Creative Accounting: Evolving Mindsets for Business and Finance Professionals

Project Overview

The world we live in is shifting from the stable, certain business environments we have traditionally known, towards uncertainty, instability, and multi-crises management. These rapidly changing, complex business environments are becoming the space accounting and business professionals are being tasked to lead. To do this effectively, accounting and business professionals will be required to adopt significantly different business mindsets.

An effective way to intervene, engage and open up leaders’ mindsets is to make use of creative arts, playfulness and performance-based interventions. Such approaches employ the creative arts as a ‘trojan horse’ to disrupt businesses for good and to shift leaders’ mindsets. Early examples have proven to be successful in other contexts, such as in the accountancy profession in Australia; through partnership this project brings these techniques to the UK and replicate them.

Project Objectives

The aim of this project is to investigate how, through performance-led artistic interventions and provocations, the creative arts and playfulness can best be utilised to change traditional mindsets and facilitate a more integrated approach to the business of accounting.

Project Impact Statement

This project is supporting the accounting profession in understanding how CFOs and senior finance professionals can make sustainability and digital a priority. This will improve the dialogue between businesses and policymakers, and facilitate the exchange of knowledge between universities, policymakers and businesses.