Financial reporting as technology that supports and sustains imperial expansion, maintenance and control in the colonial and post-colonial globalisation: The case of the Jamaican economy

In the colonial Jamaican economy, available evidence has enriched our understanding that financial reporting techniques and practices supported, sustained and legitimised the expansion, maintenance and control of the triangular relationship of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. Financial reporting techniques enabled the colonialist and transnational businesses in Jamaica to accumulate and allocate economic surpluses and safeguard the interests of colonial and other international capital by watching over capital and performing global functions of capital. The advent of independence did not necessarily mean that these methods were withdrawn with formal decolonisation. This current era of global capitalism under the auspices of globalisation, has ushered in more developments in the financial reporting field and poses developmental implications for Jamaica as a former colony. There is pressure to entrench even more than what already exists—financial reporting standards and practices that are more in line with western standards and practices to fit the requirements of international mobility of capital. Yet while this occurs, the impression continues that financial reporting techniques and practices are nevertheless neutral and rational calculation, enabling interested parties to produce socially mediated accounts. The aim of this paper is to challenge this thesis. In doing so, the paper provides evidence which questions the legitimacy and the claim that financial reporting techniques and practices are neutral and rational calculations. The evidence provided in this paper seems to suggest that financial reporting is a political technology, with grave socio-economic and political consequences for the colonial, post-colonial globalisation era Jamaica.