Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Unting, Interests, and A Communicative: C. Edward Arringtonand Anthony G
Unting, Interests, and A Communicative: C. Edward Arringtonand Anthony G
Unting, Interests, and A Communicative: C. Edward Arringtonand Anthony G
This is a pedagogical essay that suggests the value of Jiirgen Habermas’ theory
of communicative action to the critical accounting research agenda. We outline in
a broad way the formal pragmatic properties of accounting as communicatively
rational social action, juxtaposing those properties aga-inst more customary
senses of the term rationality in the context of accounting. Our claim is that
accounting acts always and already are implicated in the teleological possibilities
and actualities that inform objective, intersubjective, and private experience; and,
because accounting is so implicated, we argue that its legitimacy is seen to
depend upon democratic adjudication of reasons for and protests against
particular forms of accounting practice. That argument is advanced through
Haber-mas’ reciprocal notions of communicative rationality and Ideal Speech
Communities. Having made that argument, we then turn attention to
social-systemic reasons why accounting might be viewed as legitimate
despite deviations from these two reciprocal notions. The legitimacy of that
deviation is seen to depend upon a presupposition of trust. Through in all,
our primary purpose remains broad and pedagogical; that is, we are more
concerned to introduce a formal pragmatic typology of accounting as
rational social action and less concerned with excursus into particular,
diachronicstudies concernedto critique actual accounting practices.
Introduction
Accounting is teleological action in the broadest sense of that term-action oriented
toward human needs and desires that are not merely imperatives of
nature, and action that is a candidate for moral reflection and deliberation. In short,
accounting is highly situated in the context of human interests, and it is the relation
between accounting action and human interests that concerns us
in this paper. We view accounting’s relation to interests through the lens of
communication, a context where accounting has often been a home.’
Approaching questions of accounting’s relation to interests in a com-
municative way is different from subjectivist approaches; i.e., those that make
an ontological presupposition that interests originate with and attach to specific
individuals or groups. Interests, as we construe them, are pragmatic and not
subjectivist: their shape and character have to do with the intersub-jective
conditions which surround discourse oriented toward deciding upon how accounting
ought to serve a polity. We argue for a discursive arena in which any conceivable
claim about that shape and character can be brought
to bear upon accounting in a democratic and rational way. Interests and
Address for correspondence: Professor E. University of Iowa, Department of
accounting’s relation to them are not then determined but are fluid and
interactive. In this sense, we are pluralists; we do not offer a singular
substantive interest presumed sovereign over accounting. But in a more important
sense, we seek rational grounds for working through a pluralistic space of interests.
That entails a recognition that, while accounting may be of relevance to a practically
infinite number of interests, it nonetheless does (and
must) trade among those interests. Accounting action is always positively aligned
with certain interests, and it always ought to be contestable in terms of the interests
that it discounts and impedes. The important question then becomes how
accounting might come to relate to particular interests in a way that is grounded in
criticizable reasons and is, thereby, made rational. We suggest that the rationality of
accounting action as interested action depends
upon securing certain conditions of public argument that can be called
democratic.* By viewing the rationality of accounting as determined by
processes of democratic communication, we stand over and against the two
alternative means for the adjudication of interests-money and power.3
We appropriate our arguments from the work of Jiirgen Habermas;4 in our view,
the foremost social theorist of our time. Solicitous as that claim might
appear, it nonetheless suggests the importance of Habermas if we are to
break out of what Miller and O’Leary describe as accounting’s remarkable
insulation from important theoretical and historical debates that have tra-
versed the social sciences (1987, p. 235). Others have introduced some
Habermasian thematics to accounting, and we add some new ones: no single
essay can capture more than a smattering of the relevance of Habermas’
broad and systematic programme to accounting (for other work, see Laughlin,
1987; 1988; Roberts, 1988; Power, 1988; Puxty & Chua, 1989). We also have the
benefit of access to Habermas’ more recent Theory of Communicative Action, a text
which approaches the question of interested action in a manner different from his
earlier work.5
We begin with a discussion of accounting’s relation to interests, illustrating that
relation with some examples from extant research. Our objectives here
are (1) to establish the contestability of accounting with respect to interests;
(2) to argue that the possible ways of configuring accounting in relation to interests
are practically infinite; and, (3) to turn brief attention to the question
of whether interests can be rationalizedin accounting; that is, whether it is
possible and desirable to try and make accounting’s relation to interests be the
subject of reason and critique. This essay proposes a positive answer to
this question since we turn subsequentattention to a theory of the rational
adjudicationof accountingas interestedaction. In the next section, we
describe a three-fold typologyof relations between interests, communicative
practice, and accountingaction. In the section before the conclusions, we
discuss the ethical-politicalconditionsunder which accounting can claim
status as rational interested action. We conclude the essay with some comments
on the relevance of our work to critical theories of accounting, and we raise some
questions that confront both Habermas and our use of his texts here.
