Title Page
ABSTRACT
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Contents
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 10
Opportunities, goals, and objectives for research 10
The Aim of the Study 12
Empowering Women - competing Logics 12
Accounting and accountability in the context of microfinance 14
Thesis Structure 15
CHAPTER 2. MICROFINANCE AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT: COMPETING LOGICS 17
Microfinance - an Overview 18
Competing Paradigms in Microfinance 20
Illustration of feminist empowerment 22
Promotion Penetration and women 23
The illustration of modernization, women in development and women and development 23
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment - the Negative Decree 27
Section overview and closing comments 28
CHAPTER 3. ANTAGONISM LOGICS AND ACCOUNTABILITY RELATIONSHIPS: NGOS AND THE MICRO FINANCE CONTEXT 30
Emulation Accountability Claims - NGOs / Microfinance Articles 31
Lack of defined accountability - Relationships to poor accountability 34
Upward Accounting and Accountability Methods: Problems and Constraints 35
Characteristics of upward accountability mechanisms (Source - Unerman and O'Dwyer, 2012 36
Characteristics of accountability mechanisms (source: Ebrahim, 2003) 38
Creating alternative social rational space in microfinance / NGO issues through a lower accountability approach 38
Multiple responsibility relationships in the context of microfinance 39
Concluding Comments - Dialogic Accounting as a Way Forward 44
CHAPTER 4. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 45
Dialogue Accounting Theory 45
Banking vs. Dialogic Educatio 46
Applying critical dialogic principles to the Sustainability Assessment Model (SAM) 50
Theoretical framework: Dialogue accounting 51
Data Analysis 54
A data-analysis framework is being developed 57
Governance Context 58
Frames and Logics 58
Governance Preparations 60
Ideological criticism 61
Intersectionality 63
Summary 64
CHAPTER 5. METHODOLOGY AND METHODS 66
Methodology 66
Result 66
Engagement in research: Theory and praxis 70
Feminist Grounding in the PAR 73
Fulfilling Penetrating Dialogic Engagement - Fieldwork Design 74
Phase 1-Background preparation for the PAR 74
Phase 2 - Case Study: Interracial Social Development Efforts (ISDE), Bangladesh 75
Field research site 76
Empowerment: Emulation Logics 77
Application of PAR 79
Methods 81
Interviews and Focus Group 82
Direct Observation 83
PAR Methods 85
Group Discussion Sessions 86
Story Telling 88
Story-telling exercise (PAR session 1) 89
Excerpt from Image Journal (Bengali translation) 91
Showing Videos 93
Image description exercise 94
Data analysis 102
Concluding Comments 106
CHAPTER 6. REPRESENTATIONS OF MICROFINANCE AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT IN SIDE 107
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment-Presumptions and Illustrations in ISDE's Policy Documents 108
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment - Premises and Illustrations on the Organisational Hierarchy 110
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment - Questioning Virtuous Spirals and the Sophisticated Language of Senior Officers on Women's Empowerment 111
Women's empowerment as representing the overall success of microfinance operations 112
Women's empowerment as a capacity to provide to the wider economy 114
Empowerment of women as a means of economic participation 115
Differences in sophisticated articulations: my 'dialogic' observations 119
Women's empowerment are access to microcredit: practical virtuous spirals and socio-economic closeness between beneficiaries and fieldworkers 122
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment - Social-logic Underpinnings 123
Microfinance and Women's Empowerment - Questioning Upper-Class Social-logic Representations 124
Concluding comments 126
CHAPTER 7. ACCOUNTING AND ACCOUNTABILITY EXERCISES IN ISDE 127
Accounting and Accountability Practices - Dominant Economic Logic 128
Microfinance Accounting and Accountability Practices in ISDE 128
Beneficiary Selection: moving from policy documents to practice 129
Beneficiary Selection: Verification and selection of roles of directors, field staff and beneficiaries 131
Group Meeting: scrutinizing 'loan collection' and 'group discussion' spaces 133
Dominant Practice in Group Meetings: scrutinizing loan collection practice 134
Group Discussions or the Lack Thereof 136
Client Information Maintenance: 'Follow-up' top-level concept verification-sorting 139
Client Information-keeping: scrutinizing lower-tier understanding of following-up 141
Develop and use 'participant group discussion' as an overreaching tool 143
Reflection on Dialogic Accounting and Accountability Practice - Concluded Comments 145
CHAPTER 8. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 147
Results - Review and discussion 147
Contributions 150
The overall participation of the theory a co-developer dialing accounting in the circumstances of a developing country 151
The effect of practice 151
Limitations of the Study 154
Future Research 156
Concluding Comments 156
REFERENCES 157
〈Table 1〉 Characteristics of upward accountability mechanisms 36
〈Table 2〉 Characteristics of accountability processes 37
〈Table 3〉 Implementing the principle of satirical dialogue to Sustainability... 50
〈Table 4〉 Demographic variables of the respondents 67
〈Table 5〉 Annual income of the Respondents 68
〈Table 6〉 Decision making indicators of the respondents 68
〈Table 7〉 Ownership of assets indicators of the respondents 69
〈Table 8〉 Comparison of socio-Economic Empowerment between Borrowers and Non-Borrowers 69
〈Table 9〉 Action-reflection cycle 72
〈Table 10〉 Superiority empowerment spaces within programmatic arbitrations 77
〈Table 11〉 Priority empowerment areas throughs 110
〈Table 12〉 Dialogical Gender Accounting and Accountability System' with ISDE 153
〈Table 13〉 Priority empowerment areas through programmatic interventions 154
[Figure 1] Thesis Structure 16
[Figure 2] Accountability issues within development organizations 34
[Figure 3] Virtuous spirals: paradigms compared 40
[Figure 4] Relevance relationship between 'multiple' and 'multi-... 41
[Figure 5] CETZAM's accountability matrix 43
[Figure 6] Fernandez framework (pluralist, the feminist framework of the policy) 57
[Figure 7] Data analysis structure 64
[Figure 8] Par Method 87
[Figure 9] Meena Cartoon 94
[Figure 10] Visible photographs for the assembly 95
[Figure 11] Women working in groups 96
[Figure 12] Group (A, B, and C) stories written in Bangla 97
[Figure 13] Personal life stories (in Bangla) 99
[Figure 14] Coding Data with NVIVO 103
[Figure 15] Obvious models of ideas acquired from interview transcripts 106