Discipline and punish: Exploring the application of IFRS 10 and IFRS 12

This paper uses IFRS 10 and IFRS 12 as a case study to demonstrate how a sense of enclosure, partitioning, hierarchical surveillance and normalising sanction is used to encourage compliance with new accounting prescriptions. Detailed interviews with corporate governance, financial reporting and financial regulatory experts are used to explore the functioning of Foucauldian power in a practical accounting system. Interviewees also reveal how, even if complete Panoptic control over the consolidation accounting space is not achieved, the disciplinary potential of the new standards is sufficient to support the valid expectation of compliance in the eyes of stakeholders and substitute for a loss of trust in the aftermath of corporate scandal and financial crisis.