Framing Financial Responsibility : The Fabrication of Choice Making Consumers in Everyday Life
Year: 2010
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: How does one turn everyday people into financially responsible citizens? In organizations, calculative means and procedures are claimed to serve as critical vehicles when introducing reforms coupled with greater individual financial responsibility. However, this paper considers the limits of accounting as a technology of financial responsibilization when targeting non-professional everyday people with no or limited knowledge of financial issues. The paper offers a detailed empirical investigation of how government authorities define and communicate the concept of a “financially responsible person” aiming at influencing young people’s attitude towards their own financial affairs. The analysis demonstrates that in order to assume responsibility, the individual first needs to be equipped with choice making capabilities. The ability of making choices is thus presumed to serve as a prerequisite for taking on financial responsibility. Such capacity building is assumed not to be done by accounting techniques, but requires a variety of other social and discursive exercises. By moving beyond the borders of the organization, investigating the personal financial sphere of everyday life, the paper furthers the understanding of how individual financial responsibility is built.
Author: Charlotta Bay
Institution: Uppsala University
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W336077950