Why Nobody Owns the Whole Thing
The work of preventing failure has no visible output, which is why it is measured only on its bad days.
Read essay →Writing
Writing from inside the work.
Essays on recovery, systems, entrepreneurship, economics, and scripture. Research and professional publications in accounting and business.
The public argument
Where responsibility lands.
Why Nobody Pays for Coordination
Coordination has no separate line on an invoice. Payment can make the work possible, but payment does not assign someone to do it.
Read essay →Economics · October 23, 2026
The order of claims
Stephen Deason examines agreed claims, the owner’s uncertain residual, and why an ownership result must be understood in relation to company promises.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · October 23, 2026
The work of supervision
Stephen Deason examines why capable employees still need supervision, and how assigned seats resolve conflicting requests and unfinished work.
Read essay →Systems · October 23, 2026
The company’s appointed advocate
Stephen Deason examines how purchasing managers, supervisors, and owners protect a company through assigned attention, decisions, and reporting.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · October 23, 2026
Kindness and the delayed cost
Stephen Deason examines kindness, postponed conversations, and how avoiding an immediate cost can shift a larger burden to employees and customers.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · October 23, 2026
Reading a P&L from the owner’s seat
Stephen Deason examines profit, cash flow, collections, and obligations, showing why an income statement cannot answer every ownership question.
Read essay →Foundations · October 23, 2026
Coase and the reason for a company
Stephen Deason examines Coase’s account of the firm, asking what market transactions and internal organization each require a company to coordinate.
Read essay →Foundations · October 23, 2026
Knight and the limits of a forecast
Stephen Deason examines Knight’s distinction between risk and uncertainty, and why a detailed forecast still needs evidence for its assumptions.
Read essay →Economics · October 23, 2026
Alchian, Demsetz, and the shared result
Stephen Deason examines Alchian and Demsetz on team production, individual contributions, monitoring, and the limits of judging by a shared result.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · October 23, 2026
Preparing someone to own
Stephen Deason examines the change from management to ownership, including competing commitments, uncertainty, and responsibility for the company’s result.
Read essay →Systems · October 23, 2026
A complaint with an unfinished promise
Stephen Deason examines why reporting a care concern can leave the promised response unassigned, with residents and families carrying the unfinished work.
Read essay →Recovery · October 23, 2026
A plan for a hard hour
Stephen Deason examines the gaps between recovery services, daily obligations, and hard hours, asking who carries the support no organization has assigned.
Read essay →Systems · September 16, 2026
What a Hospital Knows About the Cost of a Hip
A hospital can know what it paid for an implant while still lacking a patient-specific cost for the nursing around it.
Read essay →Systems · September 9, 2026
Where Feedback Points
Feedback can improve work or damage performance, depending on what the feedback directs a person to notice.
Read essay →Recovery · September 2, 2026
The Bias Blind Spot
Why learning about bias, intelligence, and introspection do not make us much better at seeing our own.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · August 28, 2026
A Bonus That Has Never Been Zero
A bonus that has never once been zero tells the person receiving it almost nothing.
Read essay →Recovery · August 22, 2026
Motivated Reasoning Produces Good Arguments
Motivated reasoning does not produce flimsy excuses. It produces arguments strong enough to survive inspection.
Read essay →Systems · August 18, 2026
Why Nobody Owns the Whole Thing
The work of preventing failure has no visible output, which is why it is measured only on its bad days.
Read essay →Recovery · August 12, 2026
Confirmation Bias and the Test You Never Ran
The examples that agree with you cannot answer the question you are actually asking.
Read essay →Systems · August 7, 2026
Why Nobody Pays for Coordination
Coordination has no separate line on an invoice. Payment can make the work possible, but payment does not assign someone to do it.
Read essay →Recovery · August 3, 2026
The Disease Model and Blame
Changing the causal story has not been shown to reduce blame. Changing the noun used for a person can.
Read essay →Entrepreneurship · July 29, 2026
Who the Reserve Belongs To
An owner’s claim on a reserve is real, conditional, and last in line.
Read essay →Systems · July 25, 2026
What Gets Lost in a Handoff
Information dies at a handoff because the receiving form decides what survives.
Read essay →Foundations · June 10, 2026
John Graunt’s Shop Arithmetic
What changed when a London tradesman treated a weekly plague warning as evidence about a city.
Read essay →Economics · June 10, 2026
The Hot Hand and Two Kinds of Bias
A famous study used a statistically biased instrument to measure a psychological bias. The difference matters.
Read essay →Recovery · January 13, 2020
Life Goes On: Reflections on 2019
A candid reflection on sobriety, family illness, loneliness, and the work that does not finish.
Read essay →Research and Publications
Stephen Deason’s doctoral work concentrated on accounting, accounting data, and behavioral economics. His publications include archival accounting research, an academic working paper, thesis research, and professional writing.
Peer-reviewed journal publication
Accounting Horizons, 2021
Stephen Deason, with co-authors
The Role of Accounting in Ponzi Schemes
Peer-reviewed archival accounting research on accounting reports, investor trust, and regulatory detection in Ponzi schemes.
Academic working paper
SSRN, 2015
Who Gets Swindled in Ponzi Schemes?
An empirical study of the characteristics of SEC-prosecuted Ponzi schemes, their victims, and the ties associated with scheme outcomes.
Theses and academic research
Emory University, 2018
Incentivizing Creativity: Cognitive Depletion and Multi-Dimension Incentive Contracts
An experimental study of how cognitive depletion and multi-dimension incentive contracts affect creative work.
Professional article
CPA Practice Advisor, 2017
5 Steps & 5 Online Resources to Produce Accurate Cash Flow Projections
A practical guide to building cash flow projections, tracking cash movements, and identifying a potential cash shortfall before it arrives.
Original essays
Essays
Independent essays on recovery, systems, entrepreneurship, economics, and scripture.
Browse original essays →Explore by series
RecoveryWriting about the choices, work, and institutions that shape a life in recovery.→SystemsStories and essays about the handoffs nobody owns, and the people who pay for them.→EntrepreneurshipWriting from inside the daily work of building, buying, and carrying responsibility.→EconomicsQuestions of choice, incentives, uncertainty, and the stories people tell about value.→FoundationsThe sources, methods, and arguments that made economic reasoning possible.→ScriptureClose reading and reflection on faith, obligation, failure, and grace.→