Taking pluralism seriously:Embedded moralities in management accounting and control systems

Professor Norman Macintosh has long been a leading, and at times a dissonant, voice in critical accounting studies, exhibiting an intellectual dexterity seldom encountered in the accounting academy. His work ranges from the application of traditional organizational theories within work organizations to poststructural renderings of capital market exigencies. Here, we consider and extend Professor Macintosh's work contemplating the morality embedded within, and propagated by, management accounting and control systems (macs). We begin with Macintosh (1995) employing structuration theory in investigating the ethics of profit manipulation within large, decentralized corporations. The work highlights the fundamental dialectical contradictions within these work organizations, demonstrates the indeterminacy of traditional ethical reasoning, and shows the extent to which macs provide legitimating underpinnings for management action. We propose to extend the conversation using the tools provided in Macintosh's subsequent work: a Levinasian ethic (Macintosh et al., 2009), and heteroglossic accounting (Macintosh, 2002)—both emerging from his poststructuralist predilections. A Levinasian perspective provides an ontologically grounded ethic, and heteroglossic accounting calls for multiple accountings representing alternative moral voices. A critical dialogic framework is proposed as a theoretic for imagining heteroglossic accounting that takes pluralism seriously by recognizing the reality of irresolvable differences and asymmetric power relationships associated with assorted moral perspectives.

Design and evaluation of tinnitus synthesis methods: From spectral to spatial matching

Purpose
This study was designed to investigate methods to help patients suffering from unilateral tinnitus synthesizing an auditory replica of their tinnitus.

Materials and methods
Two semi-automatic methods (A and B) derived from the auditory threshold of the patient and a method (C) combining a pure tone and a narrow band-pass noise centred on an adjustable frequency were devised and rated on their likeness over two test sessions. A third test evaluated the stability over time of the synthesized tinnitus replica built with method C, and its proneness to merge with the patient's tinnitus. Patients were then asked to try and control the lateralisation of this single percept through the adjustment of the tinnitus replica level.

Results
The first two tests showed that seven out of ten patients chose the tinnitus replica built with method C as their preferred one. The third test, performed on twelve patients, revealed pitch tuning was rather stable over a week interval. It showed that eight patients were able to consistently match the central frequency of the synthesized tinnitus (presented to the contralateral ear) to their own tinnitus, which leaded to a unique tinnitus percept. The lateralisation displacement was consistent across patients and revealed an average range of 29dB to obtain a full lateral shift from the ipsilateral to the contralateral side.

Conclusions
Although spectrally simpler than the semi-automatic methods, method C could replicate patients' tinnitus, to some extent. When a unique percept between synthesized tinnitus and patients' tinnitus arose, lateralisation of this percept was achieved.