Audit as political struggle: the doxa of managerialism clashing with the uncertainty of real life

ABSTRACT

Auditing firms tend to promote rule-bound orthodoxies about management based on the fiction that the world is more predictable than it is. Managers in INGOs find that long-term planning requires endless readjustment. This article explores what happens when these conflicting knowledge regimes clash during auditing. It draws on Bourdieu’s ideas to illuminate how different forms of social capital come into play in conflicting versions of management and control, whether centralised and prereflected or distributed and adaptive. In this case, a conflict during audit was resolved through negotiation and the establishment of alliances, showing how being audited requires complex political skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society – NGOs
• Aid – Accountability, Aid effectiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emma Crewe

Emma Crewe is a Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London, the Director of the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People, and a doctoral research supervisor at Hertfordshire Business School.

Chris Mowles

Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management and Director of the Doctor of Management programme at Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK.