2. Case study organization’s artefact of governmentality.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 441
critical issues visibly identi?ed in Fig. 3 are seen from the
supermarket’s point of view and all relate to consumer is-
sues in terms of the potential economic effect on the orga-
nization rather than because this is where the greatest
social or environmental impact is.
In a report on the phase 2 meeting, it is noted that high,
severe, and critical UK lamb sustainability risks should be
prioritized according to the following criteria:
1. issues for prioritized action: issues for which (the
supermarket) has direct responsibility, or control (e.g.
labeling on products),
2. issues for medium term action: issues where (the
supermarket) has direct in?uence (e.g. supplier
standards),
3. issues for longer term consideration: issues for which
there are wider in?uences and pressures, and for which
partnership responses would be required (e.g. farmer
subsidies) (Source: internal document).
Point 2 above is thus the visual representation of the
authority of the supermarket to seek to govern its supply
chain in terms of sustainability. Thus the framework for
embedding sustainability in decision-making adopted sur-
faced in particular the rationales of sustainability and in
turn the resources the supermarket could map and moni-
tor. However, as is shown in Fig. 3, despite environmental
and social ?elds being identi?ed within the supermarket as
amongst the most important when it came to control, cal-
culation and communication of sustainability of and with-
in the given supply chain, they were also logically
conceptualized as drivers for economic success. One senior
manager claimed that:
‘‘Sustainable, for us, means continuing to be able to supply
the products that we wish to supply or that our customers
want, now and in the future and then recognising that
they’ll be subject to increasingly constrained external cir-
cumstances.’’ (Senior manager 3)
The social and environmental impacts were seen as
increasing the supermarket’s sensitivity to external pres-
sure, thereby encouraging a responsive approach. These
features of the retail environment were viewed as exposing
companies to potential threats that, allegedly, needed to be
managed to avoid losing market share:
‘‘...because whether you consider sustainability to be ?nan-
cial, physical, actual supply of whatever is in question, if
we don’t have something to put on our shelves to sell,
we are not a sustainable business because we are shop-
keepers.’’ (Senior manager 1)
The economic rationale was recognized as very impor-
tant in implementing the supermarket’s sustainability re-
form among all the managers interviewed, and was used
as a ?lter for making sustainability a visible part of busi-
ness practice. Sustainability was therefore primarily per-
ceived as having competitive meaning and that it could
be dealt with through market-orientated regimes of prac-
tice. As a result, performance indicators and managerial
tools that enabled the visualization of priorities according
to this view, and issues that are generally considered as
critical to any sustainability strategy were only given visi-
bility on a pragmatic basis:
‘‘we were asked to look at water [use..], the last two years
it just rained in the UK and we would be laughed out of a
room if I mentioned water to farmers. . . . It’s much more
[about] using just our own integrity and judgement about
what we can talk about, which bits we can move forward
at which times and which we can’t.’’ (Senior manager 2)
Indeed at the most fundamental level even the word
‘sustainability’ was purposely shadowed from the dis-
course and kept ‘invisible’ thus limiting the accountability
of the supermarket’s program of change:
‘‘I try hard not to use the word ‘sustainability’ in my daily
conversations, because it can be quite a loaded word for
people, it usually implies some kind of additional cost to
the business.’’ (Senior manager 3)
In some contradiction to this approach, the visibility of
the program to embed sustainability was nevertheless but-
tressed – and perhaps was even adopted – as a result of the
strategic decision by the supermarket to be ‘leaders’ in the
sustainability area rather than ‘fast followers’ or ‘credible
players’. The self-perception of the organizational partici-
pants is thus one of taking the moral sustainability high
ground over and above competitors, though they felt this
was not always recognized. This was evident in the inter-
views, with one respondent being vocal about the failings
of competing supermarkets and non-governmental organi-
zations in the sustainability area. For example, one respon-
dent voiced his frustration that:
‘‘some [competitors] have been able to successfully wrap
themselves in the clothes of sustainability without really
doing very much. . ..What I say consistently is that it is also
the responsibility of those people who are [. . .] in the non-
governmental side to ensure that those corporations that
are on the cutting edge, are rewarded for being on the cut-
ting edge.’’ (Senior manager 4)
The examples of visibility presented here show how the
supermarket de?nes the ?elds of visibility of important as-
pects of sustainability in the supply chain for which the
suppliers are required to be accountable. Using the dia-
grams and processes given credibility by their association
with the embedding sustainability in decision-making tool,
the supermarket allows little space for recourse by the
suppliers. By leading the meetings, determining the partic-
ipants, and having the majority in?uence over what is seen
as high vulnerability areas, they govern the process using
the decision-making tool as a framework. Areas of high
vulnerability for the company are brought into the light,
and areas of low vulnerability – which might well be
important to farmers, but are less so to the supermarket
– are left in the shade. The invited supplier representatives
are bit-players in the process, though notably have consid-
erable power relative to non-invited suppliers. These sup-
pliers might be considered to be the ?rst among equals,
and trusted friends notwithstanding the enduring power
differential between supermarket and supplier.
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 442
The ?elds of visibility referred to above set in train a
particular formulization of sustainability in the lamb sup-
ply chain rather narrower than – and somewhat dissonant
with – the broad sustainability agenda of environmental,
social and economic sustainability. As we have noted, the
visibility analytic shows this to be primarily economic in
nature, focusing on competitive market issues and trans-
lating sustainability into contemporary business language.
The remaining three analytics of government illustrate
how this re-formulization is further embedded in the re-
gimes of practice established to seek to in?uence sustain-
ability in the supply chain.