Two caveats are in order. First, Habermas’ work is massive and complex. We not
only extract from his work in a way that does injustice to its
Acccsamtimg,interests, and ratimalty 33
Some Background
While the idea of accounting as a disinterested (or neutral) pursuit maintained
currency for most of this century,6 contemporary research is recovering a
concern with accounting’s contestable relation to interests. As Hopwood
(1989) notes:
“Accounting is coming to be regarded as an interested endeavour. Rather than
being seen as merely residing in the technical domain, serving the role of a
neutral facilitator of effective decision-making, accounting is slowly starting to be
related to the pursuit of quite particular economic, social and political interests.
The active and influential ways in which accounting is implicated in the
construction and propogation of notions of organisational and social control are
now starting to be addressed” (p. 141).
There are many examples of inquiry into how accounting relates to particular
interests. The economic consequences literature (see Zeff, 1978, 1981) recog-
nizes that accounting can have detrimental impacts on the ability of particular
people to fulfill their needs and desires; Neimark (1986) recovers a positive
sense of the public interest in accounting out from under the Hobbesian
atomism of a social theory grounded in private interests; Williams (1987) critiques
accounting from a Rawlsian perspective on procedural justice and
fairness; Lehman (1988) makes accounting contestable in terms of sexist,
ideological and political interests; Tinker, Merino and Neimark (1982) and Tinker
(1988) point to the normative origins of positive theories of accounting
[proponents of positive theory now confess that normativity, belated and
partial though such confession might be (see Watts & Zimmerman, 1990)].
Shearer and Arrington (1989) critique the masculine ideology embedded in
accounting’s income calculus, and Puxty and Chua (1989) correlate different
conceptions of the rationality of accounting with different configurations of interests.
Many more studies could be cited here, and they all point to the
descriptive accuracy of Hopwood’s claim with respect to contemporary
research and its understanding of accounting as an interested and contestable
Practice. The number of ways of configuring or contesting accounting’s
relation to interests is, for practical purposes, infinite-as different as all the
many ways of organizing economic action and communicating with respect to such
organizations.
We want to illustrate two quite different examples of the renascent concern with
accounting’s relation to interests in a bit more depth. Positive accounting
34 C. E. A~~~~~~~ md A. (6.
theory represents a radical paradigmatic shift inside neoclassical approaches to
accounting. Here, accounting comes to be seen as an economic good-a
factor of production to be managed strategically and efficiently in self-
interested pursuits. As Watts and Zimmerman (1990) state, positive theory
overcomes earlier “information perspectives” which subordinated accounting
to financial models and thereby ignored accounting’s relevance to appropria-tive
self-interests. These earlier approaches presumed that
II . . . accountingchoice per se could not affect firm value. fnformation is
costless and there are no transactioncosts in the Modiglianiand Miller
(1958) and capital asset pricing model frameworks. Hence, if accounting
methods do not affect taxes they do not affect firm value. In that situation
there is no basis for predicting and explaining accounting choice. Account-
ing is irrelevant” (1990, pp. 132-133).
