Accounting for the Salvation Army : a narrative approach

Abstract

In 2015 The Salvation Army will celebrate 150 years of service to the community. The organisation which today has spread throughout the world traces its origins to the work of William and Catherine Booth, itinerant evangelists in Victorian England. Originally called the Christian Mission, the focus was on Christian evangelism, personal salvation for the individual based on the belief of the time that the spiritual change of an individual was the way to improve their position in society. By the 1880s William Booth realised religious attention was more likely when individuals were not economically and physically challenged, and assisting them in a practical way was demonstration of the Christian values. The rise of social service activity initially came about through the actions of individual Salvation Army members and ultimately by the official endorsement by the organisation of a separate social service arm. In the 1890s the social service of The Salvation Army was set up via its own unique trust deed. The rationale for the separation between the evangelical and social operations was to allow people to direct their support to the preferred area of activity being undertaken. The people who The Salvation Army served were often the least able to provide the financial support for the organisation. William Booth needed to make constant calls for money; this placed him into conflict with many sections of Victorian England. Financial accountability and integrity were at the forefront of both the criticism and the defence of the organisation. The use of financial reporting, annual reports and other narratives has been a constant feature of the organisation since its inception. In the current period The Salvation Army is generally recognized by the public as primarily a social service organization. This view is at odds with how the leadership of the organisation sees the organisation, namely as a part of the Christian church with a single mission expressed in the dual form of spiritual and social services. This potential identity mismatch forms an important component of this thesis. In particular the thesis draws on information from United Kingdom, Canada and Australia to examine how the organisation has grappled with its identity problem and the way this has been reflected in its diverse approaches to accountability. The research question looks at the identity of The Salvation Army as it is constructed through its narrative accountability. In the 1890s the dominant identity was the spiritual side of The Salvation Army and funds in the spiritual side subsidised the then newly formed social side. Post World War I the social side began to become the dominant funds source for the organisation. In the current period the financial flow is heavily dominated by the social service component of The Salvation Army activities. Drawing from the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, a hermeneutic analysis of The Salvation Army is undertaken. By locating the formation of The Salvation Army within part of its historical context a 'sense' is developed as to how the organisation and its founder William Booth responded to its historical position and the rationale for setting the dual organisational structure. Documents produced by the organisation across a number of countries and in the public domain were accessed and analysed. Following Ricoeur the many narratives identified within these documents were reconfigured to recreate the description of The Salvation Army from a narrative accountability perspective. The stated forms of accountability are reflected in the context of the annual reports and how they approach fiscal compliance requirements. However the forms of accountability used by The Salvation Army have been contested since the 1890s. The outcome of this study shows how the organisation manages to cultivate an image of a social work dominated organisation. Any conflicts in identity and accountability are carefully minimised by the overwhelming success of the social service narrative. However internal narratives of The Salvation Army claim a holistic response to meeting its obligations by the dual mission of spiritual and social. The application of the narrative accountability as demonstrated through Ricoeur's work allows for any organisation to have its identity validated through the use of a hermeneutic analysis. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of organisational identity and accountability. RESTRICTED TO ABSTRACT ONLY UNTIL 15/08/2019

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English