Techne analytic: procedures and norms for the
accomplishment of rationales of governmentality
In this section we explore how the conceptions of sus-
tainability and the consequently constituted visibilities of
government are linked to technologies and practices set
up by the supermarket. The technologies of government
applied by the supermarket could be related to various
ends, these included: education, normalization, and secu-
rity. The identi?ed rationales, the technical means to
accomplish them and the superintending authorities or
norms that relate to the lamb supply chain are illustrated
in Table 2 and discussed further below.
A number of governing technologies were directed at
educating suppliers. These comprised engaging with farm-
ers through regional meetings and supporting training
programmes. This education of suppliers leads us to inter-
pret the practical rationality of sustainability accounting
and accountability as a bureaucratic and regulatory
framework employed by the supermarket, propagating
the reformulated meaning of sustainability identi?ed in
the previous section and ultimately leading the suppliers
to echo the supermarket’s perspectives on sustainability.
During the interviews, extensive reference was made to
the supermarket’s engagement with regional producers
groups. These groups developed from existing live market
groups or other collaborative activities and made it feasible
for the supermarket to have a face-to-face relationship
with some of the many thousand lamb suppliers. Facili-
tated on behalf of the supermarket by a major intermedi-
ary lamb processor that had close contact with farmers,
the engagement process was technically operationalized
through periodical meetings where, among other things,
groups were considered as sounding boards and test beds
for the supermarkets’ sustainability initiatives, and used
to set up pilot schemes. This is very much work in progress,
as the lamb processer notes:
‘‘Really, at this stage, it’s for me to get these groups of
farmers together, to just look at what savings can be made
and what the knock-on effects can be and what other
things we can do.’’ (Supplier 1)
In this context, various forms of sustainability account-
ing were used to foster different types of accountability
within the supplier base, such as environmental security,
and legal/regulatory compliance. Taking environmental
security, for instance, in collaboration with an independent
not-for-pro?t organization, the supermarket helped to de-
velop a carbon foot-printing tool for the lamb sector. Once
established the supermarket intended to require farmers
to measure their carbon use and energy cost against it, thus
transforming it into an environmental/economic decision-
making tool for suppliers. Additionally legal and regulatory
accountability was also spread to suppliers through the
maintained necessity to comply with sustainability direc-
tives, plans or programs – both at national and interna-
tional level. To reinforce its disciplinary power, explicit
mention of penalties for non-compliance were also made
(e.g. delisting, taxes and fees).
A further governing technology pursuing educational
ends is supporting the training of farmer’s in sustainability
issues. The ?rst step however was to enable more wide-
spread communication than is feasible through the regio-
nal groups. Communicating with lamb suppliers was
achieved by the supermarket setting up a scheme to pro-
vide farmers with computers and software, and then work
with regional development agencies to train them to use it.
As is clear in the following quotation, this takes a very
practical form on the ground and is undertaken in partner-
ships with both the intermediary supplier and Regional
Development Agencies:
‘‘because of the huge diversity and farmers working in iso-
lation and tending to be older, it was very obvious that
they weren’t really aware of their course of production,
they had no way of communicating with the outside world,
it was incredibly time consuming for us to communicate.
Because we have to go to the farmers, to their regions, talk
to them, so we actually then have set up some pilot
schemes where we provide the farmers with computers
and software and then we engage with the RDAs to actu-
ally train them to use it.’’ (Senior manager 2)
One manager was frank about the initial motivations for
communication. He openly referred to the supermarket’s
will to set best practice and:
‘‘start to make [suppliers] look at different things in differ-
ent part of the business.’’ (Senior manager 3)
Table 2
Techne, norms and rationales of government in the supermarket’s lamb supply chain.
Techne of government Norms Rationale of government
Meeting, training Bureaucratic and regulatory frameworks Education
Operating engagement Social and environmental standards Normalization
Auditing, monitoring Established internal/external regimes Regulation
Compliance, endorsement Security
Financial incentives Eligibility speci?cations Market-orientated
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 443
In doing so the supermarket not only problematized
supplier extant operations, but also became the de-facto
authority superintending the attainment of best practice
in its supply chain that, in turn, ascended to the visible
norm against which supplier conduct was measured. How-
ever, despite the claim that developing this means of com-
munication was intended to extend farmers’
understanding of the economic, social and environmental
impact of their operation, in practice a ?nancial focus
was maintained by encouraging farmers to monitor and
account for expenditure and exploit cost reduction.
It is also worth noting that the supermarket hosts ethi-
cal and technical supplier training workshops and carries
out a supplier survey. They position themselves in these
activities as experts and reliable sources of information
for farmers, proving they are following sustainable behav-
iors by their association with trusted sustainability non-
governmental or not-for-pro?t organizations such as the
Carbon Trust or the Forest Stewardship Council.
