Modes of timing and spacing professional decisions: On the relationship between costing and caring in child protection work

• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12212
• Author: Ida Schrøder
• Published date: 01 November 2019

Received: 1 May2017 Revised: 3 December 2018 Accepted:1 February2019

DOI: 10.1111/faam.12212

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Modes of timing and spacing professional

decisions: On the relationship between costing

and caring in child protection work

Ida Schrøder

Department of OperationsManagement,

Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg,

Denmark

Correspondence

IdaSchrøder, Department of Operations Man-

agement,Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg

Plads3, B402, Frederiksberg 2000, Denmark.

Email:idsc@kp.dk

Fundinginformation

DanishNational Board of Social Services; Inde-

pendentResearch Fund Denmark Research,

Grant/AwardNumber: 1329-00137B

Abstract

Within public sector accounting research, the question of how “cost-

ing” is implemented and how it transformsprofessional “caring” work

has been widely studied and debated. Studies have, for instance,

pointed to contextual variables that make cost information more or

less useful in professional decision making. However, in doing so,

scholars also assume that decision making follows a linear path that

can be informed and transformed by cost information. In this paper,

I take it as my starting point that both costing and caring vary as

they are combined in professional decision-making processes. I use

the broad and processual definition of calculation from the work of

Callon and Muniesa to analyze how distinctions about vulnerable

children’s situations are made relevant for the choice and delimita-

tion of social services. This allows me to investigate how, when, and

where distinctions betweencosting and caring are drawnrather than

assuming that costing and caring are preexistingand stable practices

that can be put to use or not.

KEYWORDS

actor-network theory, caring, costing, professional decisions, social

services, spacing, timing

1INTRODUCTION

The ambition of this paper is to investigate the relationship between “costing” and “caring”in the allocation of social

services to individual children in need. This concerns children and young people who havebeen neglected, maltreated,

and sexually or physically abused. And it concerns children and young people who, for reasons such as poverty,men-

tal issues, or lack of parental abilities, are not developing, or are at risk of not developing, like their peers. Deciding

how to intervene in the lives of children and their families is an ambiguous and meticulous process with far-reaching

consequences for the individual child and family as well as for public budgets. Interventions range in scope and scale

from a few hours of pedagogical guidance at home with the family to 24-h treatment of the child in an out-of-home

Financial Acc & Man. 2019;35:319–336. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/faam c

2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 319

320 SCHRØDER

facility.In Denmark, 37% of children received social services in 2017 and this amounted to costs of EUR 2.5 billion (DKK

18.2 billion). This is one third of the annual national budget for all social services. By wayof comparison, this is only 25%

less than the total Danish day-care expenditurefor all children excluding those with special needs (Statistics Denmark,

2018). The costs for social services are allocated on a daily basis by social work professionals in the child protection

departments of local governments. In this paper,I unfold how information about the costs of services are part of their

decision making.

From public sector accounting research (PSAR) in the area of health and social care, we know that professional

decisions concerning clinical treatment and social services have been transformed since the introduction of costing

systems and decentralized budget responsibility (Abernethy, Chua, Grafton, & Mahama, 2007; Bracci & Llewellyn,

2012; Chapman, Kern, & Laguecir, 2014; Frandsen,2010; Jönsson & Solli, 1993; Kurunmäki, 2004; Llewellyn, 1993,

1998a; Llewellyn & Northcott, 2005; Pettersen& Solstad, 2014; Sjögren & Fernler, 2019). This research traces a histor-

ical trend toward increased collaboration between accounting systems and professional judgment to a degree where

it is no longer possible to separate the two (Kurunmäki, 2004; Pettersen & Solstad, 2014; Sjögren & Fernler,2019).

Only a few studies, however, have set out to investigatethe involvement of costing in decision-making processes in

regard to individual clients and patients (Bracci & Llewellyn, 2012; Frandsen, 2010; Sjögren & Fernler,2019). Bracci

and Llewellyn (2012) argue that the degree of complexity in the clients’ problems influence the costing practices, and

Frandsen (2010) argues that costing numbers are translated into the clients’ disease, and Sjögren and Fernler(2019)

suggest that costs are translated into entities of time. In this way,the papers suggest that calculative practices are dis-

tributed into a broad variety of activities that make it possible to translate accounting into the domain of caring, and

caring into the domain of accounting. However,there is also the possibility that the relationship between costing and

caring varies according to the practical decision-making processes rather than just being a matter of translating the

one into the other.

This paper is motivated by the question of how cost information comes to be involvedin professional decision mak-

ing regarding individual clients and citizens. It extends the research on calculativepractices as distributed into a broad

variety of activities by opening up the notions of both costing and caring and bystudying them from the inside. In doing

so, I suggest that costing and caring emerge as the consequence of practical and calculative capabilities rather than

being inherently opposed and distinct practices.Accordingly, the research question I ask is how, when, and where distinc-

tions between costing and caring are drawn. This contributes to the debate on the relationship between costing and car-

ing by making a movementfrom looking for costing as an input and/or outcome of decision making (cf. Abernethy et al.,

2007; Abernethy & Stoelwinder,1995; Arnaboldi, Lapsley, & Steccolini, 2015; Bracci, 2014; Bracci & Llewellyn, 2012;

Carlsson-Wall,Kraus, Lund, & Sjögren, 2016; Chapman et al., 2014; Glennerster, 1994; Kraus, 2012; Kraus& Lindholm,

2010; Kurunmäki, 1999, 2004; Kurunmäki, Lapsley,& Melia, 2003; Laughlin, 1996; Llewellyn, 1993, 1998a; Llewellyn

& Northcott, 2005; Llewellyn & Saunders, 1998; Mannion & Smith, 1997; Nyland & Pettersen, 2004; Pettersen & Sol-

stad, 2014) toward investigatinghow, when, and where the relationship between costing and caring emerges through-

out decision-making processes. This contribution is important, because it brings nuance to our understanding of the

relationship between costing and caring and it allows for an analysis of how variances in the use of cost information

occur.

In order to answer the research question, I employ the broad and processual notion of calculation as proposed by

Callon and Muniesa (2005). I use this as an approach to analyze how, when, and where distinctions are drawn about

the situation of a child and made relevant for the choice and delimitation of child protection services. This allows me to

treat cost information on the same terms as needs information. In this way,I let the empirical material unfold how the

relationshipbetween costs and needs emerge. The analysis is based on a qualitative study of professional decision mak-

ing in the child protection departments of three Danish local governments.I identify three modes of timing and spacing

professional decisions, each of which constitutes a specific relationship between costing and caring: (1) protecting, (2)

maintaining, and (3) preventing.These modes of timing and spacing professional decisions contribute to PSAR by offer-

ing a categorization of the varied ways in which professional decisions are organized to takeboth individual needs and

information about costs into account.