This paper aims to enhance understanding of accounting concepts and practices in the industrial relations community by contrasting the alleged technical and nontechnical roles of accounting. By non-technical roles, we mean the ideological, social and perception-fashioning roles of accounting procedures and processes. Our principal contention is that the industrial relations community would benefit from improved awareness of the non-technical character of accounting—especially through alertness to the rhetorical features and social construction of accounting. Four often-unapparent nontechnical roles of accounting in industrial relations are discussed and their significance is highlighted.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abdeen A (1980) The role of accounting in project evaluation and control: The Syrian experience . International Journal of Accounting15, 143-158 .
2.
Aho J (1985) Rhetoric and the invention of double entry bookkeeping . Rhetorica3, 21-43 .
3.
Amernic J , Aranya N (1990) Accounting information and the outcome of collective bargaining: Some exploratory evidence . Behavioural Research in Accounting2, 1-31 .
4.
Amernic J , Craig R (1992) Employer equivocality and union heterogeneity as determinants of the role of accounting in collective bargaining . Accounting Auditing and Accountability Journal5, 60-79 .
5.
Amernic J , Craig R (1995) Accounting images and the resolution of labor contract costing conflict . Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector24, 131-151 .
6.
Amernic JH (1985) The roles of accounting in collective bargaining . Accounting, Organizations and Society10, 227-253 .
7.
Amernic JH , Losell D , Craig RJ (2000) Economic value added as ideology through a critical lens: Towards a pedagogy for management fashion?Accounting Education: An International Journal9, 343-367 .
8.
Batstone E (1979) Systems of domination, accommodation, and industrial democracy. In: Burns TR , Karlson LE , Rus V , eds, Work and Power. London: Sage .
9.
Benston GJ (1982) Accounting numbers and economic values . The Antitrust BulletinSpring, 161-215 .
10.
Birnberg JG (1980) The role of accounting in financial disclosure . Accounting, Organizations and Society5, 71-80 .
11.
Bougen PD , Ogden SG , Outram Q (1990) The appearance and disappearance of accounting: Wage determination in the UK coal industry . Accounting, Organizations and Society15, 149-170 .
12.
Brown JA (1999) Competing ideologies in the accounting and industrial relations environment . British Accounting Review32, 43-75 .
13.
Brownell P (1982) The role of accounting data in performance evaluation, budgetary participation, and organizational effectiveness . Journal of Accounting Research20, 12-27 .
14.
Bruns W , Merchant KA (1990) The dangerous morality of managing earnings . Management AccountingAugust, 22-25 .
15.
Burchell S , Clubb C , Hopwood A , Hughes J , Nahapiet J (1980) The roles of accounting in organizations and society . Accounting, Organizations and Society5, 5-27 .
16.
Burgess R , Lane MR (1993) A new tool for collective bargaining . Labor Studies Journal18(3), 39-44 .
17.
Cascio WF (1982) Costing Human Resources: The Financial Impact of Behavior in Organizations. Boston: Kent Publishing .
18.
Chambers RJ (1999) The poverty of accounting discourse . ABACUS35, 241-251 .
19.
Chapman M , Buckley PJ (1997) Markets, transaction costs, economists and social anthropologists. In: Carrier JG , ed, Meanings of the Market. Oxford: Berg .
20.
Clarke F , Craig R , Amernic J (1990) Misplaced trust in reliance on published accounting data for wage negotiation: An international perspective . International Journal of Accounting25, 184-201 .
21.
Clarke FL , Craig RJ (1991) Juridical perceptions of the relevance of accounting data in wage fixation . British Journal of Industrial Relations29, 463-483 .
22.
Clarke FL , Craig RJ (1992) Enterprise Negotiations and the Accounting Problems in Determining Capacity to Pay. Industrial Relations Research Series No. 3. Canberra: AGPS .
23.
Craig R , Clarke F (1993) The unserviceability of published accounting data for enterprise bargaining in the public sector: An Australian perspective . Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector22, 179-191 .
24.
Craig RJ , Amernic JH (1997) Images and rhetoric: Accounting and collective bargaining . Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector26, 279-293 .
25.