Positive theory moves from the abstractcategory of “firm
value” to the
microeconomic and game-theoretic models of individuals strategically com-peting
for private wealth and utilizing accounting as a factor of production
with respect to that wealth. Accounting gets configured in between the interests of
creditors and debtors (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Smith & Warner, 1979; Leftwich,
1983); owners and managers (Smith & Watts, 1982; Watts &
Zimmerman, 1978); and equity-holders and regulators (Zmijewski & Hager-
man, 1981; Zimmerman, 1983; Ball & Foster, 1982). Accounting can be
managed to coordinate actions (to, for example, write contracts that har-
monize reciprocal self-interests) or to produce wealth transfers that are
suspect in light of the various Lockean presuppositions embedded in neoclas-
sical property rights theory, a theory which provides the moral-political as well as the
economic context of positive accounting theory.
Tinker (1980) and Cooper and Sherer (1984) describe a political economy
approach to accounting that can, broadly speaking, umbrella a number of studies of
accounting’s relation to interests which take very different perspec-tives than those
of positive accounting theorists. Here, as with the “Cambr-
idge Controversies” in economics, the legitimacy of neoclassical theories of
interests (including property rights) is not presupposed but is instead the subject of
broader debates in welfare economics, the sociology of profes-
sions, and social, moral, and political philosophy (for accounting examples, see
Tinker, 1980; Tinker, Merino & Neimark, 1982; Armstrong, 1985; Neimark,
1986; Arrington & Francis, 1988; Lavoie, 1987). Social practices become
contestable on a number of fronts, and accounting is one of those practices.
Unlike the equilibrium-based and subjectivist perspectives on interests of
positive theorists, political economy approaches accent the conflictual and public
character of accounting’s relation to interests:
“Instead of assuming a basic harmony of interests in society which permits
an unproblematic view of the social value of accounting reports, a political
economy of accounting would treat value as essentially contested, with
accounting reports operating in specific interests (e.g., of elites and classes)”
(Cooper & Sherer; 1984, p. 218).
Like positive theory then, a political economy approach to accounting
recognizes accounting’s interested status. But unlike positive theory, political
economy approaches attempt to reintegrate the economic sphere into the
A~~~~Q~~g, interests, and ratisnatity 35
From grounds in communicative rationality, there are two directions for theorizing
accounting’s relation to interests. They share in common a faith in
the possibility of rationally adjudicating between interests, and they are both fully
aware of the fact that aligning accounting with certain interests is both necessary
and injurious to other interests. They differ in terms of attitudes taken with respect
to that alignment. In the first case, accounting
theory seeks positive enhancements to accounting’s ability to serve the needs and
desires that it has opted for. Carl Devine’s view summarizes this position:
them. In the broadest sense, the notion of an objective function expresses the
desire to move from one objective world to another.
The economics of information-in the broadest possible sense-is a good example
of rationalizing accounting in terms of objective interests, teleologi-
cal action, and validity claims to success. Here, accounting is a form of
information designed to reduce uncertainty with respect to “what is the case
in the world” (the state of nature) with an already presupposed objective
function (say, maximization of profits) and accounting-conditioned probabil-ities of
success in bringing about alternative states efficaciously. This broad
thematic takes various metonymic forms like accounting’s cartographic role
(the representation of “facts”), its role in efficiently coordinating instrumental
action (budgeting, incentives, contracting, organizational design), its tech-nological
adequacy (i.e., its value as an economic good as measured by
standards of its efficiency with respect to the conversion of inputs-an
existing state of affairs -to a desired output-an alternative state of affairs);
and, finally, its usefulness in game-theoretic processes. Anytime accounting is
cast as a means toward ends presumed given and unproblematic, then it is
best rationalized as teleological action oriented toward success in fulfilling
objective interests. There are as many ways of construing and contesting
accounting here as there are ways of interpreting “what is the case in the world”
(empirical validity) and ways of organizing relations of production to
arrive at an alternative objective world. The dominant metaphors here are
accounting as accurate representation of facts and accounting as an efficient
technology.
