The mountains are still there

Abstract

In the UK and elsewhere, accounting vocabularies and practices have come to permeate everyday life through their involvement in the management of hospitals, schools, universities, charities, trade unions, etc. This has been accompanied by an increase in the power of accountancy and the institutions of accountancy which increasingly function as quasi‐legislators. Such developments call for a (re)consideration of the role of accounting academics/intellectuals. Argues that, in a world where major business and professional interests are organized to advance sectional interests, to promote stereotyped images and to limit public debates, accounting academics/intellectuals have a responsibility to give visibility to such issues and thereby mobilize potentialities for gaining a fuller understanding of, and encouraging more democratic participation in, the design and operation of major social institutions. Suggests that, despite the constraints on academics, there are considerable opportunities to create, develop or become active in public policy debates through networks that comprise politicians, journalists, disaffected practitioners and concerned citizens – all of whom are potential allies in furthering a process in which accounting and its institutions are problematized and accounting professionals are rendered more accountable.