Work

Accountability for death(s): Reconceptualising corporate responsibility through thanatoaccountability

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article challenges the narrow confines of traditional accountability by introducing thanatoaccountability as a theoretical framework. Through an analysis of the German company Degussa during the Holocaust, we uncover how accounting metrics and accountability mechanisms actively obscured and normalised corporate participation in genocide. Drawing on archival analysis, we show how accounting and accountability mechanisms were repurposed to identify, exclude and ultimately erase Jewish life – first from markets, then from the political sphere and finally from existence itself. Degussa's progression from initial resistance to active complicity reveals how routine business practices, cloaked in bureaucratic neutrality, normalised genocide, even when financial gains were minimal. Thanatoaccountability not only exposes the inadequacy of conventional legal and financial accountability in capturing these processes but also offers crucial analytical tools for understanding how modern corporations normalise systematic death, highlighting how accounting practices can be weaponised to facilitate death while simultaneously shielding corporations from accountability for those death(s).

Source: Accounting History

DOI: 10.1177/10323732251411552

Authors: Erin Twyford, Corinne Cortese, Warwick Funnell

Institutions: University of Wollongong, University of Kent

Language: English

Topic: Accounting and Financial Management

Subfield: Accounting

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650