The triptych of objective interests/teleological action/validity claims to
success sets aside both the question of the rationalization of ends and the question
of constraints on the means to achieve them. In that sense, it is a regime of
accounting where any end and any means to arrive at that end are presumed
admissible. The poverty of this triptych as a totalizing theory of accounting as
interested action is that it suspends the context of social norms
which constrain both the kinds of worlds (ends) we can legitimately pursue
and the means we can employ in that pursuit. Accounting cannot, for
example, legitimately function in our society as action oriented toward a terrorist’s
interest in the production of nuclear weapons. Nor is it exempt from critique by those
who view its service to the production of such weapons for our military institutions
with suspicion. Likewise, the efficiency of production
cannot, in our society, reach to means like institutionalized slavery or the
overt dumping of toxic waste on our neighborhoods. Such dramatic examples
perhaps ought to yield to more mundane ones like contestability with respect
to the organization of production, a public choice certainly contestable in ways that
surpass the technical efficiency of various economies of production.
The teleological model of a single actor legitimately treating the rest of the
world as something to be objectified and acted upon instrumentally in a
“game against nature” suspends arguments with respect to generalizable
Accounting, interests, and rationality 41
Adding normatively regulated action to teleological action means that the agent
now stands in a relation to two worlds: the objective world toward
which success-oriented action is directed and the social world that brackets
that action inside generalizable norms and expectations. The rationality of an
action-which depends upon the provision of and adjudication of reasons for
action-now draws not only upon truth and efficacy but also upon claims
about the rightness of that action, with rightness understood as a claim that
the action is grounded in the collectively recognized expectations of a
community with respect to norms of action. These norms are “. . general
ought-sentences or commands that count as justified among the addresses”
(Habermas, 1984, p. 88).13
The relevance of generalizable interests and norm-conformative action to
accounting is obvious. We will mention a few examples here and defer some to a
later section of this essay. Paul Williams (1987) points out how accounting
functions primarily as a restraint on action, and he argues the priority of
restraint over facilitation for the rationality of accounting. Accounting is seen
42 C. E. ~~~~~ ared A. G. B&y
as enforcing certain norm expectations on what would otherwise be uncon-
and to which only one individual has privileged access (Habermas, 1984, p.
52). This is the domain of preferences, beliefs, imaginations, wills, desires,
motives, etc. that are not legitimately abstracted beyond the individual.
Accounting is a form of action that has unique consequences for private
interests-it is a complex human practice that affects the lives of millions of
people in millions of different and non-innocent ways.
Private interests can be aligned with accounting through the concept of
dramaturgica/ aCtiOn :
Summary
Accounting’s relation to interests can be construed in terms of a three-world model
of interested action. Accounting stands in relation to (1) the needs and desires of
humans to intervene in the objective world; (2) the needs and
desires of humans to recognize themselves as members of a community sustained
by norms and values that go beyond the private desires of each individual citizen;
and, (3) the needs and desires of an individual, needs and desires to which she
alone has privileged access. We cannot imagine an
accounting act that escapes any of these three relations to interests as accounting
is always at least (1) a means toward economic ends that (2) are
the norm-governed ends of some particular polity and that (3) are consequen-
44 C. I!.. ~~~to~ and A. 6. Buxty
tial for individuals with unique needs and desires. Accounting thus stands in
contestable relation to three worlds:
1. The objectiveworld (as the totality of all entities about which true statements
are possible). Here, accounting becomes contestable in terms
of success (and the two conditionsfrom which success can be
evaluated-truthand efficiency);
2. The social world (as the totality of all legitimatelyregulated interpersonal
relations). Here, accounting becomes contestable in terms of the norma-tive
rightness of accounting action; and,
3. The subjective world (as the totality of the experiences of the individual
to which he, and he alone, has privilegedaccess). Here, accounting
becomes contestable in terms of its consequences for private experience.