As indicated in Table 2, a further governing technology
employed by the supermarket was to normalize suppliers
and was embodied in the series of what we have called
‘operational engagements’ with farmers undertaken by
the organization. Formally conceived to communicate with
lamb suppliers about social and environmental issues
material to the supermarket’s business, they gradually
changed into a ranking process. Suppliers were categorized
into a hierarchical staged table according to mutuality of
goals. The table comprised three groups: ‘business part-
ners’, those who could ‘help the supermarket to do its
job’ and those who the supermarket ‘need to inform about
what it is doing’. In this context such techne not only con-
tributed to render suppliers visible, but also acted as a
dividing practice, playing a crucial role in establishing
‘‘an order amongst entities and create the dynamics of
improving or declining’’ (Kornberger & Carter, 2010,
p. 333). The norms of such dynamics are instituted by
the standards accepted by the supermarket whereas sus-
tainability accounting based calculative practices allowed
the measurement of deviance from the norms, becoming
the tools for assessing the place of a supplier in the rank-
ing. This techne of government relies on the formation of
an arti?cially established competition among farmers di-
rected towards meeting the supermarket norms fueled by
the explicit association between considerable turnover
transformations and high grades in the relationship with
the supermarket. A senior manager largely responsible
for the lamb supply chain was direct in addressing eco-
nomic pressures suffered by the sheep sector, claiming that
in order to maintain the end goal of security of supply:
‘‘we’ve got to have pro?t there, we want to see people
make a living, and that will encourage the next generation
to come through into the industry, make it something that
people want to be involved in’’ (Senior manager 5)
A number of governing technologies were inspired by
regulatory rationales based upon legitimized norms of sus-
tainable behavior and substantiated by well-established
external regimes, of which suppliers were in some cases
aware. As part of its collective efforts to manage supply
chain sustainability the UK supermarket sector has been
instrumental in setting up a sector-based mechanism for
measuring supplier ethical data through the ‘‘Supplier Eth-
ical Data Exchange’’ (SEDEX). This is an online resource
where ethical audit data is recorded on individual suppli-
ers who supply to supermarkets. The supermarket is in-
volved in this scheme and also expects suppliers to
comply with its own in-house responsible sourcing code
of conduct. Associated with this, there are surveillance
technologies such as an auditing and monitoring system,
carried out in part by product technologists for branded
goods. At the time of the research it is unclear what (if
any) disciplinary system is in place for non-compliance.
The most formal technology is embedded in the legal
framework of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, which
governs the hire and working conditions of temporary
workers important in the agriculture arena (though less
so in livestock farming than other areas). The supermarkets
themselves are governed by British Retail Consortium glo-
bal standards and sustainability guidelines (BRC, 2001,
2006), particularly on food safety and the controversial
Grocery Supply Code of Practice and an accompanying
ombudsperson designed to protect contracted suppliers
from unfair practices (Competition Commission, 2006,
2009). This later technology, interestingly, is supported
by the National Farmers Union but argued to be unneces-
sary by the British Retail Consortium (Smithers, 2010).
The program of reforming sustainability practices is
also interlaced with security rationales aimed at develop-
ing technologies to instruct farmers how to act in order
to avoid negative economic, social and environmental
repercussions. These technologies (mainly endorsement
and rule-compliance processes) related to a multiplicity
of issues such as, for example, the shortage of lamb supply,
social and environmental impact of supplier’s actions, and
compliance with animal health and welfare standards.
The ?nal type of techne of governmentality noted in Ta-
ble 2 is that of ?nancial incentives driven by a market-ori-
entated approach. As well as the basic ?nancial reward of
continuing as a listed supplier for the supermarket, farmers
have the option of pursuing grants through environmental
schemes. As a meat processer noted:
‘‘Even the [farmers who] perhaps aren’t driven by the eth-
ics of lamb production and maintaining the area as well as
they can, most of them are . . . in a stewardship scheme so
they’re driven ?nancially to do that.’’ (Supplier 1)
For example, the UK Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs, through its Environmental Stewardship
Scheme, and the equivalent Tir Gofal in Wales, directly af-
fect the approach of farmers who respond to the market
opportunity to bolster income.
As we have shown, the techne of governmentality offer a
range of architecture by which farmers and lamb suppliers
are in?uenced to account for their sustainability practices.
While these are not all creations of the supermarket, the
implicit and explicit approval by the supermarket for
engaging with these approaches acts as a legitimization
of the actions of suppliers who respond to the technologies
to advance their sustainability credentials.
The following section looks into how certain forms of
knowledge, calculative practices, and expertise are linked
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 444
to the technologies of government set up by the supermar-
ket to achieve the established rationales.
Episteme analytic: forms of knowledge, calculative practices,
and expertise underlying the supermarket’s ethos
The authority given to forms of knowledge in the
accountability processes relating to sustainability in the
supply chain is one of the most problematic areas for the
case study company. Despite an external representation
of measurable and measured accounts of sustainability is-
sues, the managers interviewed acknowledged their frus-
tration that such measures were based often on
subjective assessments. As a senior manager observed:
‘‘I think a lot of what has been done initially, and I think
food miles is a classic example of that, has been based on
intuition and opinion. And when you start to look at the
facts and you look at total lifecycle analysis, you look at
what part transport plays, which is pretty little in the
main.’’ (Senior manager 1)
The same respondent put this clearly herself when
referring to the dif?culty of embedding the sustainability
decision-making tool:
‘‘I think the biggest issue [..] is judgement calls versus
objective calls based around hard facts and data and that’s
probably the nub of the challenge really.’’ (Senior manager
1)
On the one hand, the supermarket establishes goals and
targets, published in the annual corporate responsibility
report, against which they record progress in at least qual-
itative terms, noting progress such as ‘achieved’ or
‘achieved and ongoing’ against goals relating to fair trade,
animal welfare, maximizing British supply and so on. The
published version of knowledge is given the appearance
of being measurable and concrete. In their formal docu-
mentation on corporate responsibility they note, for exam-
ple, the importance of materiality in their actions:
‘‘We set our targets by focusing on materiality. We are
guided by those areas which are of interest to our stake-
holders. By taking this approach we can maximize our
impact and connect sustainability with commercial per-
spectives.’’ (Source, paraphrased from a company docu-
ment on corporate responsibility).
On the other hand, the managers interviewed showed
considerable frustration at the complexity of sustainability
issues and the dif?culty of either measuring them in any
meaningful way or ?nding an expert whose advice was
reliable. One senior manager noted, ‘‘where does the exper-
tise sit?’’ on sustainability, adding:
‘‘there’s very little on it because it’s an emerging science.
And for the next ten years, that’s going to be a rich scene
while people work out what the best truth is’’. (Senior
manager 1)
The drive to work out this ‘best truth’ is to make deci-
sions relating to sustainability more ef?cient and sustain-
ability issues calculable. She developed this further:
‘‘When you get to the environment, a) a lot of these things
you can’t see, they’re not visible, they are hidden, they are
in the supply chain somewhere else . . .and they are not
easy to measure. And the science is emerging and I suppose
it’s like all sciences, when they’re emerging, experts don’t
agree on them, so you’ll get an expert view here that is
180 degrees from an expert view over there’’. (Senior man-
ager 1)
This conundrum between needing to present ‘progress’
on sustainability issues while knowing that the measures
are inadequate is ampli?ed when trying to project infor-
mation up the supply chain. We observed that much of
the discourse from the supermarket side is around devel-
oping trust, which is regarded as the requisite of fruitful
partnerships, within which ‘‘personal relationships are
key connectors in the enactment process’’ (Frances & Garn-
sey, 1996, p. 606). The lamb processor in our case study
clari?ed this:
‘‘my job is to really give con?dence to the farmers, to keep
in the lamb business. And I’ve got to let my fellow directors
know that I’m con?dent that whatever supply is out there,
we will get our fair share of that supply and to do that,
farmers have got to want to sell us their lambs, [the super-
market] have got to want to buy meat from us.’’ (Supplier
1).
Accounting mechanisms have a dual role in eliciting
trust (Coletti et al., 2005) and at the same time constituting
the information infrastructure that contributes to support-
ing the rhetoric of collaboration, partnership and business
integration (Free, 2008). Hence, one of the main emphases
of the supply chain accounting literature has been the
exploration of ‘trust’ and its relation with ‘control’ between
independent parties for the processes of cooperation or
within its construction (Bracht & Feltovich, 2009; Frances
& Garnsey, 1996; Free, 2007). Trust is therefore increas-
ingly being viewed as a precondition for improved perfor-
mance and competitive success in composite business
environments such as the lamb supply chain (Free, 2008).
In this context communication matters even if it is
made up of exaggerated announcements about trusting
intentions. As King (2002) and Cooper, DeJong, Forsythe,
and Ross (1989) suggest, communication mechanisms
have the potential to create familiarity between the super-
market and suppliers thus facilitating the formation of re-
ciprocal trust. This in turn, gives the supermarket the
opportunity to pursue an array of self-interested intentions
in the rhetoric of ‘collaboration’, ‘partnership’ and ‘busi-
ness integration’ (Free, 2008).
Hence we see the importance of using the episteme
analytic of government to open trusted communication
lines and keep farmers locked into the supermarket supply
chain both by supporting their survival and preventing
their defection to other competing customers.
To accommodate this paucity of scienti?cally credible
knowledge, forms of knowledge more familiar to the
supermarket managers and more closely within their con-
trol are instead drawn upon. One driving perspective is the
location of the notion of sustainability within concepts of
quality, competition and risk:
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 445
‘‘[M]y view is. . . that sustainability is just one dimension of
quality. . . .[Sustainability] is just another thing to com-
pete on. . .. I’m sure that location will remain the main rea-
son for choosing a supermarket and price and promotion is
the second reason for choosing supermarkets for as long as
any of us can see. But as access becomes easier and easier,
and as you know, price neutralizes itself, if you like, and
everyone’s competitive on price. . ., then people will seek
out other dimensions to compete on.’’ (Senior manager 4)
He then reinforced his thought asserting that:
‘‘[sustainability] is something that customers will pay
for. . ... people are prepared to pay for beyond the calori?c
value of the food. And [. . .] that’s, for me, where it ?ts. It’s a
dimension of quality in that sense: pure ingredient. [. . .]
Ethical sourcing, environmentally sound sourcing [. . .] all
of these things are just dimensions of quality.’’
By arguing this he seems to place sustainability as a form
of calculation and presupposes the establishment of ac-
cepted criteria used to collect and analyze data employed
to assess it. This rationality of sustainability is bound up
with a multitude of technical means (usually speci?ed in
terms of performance measures) for the achievement of
speci?c ends, whether they be minimizing carbon footprint,
supporting local communities or delivering healthy, safe,
tasty, fresh food for customers. A tangible example of quan-
titative technology that contributes to render what is
understood to be incalculable susceptible to calculation
and/or monetary appraisal is the development of a sustain-
ability performance scorecard that establishes targets and
measurable improvements based on a baseline perfor-
mance. The scorecard, constructed through calculative
accounting practices, also renders visible a set of interlinked
responses to the new competitive arena of sustainability
thus reducing quality to a quanti?able form (Kornberger &
Carter, 2010). One senior manager explains that:
‘‘we’ve actually developed an environmental scorecard, so
we look at recycling, calibration, they’re all part of the cal-
culator but I suppose it’s the practical tool that allows
farmers to understand it and make changes.’’ (Senior man-
ager 2)
Another key role of the scorecard seems to be the place-
ment of the principle of ‘‘self-assessment’’ within the gov-
erning process of the farmers. As the interviewee later
maintained:
‘‘we’re going up every single farm track, sitting down with
the farmer, collating the ?gures, talking him through it and
then when he gets his ?gures back, what they mean. So
we’ve developed [a green light system] for each element
[. . .] and [the farmer] can see [how they are doing rela-
tively] so it’s a bit of healthy competition.’’ (paraphrased
from Senior manager 2)
The green light system is therefore used as a means to
visually present an account of what the supermarket per-
ceives as ‘‘sustainable’’ and therefore as a technology of
governance in?uencing farmers’ perceptions. However,
the green light system was introduced not only as a control
technology but also as a performance representation that
aims at illustrating the assessment of farmers’ compliance
with the supermarket’s pre-determined sustainability
norms. Thus deliberately attempting to classify and in?u-
ence the performance and behavior of farmers (Manochin,
Brignall, Lowe, & Howell, 2011).
Another approach was the location of the notions of
‘‘management’’ and ‘‘improvement’’ within sustainability:
‘‘what’s the point in doing all these measurements if you
don’t do anything with it? And we encourage the farmers
to come to local meetings where we talk through ‘well
where you’ve got the reds, these are the kind of things
you do, so we need you to test your soil and then we’ll
go out and do a deal to get a cheaper nutrient testing of soil
or soil analysis or silage analysis.’’ (Senior manager 2)
Therefore, the green light system also takes the role of a
prioritizing technology, able on the one hand to identify
areas that need attention while on the other hand to create
a supermarket ranking-list of issues of concern.
In this light the business ethos of the supermarket
seems to be relying on a sustainability rationale framed
as calculative practice based on ranking tables, accounting
reports and cost-bene?t analyses that establish priority of
events in order to assess the relative merits of a range of
options. As one manager indicated, how the supermarket
had responded to some EU environmental pressures within
the lamb supply chain seemed straightforward in claiming:
‘‘[. . .] what we did was prioritize those big things so that
we could work out where our biggest impact was going
to be’’ (Senior manager 5)
She developed this further by identifying a quantitative
form of sustainability based on processes aimed at identi-
fying targets with calculative accounting practices:
‘‘we’ve made big strides on the way that we source things,
the amount of packaging we use, the ef?ciency of the sup-
ply chains, recycling. The fact that we won’t send by the
end of next year [. . .] any food waste to land?ll, all of those
kinds of things, yes, tick the box’’. (Senior manager 1)
We may begin to acknowledge how sustainability met-
rics can be connected to the ‘technologies of performance’
(Dean, 2009, p. 197) that is the setting of ‘standards,
benchmarks, performance indicators and quality controls
to monitor, measure, and render calculable the perfor-
mance of the various agents involved’, to use Dean’s
(2009) language.
The concept of risk, which is evoked in some instances,
also plays a role in this representation. The risk of not being
sustainable often was not related to the detriment of the
environment or society by either the supermarket or its
lamb suppliers (such as, for example, anaerobic spoilage
or job layoffs) but to loss of market opportunities or capital
costs (in the form of security of supply, fees or taxes)
against which the supermarket aims to protect itself.
Consequently, as the effects of the negative social and
environmental outcomes are often incalculable, this form
of rationality that uses non-economic capital and assigns
it an economic value based on accounting and marketing
expertise, resembles another exercise to make calculable
what in effect seems not to be.
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The combined effect of quantitative technology and cal-
culative rationality shown above is helpful to explain how
certain aspects of sustainability were governed within the
supply chain. When describing the consistent investment
made to collect all the necessary data and work out
whether a certain way of producing livestock was more
or less environmentally-friendly than the ordinary way,
one manager was con?dent in justifying the cost with an
overriding bene?t, quali?ed in this case by productiveness:
‘‘[. . .] it can be more cost effective because even if some of
the elements cost you more to do the right thing environ-
mentally, overall, you manage the supply chain more effec-
tively.’’ (Senior manager 1)
By the same token, one manager provided an example
of the way environmental issues were tackled by the orga-
nization within one of those chains. She was very relaxed
to point out that:
‘‘[. . .] for example, we have moved out of battery hens into
completely eggs from hens that haven’t been kept in cages,
if you talk to the [trade association], they will say the most
environmentally-friendly way to produce eggs is by bat-
tery farming. It’s more ef?cient, there’s less impact on the
environment, emissions are managed better [. . .]. Now,
we would argue that because we always produce our
free-range eggs by planting trees, so they’re woodland eggs
[. . .] you can’t produce the eggs unless the chickens have
got tree cover, which means all of our woodland egg farms
plant trees, but also we donate a penny a pack to plant
trees’’ (Senior manager 1)
The perspective presented above seems to support
interpretations of a compensatory trade-off relationship
between the various dimensions of sustainability within
the livestock supply chain, implying that positive outcomes
in one of them could offset negative outcomes in others.
Some researchers argue that these instances where sub-
objectives may lead to maximizing or, perhaps more likely,
minimizing objective functions, will not be the ultimate
goal of the natural system but ‘‘just a recognition that cer-
tain socially-created impacts have absolute bene?t or detri-
ment to the natural system’’ (Brown et al., 2009, p. 220).
This analytic demonstrates the importance of investi-
gating all axes of the analytics of government. Looking only
at the governing technologies would give the impression
that the supermarket could present a perfect image of its
superior knowledge on sustainability issues to suppliers
(not withstanding external elements outside of their con-
trol). The lens of the episteme analytic shows, however,
how the forms of knowledge generated are presented as
if they were scienti?cally precise when they are often
based on informed estimates at best and supposition at
worst. As has been shown throughout the analysis, forms
of knowledge of sustainability issues are reformulated to
be calculable in the traditional episteme of the business.
The formation of identities: capacities, qualities and statutes
attributed to agents
This section is concerned with how the supermarket
promotes, fosters and attributes certain identities,
capacities, qualities and/or statutes to particular agents
through which governmentality operates. In doing so, as
shown in Table 1, they use the approach taken to account
for different roles and identities as a means of prioritizing
stakeholders. Calculative practices thus enable the
acknowledgment of ?nancial impact on the ?rm and asso-
ciated rankings of importance.
