This introductory essay reviews recent advances in the emergent field of social studies of finance (SSF) and, subsequently, sets out to illustrate how a closer engagement with SSF might benefit research interests in accounting and vice versa. Finally, it provides a sketch of how mutual...

This paper analyses the use and circulation of nternational auditing standards within a large post-Soviet Russian audit firm, as it faces up to the challenges of international harmonisation. It describes this process as one of ‘connecting worlds’ and translation. In a detailed field study...

This paper studies the roles that images and ideas of market creation played in the re-articulation of relations between government, audit expertise and professional organisation in post-Soviet Russia. It examines the change from state-led inspection to market-oriented auditing between 1985 and...

Really Responsive Regulation seeks to add to current theories of enforcement by stressing the case for regulators to be responsive not only to the attitude of the regulated firm but also to the operating and cognitive frameworks of firms; the institutional environment and performance of the...

Principles-based regulation is high on the regulatory agenda in a number of regulatory domains, most particularly financial regulation. Its supporters argue that it provides a flexible regulatory regime which can facilitate innovation; its detractors argue that it is simply lax regulation. This...

Increasingly, regulation is being seen as 'decentred' from the state, and even from the well recognised forums of self-regulation. A decentred analysis has several strands, and seeing the nature and problems of regulation from a decentred perspective can be very stimulating. It opens up the...

The article draws on decentred analyses of regulation, which emphasise the fragmentation and hybridisation of regulatory systems, to analyse contemporary financial services regulation, principally in the UK. The analysis focuses on actors, their regulatory capacities, the regulatory functions...

In the light of a great deal of negative press activity and factual inaccuracies presented in the media, The London Stock Exchange approached LSE Enterprise to commission an independent research study, which would analyse and comment on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), London's stock...

Regulators in a number of countries are increasingly developing "risk-based" strategies to manage their resources, and their reputations as "risk-based regulators" have become much lauded by regulatory reformers. This widespread endorsement of risk-based regulation, together with the experience...