Bachelor level: Teacher at Research Methods/Accounting (REME) and Bachelor Thesis/Accounting (EXKA)
Master level:  Teacher at Contemporary Research Issues in Accounting (CRIA)
Supervision: Supervising bachelor- and master theses in accounting/auditing/management accounting

Head of course: EXKA (bachelor level) and CRIA (master level)

 

Area of research: Financial communication

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Makeover Accounting

  2018. Charlotta Bay. Accounting, Organizations and Society 64 (January), 44-54

  Article

  The constitutive ability of accounting to produce effects, influencing people's minds and behaviour, has been widely acknowledged in accounting literature. This paper argues, however, that in order for accounting to have an impact on people, its figures needs to be interpretable to its intended users. But what happens in situations where people are considered as inhibited in reading and interpreting financial information? This paper investigates how financial accounts are presented to individuals believed to be impaired in their ability to make sense of its figures. It does so by moving the empirical focus beyond the borders of the professional organisation and into the private sphere of everyday life, examining how a televised financial makeover show literally re-presents financial information in order to turn its participants into financially responsible citizens. The paper's empirical findings give reasons for problematising the conditions under which accounting is able to affect people, concluding that, without taking people's ability to interpret financial accounts into consideration, the possibilities of the accounts having an impact on their users risk falling short.

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• Finansens folkdräkt

  2015. Charlotta Bay.

  Book

  Dagens finanansialiserade samhälle ställer allt högre krav på individers ekonomiska ansvarstagande. Den här boken handlar om hur det kommer till uttryck genom olika former av finansiell folkbildning. I tre studier av svenska staten, tv-programmet Lyxfällan och ett svenskt pensionsförsäkringsbolag, beskirver och analyserar författaren hur ekonomisk information genomgår en rad översättningar på vägen från avsändarna till mottagarna. Hon blottlägger de metoder och översättningsmekanismer som de studerade samhällsaktörerna använder i syfte att göra ekonomisk information mer tillgänglig och relevant för människor i deras vardag. 

  Efter vilken mall är då dagens finansiella fokdräkt skuren? Det handar om att fostra aktivt väljande medborgare som förstår sitt ekonomiska medborgarskap inte enbart som en rättighet, utan också som en skyldighet gentemot den egna ekonomiska välfärden. Detta kan vara en utmanande uppgift, visar bokens berättelser.

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• Situating financial literacy

  2014. Charlotta Bay, Bino Catasús, Gustav Johed. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 25 (1), 36-45

  Article

  This paper comments on the conceptualisation of financial literacy by investigating how it is defined, problematised, and operationalised as a part of the efforts to overcome its perceived impediments. The backdrop of this study is the idea that the financial literacy movement goes hand in hand with the financialisation of society. By reporting from a study of financial literacy practices, the aim is to disentangle the notion of financial literacy from the assumption that it is a singular capability that, when gained, will automatically affect people’s financial practices. The paper draws on a recent development in literacy research, New Literacy Studies, and on its division into autonomous and ideological definitions of literacy. The empirical illustrations originate from the efforts made to decrease financial illiteracy among Swedish adolescents and the demand for financial literacy in audit committees. Contrary to earlier studies, this paper demonstrates that financial literacy does not merely refer to a character trait that researchers may find lacking among the marginalised actors in society. Financial literacy cannot merely be viewed as the ability to read and write in the language of finance and accounting. Instead, financial literacy is a concept that needs to be situated and studied in practice because the characteristics that constitute financial literacy, or those that apply to it, vary with time and place.

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Show all publications by Charlotta Bay at Stockholm University