Identity formation is not so much assigned as created,
not least by the axes of governmentality discussed above.
Hence rather than notions of identity being allocated by
a label, the governmentality process co-creates identities.
Indeed, the supermarket in this case seeks to identify the
actors as their respective stakeholders. This in turn gives
each party an implicit or sometimes explicitly ranked role
to play in the supermarket’s governance of supply chain
sustainability, which the protagonists may not identify
with themselves.
From the supermarket’s point of view, the importance
of the commercial perspective as embodied in the primacy
of the customer group, cannot be underestimated. Non-
governmental organizations such as the Royal Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Compassion in World
Farming, and the Farm Animal Welfare Council, are seen as
key stakeholders only because they ‘‘in?uence our custom-
ers hugely’’ (senior manager 1). Our interviewed managers
spoke repeatedly about the need for their business to re-
spond to customer demand ?rst and foremost. Ultimately,
without customer support, the drive to advance sustain-
ability in supply chains evaporates:
‘‘at the end [of the day], there’s no point pursuing what we
believe is the more sustainable agenda if consumers are
actually not buying into that and rewarding (our compet-
itors) with their custom [. . .] I start ?rst and foremost from
customers.’’ (Senior manager 4)
At the time of the research, however, there was a per-
ceived support from customers, and the senior manage-
ment positioned this as the main reason for pursuing a
sustainability agenda. This identi?es customers as the
number one stakeholder and the principals of any sustain-
ability program. Moreover, it self-identi?es the supermar-
ket as merely the agent of the customer’s wishes. Acting in
contrast to the foregoing analysis positioning the case
study company as the governor of the supply chain, on sev-
eral occasions managers sought to downgrade the role of
the supermarket itself, saying ‘we are just a bunch of gro-
cers’ and ‘we are shopkeepers’. This rather contradicts the
positioning of the supermarket as leaders in sustainability
noted in relation to the visibility analytic and the vocal
noti?cation given to the researchers of the good works
the supermarket was doing and the string of sustainability
awards they were receiving. Again, employing the range of
analytics helps to highlight some of the contradicting dis-
courses which are employed.
In the context of this paper the identity formulated for
the supplier group is of particular interest. Practices of
improvement were used to divide suppliers into popula-
tions on the basis of those with the capacity to improve
and those without. The recognition of these ‘‘dividing prac-
tices’’ (Dean, 2009, p. 158) is important because they con-
tribute to construct, de?ne and make visible a dichotomy
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 447
between views of regularity and abnormality, thus giving
rise to forms of normalizing power exercised by the
supermarket. For example, suppliers were divided into
key/minor, close/far, overseas/UK, visited/unvisited, sup-
ported/unsupported, trained/untrained, capable/unskilled,
branded/own brand, small/big. Other examples include
suppliers divided into lower/higher risk, small/big branded,
national/local, new/old, good relationship/not-so-good
relationship, fairtrade/non-fairtrade and freedom food/
non-freedom food. By demarcating the difference between
the sustainable and the unsustainable, an ideal-type iden-
tity for suppliers was conceptualizedandcontrastedagainst
an arguably less desirable type. As a result existing practices
were problematizedand the exertionof supermarket power
to either restore or attain an apparently more sustainable
(or less unsustainable) course of action gained legitimacy.
Within this group of suppliers, the meat processors are
seen as dominant. Importantly they are identi?ed as active
intermediaries and communication channels for the super-
market because the base of farmers is so large and they
rely on the processors to convey any messages they wish
to get through to farmers. They are identi?ed as business
partners rather than the ?rst tier suppliers, which they
are in literal terms, and hence they take on a role of con-
duit, and the voice of the supermarket as well as their eyes
and ears on the ground. A senior manager said:
‘‘We go out and meet local groups very much with the pro-
cessor as they have a big part to play in communicating as
well because we’ll just never get to meet them all’’ (i.e. the
farmers) (Senior manager 2)
Hence control of sheep farmers is directed very much
through the meat processors as agents acting on the super-
market’s behalf, Finally the farmers themselves are critical
actors for the supermarket in the lamb supply chain,
although this has changed. There has been a shift in their
identity from interchangeable product providers to much
more valued – and needed – partners:
‘‘I would say the tables have turned in that we really need
every farmer who’s out there. I can’t afford for any farmer
to go out of business, so it’s just a different mentality’’.
(Senior manager 2)
This is especially pertinent in the livestock sector be-
cause it is a contracting industry, so there is competition
between supermarkets to ensure that they secure supply
and farmers are a competitive tool and valuable commod-
ity. There is some dif?culty in getting farmers to accept
this shift and adopt a new identity of valued partner as is
noted from the farmer groups:
‘‘So I would say it’s work in progress, getting to the supply
base, then a sustained period of time where you have to
just talk, build trust, they either say nothing or spend a
whole meeting airing their grievances. And they say noth-
ing because they are scared of saying the wrong thing
because we’re their customer and you have to do three
or four meetings of that before you get to ‘right, what
are the key challenges?’ listing them all out and then start
to thrash out ideas as to how you can address them.’’
(Senior manager 2)
This claim seems to support the insight put forward by
Mayer et al.’s (1995) model of trust whereby personal rela-
tionships are perceived as key connectors in the partnership
enactment process (Frances & Garnsey, 1996; Free, 2008;
Lewicki & Bunker, 1996; Powell, 1996; Tomkins, 2001).