(adapted from Habermas, 1984, p. 100).
What makes accounting both important and contestable is precisely the complexity
of acting in a way that assimilates these three worlds and thereby accepts
attendant obligation to rationalize such action through the relevant types of validity
claims. We now turn attention to a brief excursus into the
social-political conditions that would make such rationalization possible.
We have offered here merely a sketch that offers some potential for radically
shifting the rationality of accounting action away from a focus on technical,
48 C. E. Arlington and A. G. Pwty
the polity, and Armstrong (1985), Loft (1986), and Miller and O’Leary (1987;
1989) all take different routes to empirical inquiry into accounting’s profes-
sionalized “delinguistification” of public argument. These studies provide
models for subsequent research, research which can take constraints on
rational communication as its thematic.
A second direction for research is evident in Roberts (1988) and
Arrington and Francis (1989). Here, a hermeneutic of suspicion is adopted
with respect to orthodox accounting practice because of its reified structure.
The sense is that orthodox accounting is not accounting in any positive sense,
and the research task is to find alternative theories of accounting and
alternative modes of its practice. Roberts reveals how most accounting takes
place in structures of informal organizational discourse outside the hierarchi-
cal structures of professionalized accounting. Arrington and Francis suggest
that accounting can be structurally differentiated as a form of language that is
manifest in ordinary conversation, journalism, and even literary texts. The
goal of such research is to stand outside the taken-for-granted presupposi-
tions about what accounting is and what it is not in order to differentiate a
communicatively rational discourse theory of accounting from the delinguis-
tified professional and institutional practices that reify communication. Such
rational practices of accounting are likely to be empirically available in small
groups without constraints on discourse and mutual action.
specify what action ought to be taken to realize the objective, generalizable, and
private interests that it adopts. But it cannot tell a coherent story about a
multiplicity of interests -those that contest the adequacy of appropriative self-
interests as a theory of economics (objective interests) of society (genera-
lizable interests) and of self-understanding (private interests). The political
economy approach can, on the other hand, account for a multiplicity of interests but
has difficulty coming to terms with the singularity of action as it
confronts its own contestability-something has to get done, and in getting
something done accounting always injures certain interests.
Habermas’ formal-pragmatic model can respond to the weaknesses in these
two approaches. Like positive theory, it recognizes the singularity and imperative of
action. Like political economy, it does not try to tell a singular story that treats
interests as a unity. What it does provide is a normative
model of procedures for the adjudication of interests in public discourse which must
culminate in a rational assent to a singular course of action. In this way, it does not
confuse the complexity of questions about “the good life” with the theorist’s
imperialist view of that life (e.g., positive theory’s
implication that everyone wants to be an appropriator of property and a
libertarian driven by his utility function), nor does it let that complexity
paralyze action. The model of rational communicative action distinguishes
between a morality of just action that follows from just adjudication of interests and
an obligation to keep questions of the good life maximally open:
“moral questions which, under the aspect of universalization or justice, can
in principle be decided rationally, (are distinguished) from evaluative
questions. . . which present themselves under their most general aspect as
questions of the good life, and which are accessible to a rational discussion
only within the horizon of a historically concrete life form or individual life
history” (Habermas, 1982, p. 251).
From here, we would align our essay with political economy approaches
since they keep accounting contestable in terms of different configurations of
production, of property, of welfare economics, of property rights theory, of
social, political, and organizational theory, of ethics, of subjectivity, etc. And
we would offer the notion of communicatively rational action as an enhance-ment
to political economy approaches capable of opening a research window
on questions about how interests are in fact adjudicated in accounting and how
particular accounting acts do and must transpire with both empowering
and pathological consequences. We would also offer positive theory the
opportunity to engage in debate with respect to the interests that it
fosters-instead of hiding behind the naturalistic (and ultimately religious)
metaphors of “survival of the fittest” and a solipsistic and ahistorical motive to self-
interest, this would give positive theory a chance to rigorously argue
the legitimacy of presupposing that accounting’s service to a society gov-
erned by a radically individualistic morality and the “useful tautology” of “Survival of
the fittest” is-in fact-in our “best” interests (see Jensen, 1983).
