virtuOus futuRes: Alternative aCcounts for desirabLe dEmocratic Societies

Objective

The challenge of ORACLES is to understand how the combination of accounting practices and artistic approaches can assist in the creation of virtuous futures for democratic societies. Rising challenges such as social inequalities, and conflicts are increasingly forcing public organisations to imagine different, desirable, inclusive futures. At the same time, though, democratic institutions are facing constituencies’ growing disinterest in general democratic life, leading to declining trust, and growing dissatisfaction with public accountability processes. ORACLES seeks to investigate alternative approaches to reform such processes, embedding creativity and morality into accounting, and transforming it from an oracle providing deceivingly safe answers, to a tool for civically engaged, democratic futures. The project will provide an analysis of how alternative, art-based accounts can be constructed and inspire social transformation, focusing on artistic productions such as Science Fiction (SF) as complementary to traditional accounting storytelling and practices. It will then move into specific dynamics of accountability in organisational processes, investigating how an alternative future is constructed within an arts-centred project in Palermo, Italy. Finally, it will develop a new framework to use accounting and reporting as a tool for the common good, harnessing insights from artistic approaches and moral theory. Results will be translated into actionable insights for EU communities and policymakers involved in the construction of better futures through the production of a dedicated policy brief, harnessing insights from the project scientific articles, and ensuring the knowledge transfer to both policymakers, and constituencies. Thus, ORACLES will generate contributions in the fields of accounting, organisation studies, and business ethics, and concrete policy implications for local, national, and international policy processes involving collective decision-making.