As a result of the new identity, farmers are portrayed as
both members of the lamb supply chain and recognized by
the impact that each one of them can have on the local
community and ecological environment. Hence the associ-
ation of individual subjects in the administrative category
of ‘‘lamb suppliers’’ give rise to a new form of governable
subject where individual duties of accountability become
socialized. The implications of the fostered duality of sub-
jects can be twofold. On the one hand the supermarket can
give rise to issues of compensation, by which sustainability
is enhanced provided that the virtuous behavior of some
agents compensate for the poor behavior of others; on
the other hand, to enhance sustainability the supermarket
does not necessarily have to engage with each and every
one of its farmers, but with those whose impact is regarded
as the most signi?cant from the supermarket perspective.
The process and activities of identity formation are
revealing in this research. The simplistic approach gener-
ally taken of stakeholder analysis belies a complexity in
the roles that the supermarket requires of others in the
supply chain. Lamb processors are not just suppliers, but
are the supermarket’s agents in respect of farmers. The
supermarket itself is – in some contrast to the other ana-
lytics of government – positioned as the agents of the cus-
tomer-as-principal. Farmers are positioned as a precious,
non-renewable resource and agents of sustainability in
their own right. The power of the supermarket is thus
played down, or at least the complexity of their position
is conveyed, and the extent to which their power relies
on the successful formation of the identity of others
revealed.
From the perspective of the analytics of government,
the examined embedding of sustainability within deci-
sion-making, and the problematization of farmers’ activi-
ties, shows the mechanisms to ‘‘restructure’’ their
conduct by the supermarket. They state quite clearly;
‘‘we’ve had to really signi?cantly move farmers’ thinking’’ (Se-
nior manager 2). An analytics of government shows the
importance of sustainability orientated calculative prac-
tices in the constitution, governance and shaping of partic-
ular reform agendas.
Combining the four analytics of government; visibility,
techne, episteme and identity formation has, we argue, en-
abled a range of insights into the sustainability account-
ability process. In the ?nal section we summarize the
?ndings and re?ect on the response we can give to the sta-
ted aims of this paper. We consider the limitations of this
study and potential fruitful avenues for future research.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to critically analyze the
speci?c conditions under which corporate engagement in
sustainability is enacted, maintained and transformed,
through a set of regimes of practice that seek to embed
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 448
the social and environmental impact of corporate actions
into decision-making. We have achieved this using the
analytics of government as a guiding framework for under-
standing a supermarket seeking ostensibly to enhance sus-
tainability in its supply chain. We interviewed members of
the supply chain both internal and external to the super-
market, coupled with analysis of supplementary written
and web-based information. Our focus on senior managers
within the supermarket, and the implementation of a deci-
sion-making tool which aimed to embed sustainability in
the supply chain, allowed for a rich and relevant set of data
on embedding sustainability in business practice.
Our key contribution emerges from an examination of
the conditions under which businesses practice engaging
in sustainability. The governmentality lens has enabled
us to appraise how sustainability as a regime of practice
is enacted, maintained and transformed not just within
one organization, but across the organizational boundaries
of the supply chain. We used Mitchell Dean’s typology of
analytics of governmentality relating to the ?elds of visibil-
ity, techne, episteme and identity formation to guide our
analysis. We ?nd that senior decision-takers seek to embed
the social and environmental impact of corporate actions
into decision-making alongside economic impacts, refra-
ming the discourses accordingly. Thus this study provides
theoretically informed empirical insights into the extent
to which senior decision-takers frame and use sustainabil-
ity accounting to foster disciplinary effects, and its poten-
tial to facilitate the governance of the self and others.
We argue from a methodological point of view that a
governmentality lens has enabled new and distinctive
explanations of practices in the supermarket supply chain.
More speci?cally, drawing from our data, we ?nd that the
supermarket creates ?elds of visibility around the sustain-
ability concept which promote its own agenda of mitigat-
ing threats to its competitiveness and reputation as a
sustainability leader. This involves the re-formulization of
sustainability in economic terms and its rede?nition in
?nancial business language. Identifying the techne of gov-
ernmentality used as a means of control and in?uence over
the regimes of practice used by suppliers, enables us to
understand the technologies used to embed the preferred
formulation of sustainability. The episteme analytic high-
lights the challenges and contradictions of presentations
of data about sustainability as ‘scienti?c’, although it is
sometimes based on anecdotal, impressionistic qualitative
measures. Finally the identity formation analytic high-
lights the way in which the supermarket uses the preced-
ing analytics to form identities for the different
stakeholder groups and prioritize and rank them. The
self-identi?cation of the supermarket as agents of cus-
tomer desires highlights a contradiction to the ‘sustainabil-
ity leader’ mantel identi?ed by the visibility analytic. It is
this level of detail and the illumination of different per-
spectives, which the analytics of government has enabled
us to uncover, which we consider make the governmental-
ity approach particularly valuable. By showing how a re-
gime of sustainability has been enacted in this case, we
provide a foundation for future research which can mean-
ingfully address more complex empirical contexts, with
the advantage of seeing how governmentality can be
applied in practice. This is particularly relevant to the
application of accounting regimes around sustainability,
and indeed both within and across organizations. The
analytics of government led by the supermarket combine
with other ongoing activities to further legitimize the
governance activities and operationalization of accounting
for sustainability in the supply chain. Future research
could usefully follow other tools and accounting standards
in a similar way.