There are many other criticisms of Habermas that we will not address here.
Accoontig, interests, arnd r&m 53
gut there is one suspicion we have about Habermas’ programme that has
profound implications for accounting. In a world of global capitalism, one
recognizes the irrelevance of public life to capital growth. In a word, capital
becomes immune from political will simply because it can span political
boundaries in milliseconds-capital does not go through customs; it bounces off
satellites. As Marx well knew, capitalism is a structural phenomenon
governed by a single objective-it must grow in order to remain capitalism.
We see the empirical manifestation of that insight today: the migration of
capital to the most “efficient” (often meaning lowest paid) sources of labour and
the resultant implications of that migration for a deskilled Western labour force and
an exploited Third World; the inability of Western countries to retain ownership of
their own lands and capital assets; the crisis of environmental devastation where
productive forces transfer incalculable costs as negative
externalities. In turn, the government cannot restrain that transfer since it depends
upon the profits driven by those externalities to support the welfare
state of those economically disenfranchised, those who, absent those transfer
payments, pose a threat to the “stability” of both the government and the
market [e.g., the underground economy with both its siphoning of resources and its
destabilizing public force (drugs, violence, etc.)]. With a technological boost
(satellite transfers, integrated markets, etc.), capital’s “efficient growth” comes at
the cost of the irrelevance of political boundaries, and, with that, the irrelevance of
public will formation. A theory like Habermas’, one that in the
final analysis is a theory of public will formation, becomes suspect in a depoliticized
economic world.23
We can respond at this level only with an act of faith-in Richard Rorty’s
terms, a “hope against hope” that rational public will formation is still
relevant to our lives, even if that hope seems ungrounded. But if recent events
in the Eastern bloc, the incredibly rapid annihilation of corrupt regimes of political
power, are the product of the public’s will to protest, then there is perhaps hope in
the promise of the public voice for the Western bloc (and others) as well. The
progressivist era decision to turn public choice over to
communities of experts presumed neutral and disinterested-a decision that
resides at the origins of the instrumental rationality of accounting practice (see
Miller & O’Leary, 1987)-is beginning to look like a bad idea. Technocratic
accounting grew out of that idea. And the task of critical theories of accounting is to
subvert that idea, to make it possible for such bureaucratic expertise to be
governed by public argument:
“I think, then, that the chief task of philosophy is to justify this way of
reason (public argument) and to defend practical and political reason
against the domination of technology based on science. That is the
point of
philosophical hermeneutics. It corrects the peculiar falsehood of modern
consciousness: the idolatry of scientific method and of the autonomous
authority of the sciences and it vindicates against the noblest task of the
citizen-decision-making according to one’s own responsibility-instead of
conceding that point to the expert” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 312).
Acknowledgements
We should like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Christine Cooper, David
Cooper, Anthony Hopwood, David Klemm, Donald McCloskey, Michael Power, William
54 C. E. Araingtcan amd A. G. Puxty
Schweiker, Tony Tinker, and three anonymous reviewers as well as workshop
participants at th’e European Institute for the Advanced Study of Management, Glasgow
University, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Louisiana
State University, Manchester Business School, The University of Strathclyde, and the
Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry at The University of Iowa.
Notes
1. There has in accounting theory generally been a distinction between images of accounting as
communication and as a means of accountability (see, for example, SATTA, 1977, Davis et al.,
1982). We propose to argue that this is a false distinction.
2. That is, we propose to move toward a definition of “democratic” (in the section “The ethical
grounds for the very.. . “) that is not tied to the assumptions of most traditional pluralist
theorizing but instead opens the way for adjudication of claims to rightness through criteria
for rational discourse. Thus. for instance, democracy here does not mean simply equality of
opportunity to vote or engage in economic activity.