Craig RJ , Amernic JH (2000) Disputes about disclosure of financial information in arbitration: Cases and guidelines . International Journal of Employment Studies8, 43-60 .
26.
Craig RJ , Amernic JH (2004) The deployment of accounting-related rhetoric in the prelude to a privatization . Accounting, Auditing, Accountability Journal17, 41-58 .
27.
Delaney KJ (1994) The organizational construction of the ‘bottom line’ . Social Problems41, 497-518 .
28.
Epstein MJ (1993) The expanding role of accounting in society . Management Accounting74, 22-26 .
29.
Ezzamel M (1994) The emergence of the ‘accountant’ in the institutions of ancient Egypt . Management Accounting Research5, 221-246 .
30.
Ezzamel M , Bourn M (1990) The roles of accounting information systems in an organization experiencing financial crisis . Accounting, Organizations and Society15, 399-424 .
31.
Fairclough N (1992) Discourse and text: Linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis . Discourse and Society3, 193-217 .
32.
Fairclough N (2000) Language in the New Capitalism. Posted on LANGUAGE IN THE NEW CAPITALISM WEBSITE (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/lnc/lncarchive.html 2000), last visited 19 January 2005.
33.
Fischer HC (1969) The Uses of Accounting in Collective Bargaining. Los Angeles: Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California .
34.
Fogarty TJ , Radcliffe VS (1999) Extending practice: Accountants’ construction of the industrial relations arena in the USA . Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal12, 525-560 .
35.
Foley B , Maunders K (1979) Accounting Information Disclosure and Collective Bargaining. New York: Holmes and Meier .
36.
Godard J (1997) Whither strategic choice: Do managerial IR ideologies matter?Industrial Relations36, 206-228 .
37.
Gomez-Mejia LR , Welbourne TM , Wiseman RM (2000) The role of risk sharing and risk taking under gainsharing . Academy of Management Review25, 492-507 .
38.
Gosse DI (1993) Cost accounting’s role in computer-integrated manufacturing: An empirical study . Journal of Management Accounting Research5, 159-179 .
39.
Granof MH (1973) How to Cost Your Labor Contract. Washington: Bureau of National Affairs .
40.
Gray R , Walters D , Bebbington J , Thompson I (1995) The greening of enterprise: An exploration of the (non) role of environmental accounting and environmental accountants in organizational change . Critical Perspectives on Accounting6, 211-239 .
41.
Hacking I (1999) The Social Construction of What?Cambridge: Harvard University Press .
42.
Hines RD (1988) Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct reality . Accounting, Organizations and Society13, 251-261 .
43.
Hopwood AG (1972) An empirical study of the role of accounting data in performance evaluation . Journal of Accounting Research10(Suppl.), 156-182 .
44.
Hoskin K , Macve R (1994) Reappraising the genesis of managerialism: A re-examination of the role of accounting at the Springfield Armoury, 1815-1845 . Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal7, 4-29 .
45.
Johnson HT (1994) Relevance regained: Total quality management and the role of management accounting . Critical Perspectives on Accounting5, 259-267 .
46.
Kaplan RS (1995) New roles for management accountants . Journal of Cost Management9, 6-14 .
47.
Kochan TA , Katz H , McKersie R (1986) The Transformation of American Industrial Relations. New York: Basic Books .
48.
Kren L , Liao WM (1988) The role of accounting information in the control of organizations: A review of the evidence . Journal of Accounting Literature7, 280-309 .
49.
Lavoie D (1987) The accounting of interpretation and the interpretation of accounts: The communicative function of ‘the language of business’ . Accounting, Organizations and Society12, 579-604 .
50.
Lehman C , Tinker T (1987) The ‘real’ cultural significance of accounts . Accounting, Organizations and Society12, 503-522 .
51.
Lehman G (1999) Disclosing new worlds: A role for social and environmental accounting and auditing . Accounting, Organizations and Society24, 217-241 .
52.
Maines DR (2000) The social construction of meaning . Contemporary Sociology29, 577-584 .
53.
Manninen A (1996) The production of knowledge in accounting . Accounting, Organizations and Society21, 655-674 .
54.
Marcon G , Panozzo F (1998) Reforming the reform: Changing roles for accounting and management in the Italian health care sector . European Accounting Review7, 185-208 .