As an additional contribution from a theoretical stand-
point, our work points towards a potential augmentation
of governmentality theory with the concept of trust. Previ-
ous research which explores the links between trust and
governmentality are very limited (exceptions being Gil-
bert, 2005; Owen & Powell, 2006). Our research points to
a ?ner grained understanding of the trust element in gov-
ernmentality than has hitherto been noted, by identifying
it in the episteme and identity formation analytics in par-
ticular. Broadly speaking, we note the role of trust as a
facilitator of governmentality. Further research which ex-
pands on this link would be of value in the application of
governmentality in future studies.
While our work opens up new avenues for research,
there are also limitations which should be recognized
and which we have sought to attend to accordingly. We ar-
gue that the novelty of our analytical approach justi?es a
single case focus. Our narrow focus on a relatively simple
supply chain which involves only a handful of tiers of sup-
ply all in the same country, has enabled us to concentrate
on the analytics of government in a context relatively
unencumbered by the range of different legislative re-
gimes, cultures and practices compared to that which
would be evident in a global supply chain. Having demon-
strated the value of the approach, future research could
take the further step of tackling more complex, global sup-
ply chains and assessing further the analytics of govern-
ment internationally. Work building on ours should seek
to develop the approach which we have been able to estab-
lish here as a useful one, and apply it to a variety of
accounting practices. We believe that this would offer fur-
ther useful insights into how accounting is utilized, and
can better be formulated, communicated and applied, as
a means to in?uence regimes of practice.
The constraints of our research project meant that we
were reliant on the accounts given by respondents of the
practices enacted by themselves and others. Respondents
had the opportunity to seek to promote elements which
they felt re?ected a positive light on their work and to pre-
vent us visualizing aspects they preferred us not to iden-
tify. We sought to verify the accounts given with
publically available data and by cross-referencing informa-
tion gained from the range of respondents, probing further
particularly when con?icting information was received.
Considerable insight might be gained by engaging in longi-
tudinal participant-observation which gives the opportu-
nity to collect data of suf?cient validity to substantiate
claims more convincingly.
We have focused on a linear vector of governmentality,
that is, within the context of sustainability in the supply
chain between farmer and supermarket. As a result, it is
possible that factors quite outside of this section of the
L.J. Spence, L. Rinaldi / Accounting, Organizations and Society 39 (2014) 433–452 449
supply chain were acting decisively on our respondents
and the organizations they represented in terms of sustain-
ability (e.g. suppliers to farmers, abattoirs, transporters).
The phenomenon of the supermarket’s extended responsi-
bility for supplier behavior is evident. We nevertheless
acknowledge that a useful expansion of the current re-
search might be to embrace the consumer more explicitly
as part of the supply chain. Our simpli?cation and trunca-
tion of the supply chain does not fully explore the in?u-
ences on the supermarket who we have staged as the
governor. Indeed, they too are subject to governmentality
processes which we have implied but not explored in de-
tail. Not least of these is the voracity of the competitive
environment, the complex way in which such organiza-
tions are involved in guiding and advising on the formation
of soft and hard law relating to sustainability, the in?uence
of shareholders, and the evolving nature of accounting
standards and practices relating to sustainability. These
might each be fruitful areas for development and contrib-
ute to research projects in their own right.
Throughout the research we have observed the transla-
tion of sustainability into economic dimensions as a recur-
ring theme, and acknowledged the practice of economic
control presented in the guise of sustainability. This ?nd-
ing has important implications beyond this study. We see
in each element of the analytics of government that the
sustainability discourse is embedded in the familiar eco-
nomic language of accountability. It is not our intention
here to make a pejorative judgment of this phenomenon.
Nor do we seek to denigrate improved awareness and
implementation of social and environmental accounting
practices. Our contribution is to illuminate the governmen-
tality and accountability issues which are a part of embed-
ding sustainability in supply chain decision-making, and to
show the detail and intricacy of technologies and mentali-
ties which enable this.
We must conclude that sustainability by no means sub-
jugates the hegemony of commercial priorities. The eco-
nomic drivers are more deeply embedded in our case
study company than environmental and social drivers,
and these consistently win out. Embedding sustainability
in decision-making is bound, in the current paradigm of
business, to mean translating sustainability imperatives
into economic ones. Our work demonstrates that we are
still a long way from a new business model which priori-
tizes sustainability. The incremental steps which are being
taken to work toward more sustainable practices may have
the unintentional affect of reducing the potential of a more
holistic approach into the straight jacket of market mecha-
nisms. This has both scholarly and practical implications for
the development of sustainability. An optimistic assess-
ment would be that the economic language needs to be
adopted in order to allow conversations about sustainabil-
ity to be considered legitimate business discourses, and to
get a foothold into contemporary business practice. What
we observe here, however, is that even when a large,
well-resourced powerful company with a leadership openly
committed to sustainability makes a serious attempt at
embedding sustainability in supply chain decision-making,
there remain overwhelming institutionalized regimes of
practice preventing a shift away from the economic and
?nancial imperatives. Full recognition and explication of
this is crucial for policy makers, business leaders and
researchers alike if substantive change is to be affected.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful com-
ments of two anonymous reviewers, the editors of this spe-
cial issue, Jeffrey Unerman and Chris Chapman, and
colleagues who shared their thoughts on this paper: Bren-
dan O’Dwyer (University of Amsterdam) and Roel Boom-
sma (University of Amsterdam). Earlier versions of the
paper were presented at the 2010 Centre for Social and
Environmental Accounting Research International Con-
gress at the University of St. Andrews and the 2011 ‘Devel-
oping corporate responsibility theory: Exploring the value
of governmentality’ workshop, European Association of
Business in Society/Royal Holloway, University of London.
Our thanks are also due to the Accounting for Sustainabil-
ity Project and our case study company and individual
respondents. All errors remain the responsibility of the
authors.
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