3. By money, we mean the “voting power” of those who control economic resources.
Grounding accounting’s rationality in its service to the market is a good example of using
money rather than communication as a criterion of reason (and therefore rationality). We use
the term power in the coercive sense-the exercise of political or physical strength to guide
action in a way immune from critique. The economic tyrannies of Eastern bloc regimes have
constituted a good example.
4. We appropriate primarily from Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action.
5. Here we make reference to Habermas’ earlier text Knowledge and Human Interests, a text
where the relation between interests and action is construed in terms of the distinction
between work and interaction. In The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas treats
interests in a more diffuse and complex manner, one that depends less on economic and
noetic categories and more upon structures of communication. Stephen White (1989)
provides an adequate description of transitions in Habermas’ approach to interests.
6. Miller and O’Leary (1987; 1989) trace modern accounting’s “displacement” from interests
back to the progressivist ethos of the early 20th century. Accounting-like scientific
management, industrial psychology, eugenics, intelligence testing, and other discourses of
expertise-convinced a suspicious government that it could enhance the social product in a
way that was morally innocuous and neutral. We refer the reader to Miller and O’Leary’s work
for the relevant history of this idea.
7. For a similar claim but a very different kind of study, see March (1987).
8. The philosophically-inclined reader may find it interesting to reflect upon how the differences
between Devine’s approach and Neimark’s approach is an example of what Ricoeur describes
as a choice with respect to the fundamental gesture of all philosophical reflection:
“Is this gesture (of reflection, C.E.A. & A.G.P.) an avowal of the historical
Action and discourse (and therefore rationality) are always and already embedded in the
“three” contemporaneously.
IO. The term teleological takes on a more narrow sense here than the sense implied in the
introduction to this essay.
11. We do not mean to align the lifeworld concept here strictly with generalizable interests.
Indeed, as post-empiricist philosophy of science has shown, objectivity and the representation
of “what is the case in the world” are themselves dependent upon the interpretive and
hermeneutic shape of a community. Thus the intelligibility of even objective interests and
teleological action are ontologically possible only from origins in a lifeworld concept.
12. Use of terms like values in conjunction with norms is suspect. Norms are something akin to
behavioural expectations presumed binding. Values, on the other hand, are more diffuse.
55
Hab@rmaS writes:
1, values are candidates for embodiment in norms-they can attain a general
...
binding with respect
force to a matter requiring regulation. In the light of cultural
values the needs (Bediirfnisse) of an individual appear as plausible to other
individuals standing in the same tradition. However, plausibly interpreted needs
are transformed into legitimate motives of action only when the corresponding
values become, for a circle of those affected, normatively binding in regulating
specific problem situations. Members can then expect of one another that in
corresponding situations each of them will orient his action to values norma-
tively prescribed for all concerned” (1984, p. 89).
13. Habermas directs attention here to how a norm must count as justified. The validity of a norm
cannot be assumed simply from its de facto presence. Coercive orders and commands,
control systems, and disciplinary practices, for example, may have “social currency” without
validity. Habermas writes:
“That a norm is ideally valid means that it deserves the assent of all those
affectedbecause it regulates problems of action in their common interest. That a
norm is de facto established means by contrast that the validity claim with which
it appears is recognized by those affected, and this intersubjective recognition
grounds the social force or currency of the norm” (1984, pp. 88-89).
Arrington and Francis (1989) distinguish between accountability and control in a way that
primary reason he has become so very controversial-he grapples with both sets of problems
and thereby raises the suspicions of those who take the more comfortable route of granting
priority to one or the other. In this essay, we have ignored the systems side of Habermas’
work.