55.
Mattessich R (1987) Prehistoric accounting and the problem of representation: On recent archaeological evidence of the Middle East from 8000 B.C. to 3000 B.C . Accounting Historians Journal14, 71-91 .
56.
Mautz RD , Richardson FM (1992) Employer financial information and wage bargaining: Issues and evidence . Labor Studies Journal17, 35-52 .
57.
McBarnet D , Weston S , Whelan CJ (1993) Adversary accounting: Strategic uses of financial information by capital and labour . Accounting, Organizations and Society18, 81-100 .
58.
Megill A , ed (1994) Rethinking Objectivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press .
59.
Miller P (1994) Accounting and objectivity: The invention of calculating selves and calculable spaces. In: Megill A , ed, Rethinking Objectivity, pp. 239-264. Durham, NC: Duke University Press .
60.
Moore DC (1994) Feminist accounting theory as a critique of what’s ‘natural’ in economics. In: Mirowski P , ed, Natural Images in Economic Thought, pp. 583-610. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press .
61.
National Association of Accountants (1946) The uses and classifications of costs . NAA BulletinXXVII, 939-952 .
62.
In: Solomons D , ed, Studies in Cost Analysis. London: Sweet & Maxwell , 1968.
63.
Oakes LS , Covaleski MA , Dirsmith MW (1999) Labor’s changing responses to management rhetorics: A study of accounting-based incentive plans during the first half of the 20th century . Accounting Historians Journal26, 133-162 .
64.
Ogden S , Bougen P (1985) A radical perspective on the disclosure of accounting information to trade unions . Accounting, Organizations and Society10, 211-226 .
65.
Oliver C (1991) Strategic responses to institutional processes . Academy of Management Review16, 145-179 .
66.
Owen DL , Lloyd AJ (1985) The use of financial information by trade union negotiators in plant level collective bargaining . Accounting, Organizations and Society10, 329-350 .
67.
Powers WC , Troubh RS , Winokur HS (2002) Report of Investigation by the Special Investigative Committee of the Board of Directors of Enron Corp. February 1. (Cited as The Powers Report.)
68.
Richardson AJ (1987) Accounting as a legitimating institution . Accounting, Organizations and Society12, 341-355 .
69.
Stambaugh CT , Carpenter FW (1992) The roles of accounting and accountants in executive information systems . Accounting Horizons6, 52-63 .
70.
Swieringa RJ , Weick KE (1987) Management accounting in action . Accounting, Organizations and Society12, 293-308 .
71.
Teplitsky M (1991) Ability to pay in the public sector: An arbitrator’s viewpoint. In: Labour Arbitration Yearbook, 1991, Vol. II. Toronto: Lancaster House .
72.
Thomas AL (1969) The Allocation Problem: Part Two. Studies in Accounting Research No. 9. Sarasota: American Accounting Association .
73.
Thomas AL (1974) The Allocation Problem in Financial Accounting Theory. Studies in Accounting Research No. 3. Sarasota: American Accounting Association .
74.
Tinker AM (1980) Towards a political economy of accounting: An empirical illustration of the Cambridge controversies . Accounting, Organizations and Society5, 147-160 .
75.
Tinker T (1985) Paper Prophets. New York: Praeger .
76.
Tinker T , Neimark M (1988) The struggle over meaning in accounting and corporate research: A comparative evaluation of conservative and critical historiography . Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal1, 55-74 .
77.
Trumble R , Tudor T (1996) Equitable collective bargaining through publicly accessible financial data . Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector25, 89-99 .
78.
Uren D (1985) CRA profit taken with salt . The Australian 13 May, 14 .
79.
Walters-York LM (1996) Metaphor in accounting discourse . Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal9, 45-70 .
80.
Walton RE , McKersie RB (1965) A Behavioral Theory of Labor Relations. New York: McGraw-Hill .
81.
Weick KE (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .
82.
Yamaji H (1986) Collective bargaining and accounting disclosure: An enquiry into the change in accounting policy . International Journal of Accounting22, 11-23 .
83.
Young SD (1999) Some reflections on accounting adjustments and economic value added . Journal of Financial Statement Analysis4(2), 7-19 .
