Changing Control and Accounting Regimes in an African Gold Mine: Emergence of New Despotic Control

Purpose – To examine whether the framework of management accounting transformations in Hopper et al. (2009) applies to accounting changes in the Ashanti Gold Corporation (AGC) in Ghana over 120 years from pre-colonialism to recent times. Design/methodology/approach – Mixed data sources are used, namely interviews, observations of practices, historical documentation, company reports, and research papers and theses. The results are categorized within the periods and contextual factors in the Hopper et al. framework. Findings –The Hopper et al. model was robust. Despotic controls with minimal management accounting but stewardship accounting to the head office in London prevailed under colonialism. Upon independence state capitalist policies descended into politicized state capitalism. Under nationalization the performance of mines deteriorated and accounting became decoupled from operations. However, AGC remained privately owned, it embraced profit centres and budgeting, and was relatively successful commercially. In the early 1980s fiscal crises forced Ghana’s government to turn to the World Bank and IMF for loans. Their conditions precipitated market capitalism embracing widespread privatisations. This marked a gradual transformation of AGC into a foreign multinational, organized along divisional lines that today exercises despotic control through supply chain management that renders labour precarious, and neglects corporate social accounting. 1 The authors wish to thank the CIMA Research Foundation for supporting this research