20. As Miller and O’Leary (1987) point out, it is the “wide range” or the “reach” of accounting
that makes it preferable to other ways of coordinating action (e.g., engineering). Accounting-
because of its abstraction of phenomena into the terms of money can escape the bounds of
physical coefficients that constrain engineering. In this way, for example, accounting can be
used to “evaluate” the performance of the C.E,O.-which has no physical referent-as well as
the lowly labourer. Much of the power of accounting inside organizations derives from its
capacity to reach beyond the constraints of physis, and Miller and O’Leary describe the
empirical triumph of accounting over industrial engineering in precisely these terms.
21. These studies are very different in other ways.
22. Habermas’ relative silence about substantive issues of public policy can be understood in
terms of his model. That model sets out the formal pragmatic conditions for public discourse
and preserves the space of substantive claims for the citizenry, not for the theorist.
23, We note also the problem of deciding the practical boundaries of “society’‘-for although it
clearly cannot be restricted to the nation-state, the difficulties of operationalization of
communicative competence on a global scale are massive. That is wby it is important, as
mentioned earlier, to keep in mind that Habermas is developing critical rational principles
rather than practical hypotheses.
References
Alexy, R., “Eine Theorie des praktischen Diskurses, ” in Oelmtiller, W. (ed.), Normenbegrtindung
und Nromendurchsetzung (Paderborn: SchBningh, 1978).
Armstrong, P., “Changing Management Control Strategies: The Role of Competition Between
Accountancy and Other Organizational Professions,” Accounting, Organizations and Society,
1985, Vol. 10, pp. 129-148.
Armstrong, P., “Contradiction and Social Dynamics in the Capitalist Agency Relationship”
Accounting, Organizations and Society, in press.
Arrington, C. & Francis, J., “The Supply of and Demand for Human Nature: The Market for
Excuses/Excuses for the Market.” Paper presented at the Second Interdisciplinary Perspectives
on Accounting Conference, The University of Manchester, 1988.
Arrington, C. & Francis, J., “Accounting and the Labor of Text Prod&tion: Some Thoughts on the
Hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur.” Paper presented at Conference on Accounting and the
Humanities, The University of Iowa, 1989.
Ball, R. & Foster, G., “Corporate Financial Reporting: A Methodological Review of Empirical
Research,” Studies on Current Research Methodologies in Accounting: A Critical Evaluation,
fsuppl. to) Journal of Accounting Research, 1982, pp. 161-234.
Bernstein, R. (ed.), Habermas and Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985).
Cherns, A., “Alienation and Accountancy,” Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 3, 1978,
pp. 105-114.
Chua. W.-F., “Radical Developments In Accounting Thought,” Accounting Review, 1986, pp.
601-632. “The Value of Corporate Accounting Reports: Arguments for a Political
Cooper, D. & Sherer, M.,
Economy of Accounting,” Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 9, 1984, pp. 207-232.
Davis, S., Menon. K. & Morgan, G., “The Images That Have Shaped Accounting Theory,”
Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 7, 1982, pp. 307-318.
Devine, C., Essays in Accounting Theory, Vol. V. (Sarasota, FL: The American Accounting
Association, 1985).
Gadamer, H.-G., “Hermeneutics and Social Science,” Cuiturai ifermeneotics, 1975, pp. 307-316.
Giddens, A., New Rules of Sociological Method (London: Hutchinson, 1976).
Habermas. J., Communication and the Evolution of Societv (transl. by McCarthy, T.) (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1979).
Habermas, J., The Theory of Communicative Action: Vol. i, Reason and the Rationalization of
Society (transl. bv McCarthy, T-1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984).
Haberm&, J., The’Theory of Communicative Action: VW/. ii, Lifeworid and System: A Critique
of Functionalist Reason (transl. by McCarthy, T.) (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987).
Habermas, J., Knowledge and Human interests (transl. by Shapiro, J.) (Boston: Beacon Press,
1971).
Accounting, interests, and ratiomlity 57
Habermas, J., “Reply to my Critics”, in Thompson, J. and Held, D. (eds) Habermas: Critical