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Effects of actor-network theory in accounting research

Article  in  Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal · February 2011

DOI: 10.1108/09513571111100672 · Source: RePEc

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Effects of
Effects of actor-network theory in actor-network
accounting research theory
Lise Justesen and Jan Mouritsen
Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark 161
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to discuss how Bruno Latour’s version of actor-network theory has
influenced accounting research. It also seeks to show that Latour’s writings contain unexplored
potential that may inspire future accounting research.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a critical literature review and
discussion.
Findings – Since the early 1990s, actor-network theory, particularly the work of Bruno Latour, has
inspired accounting researchers and led to a number of innovative studies of accounting phenomena.
In particular, Latour’s book, Science in Action, has been the primary source of inspiration for
accounting research. This means that there is unexplored potential in Latour’s more recent writings
which may lead to further inspiration and research in the field of accounting.
Research limitations/implications – The paper reviews only a few of the relatively large number
of accounting papers that apply actor-network theory. A different sample might have given a
somewhat different picture. Furthermore, it focuses on the influence of Latour’s work and refrains
from discussing how the writings of Michel Callon, John Law or other thinkers within the
actor-network tradition are used in accounting research.
Originality/value – This is the first extensive review discussing the influence of Latour on
accounting research that engages in a critical discussion of under-explored potential in Latour’s recent
work.
Keywords Accounting theory, Networking, Strategic change, Social factors
Paper type Literature review

Introduction
Actor-network theory (ANT)[1] has brought back the role of calculations as central
objects in the study of accounting phenomena after a period of time in which
sociologically based accounting inquiry has been concerned primarily with either the
role of the macro-context or of the personal sensemaking and meaning construction
related to accounting phenomena. ANT has repositioned calculations to a central place
in accounting research instead of being marginalized and subordinated to material,
ideological, professional and political conditions or personal interpretations of
accounting.
The purpose of our paper is to assemble understandings of accounting phenomena
produced by ANT and to point out relatively unexplored potential in Bruno Latour’s
recent work that may inspire future accounting research. This paper is not an
evaluation of the existing research, but rather an analysis of how the conceptual
toolbox developed by Latour has inspired a number of accounting researchers who Accounting, Auditing &
have focused on a diverse set of topics such as the implementation of activity-based Accountability Journal
Vol. 24 No. 2, 2011
costing (Briers and Chua, 2001), the formulation of intellectual capital statements pp. 161-193
(Mouritsen and Larsen, 2005), the construction of benchmarks (Llewellynn and q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
Northcott, 2005), the development of audit expertise (Power, 1996a; Gendron et al. DOI 10.1108/09513571111100672
AAAJ 2007), management accounting control and integration (Quattrone and Hopper, 2005;
24,2 Dechow and Mouritsen, 2005) and the role of accounting in the creation of new markets
(MacKenzie, 2009).
Our first aim is to review and discuss different contributions of ANT-inspired
accounting research. Second, we compare the ANT perspective with other dominant
approaches in the accounting literature in order to clarify how inspiration from ANT
162 builds on different assumptions, uses different concepts, metaphors and methodologies
and, consequently, leads to new insights and conclusions. Third, we argue that one
particular reading of Latour, primarily based on his book, Science in Action (Latour,
1987), has dominated the ANT approach in the field of accounting research. This has
led to a number of diverse and very interesting studies, but a reading of Latour’s more
recent and less cited work (Latour, 1999a, 2004a, b, 2005a, b, c) may provide inspiration
for new ways of doing accounting research.
This set of research questions is relevant for several reasons. First, ANT-inspired
accounting research currently consists primarily of single case studies and historical
studies. This makes the contributions of this perspective to accounting research
difficult to articulate at a more general level. While singularity is an asset in
ANT-inspired studies, we suggest that the results of this research can be described
more cumulatively in order to frame and discuss the new insights about accounting
phenomena that can be ascribed to this approach. In particular, it is important to show
how the radical proposition that accounting phenomena are actors produces new
insights into how accounting works and what effects it has in organizations and
society. This contribution has to be clearly defined. Second, actor-network theory,
including Latour’s own work, has changed over time and it is a body of knowledge “in
action”. As a result, asking which parts of ANT have been influential and which ones
have been less so, is relevant. This may even allow doing a kind of “gap analysis”,
whereby paying attention to possible new formulations concerning inspiration from
ANT may be relevant for accounting research.
The paper is organized as follows. First, we provide an account of the emergence of
the ANT perspective in accounting research. The next large section, divided topically to
maximize the identification of contributions to the field, provides a review of central
aspects of ANT-inspired accounting literature. In the discussion section that follows,
contributions are clarified first and then followed by a discussion in which we compare
this literature with other influential perspectives in the accounting literature, such as
contingency theory, interpretive theory, institutional theory, agency theory and
structuration theory. Finally, we discuss how future accounting research may benefit
from seeking inspiration from Latour’s more recent work, where the concepts/metaphors
matters of fact/matters of concern, the multiplicity of things and slowciology are in focus.
In this way, we attempt to develop an account of the contributions of ANT to accounting
research, make a comparison with other theoretical perspectives in accounting and put
forward a proposition as to how new types of research questions may be asked if
Latour’s recent work is taken more into account.

The emergence of sociology in accounting research

The interest in Latour’s work among accounting researchers is related to a growing
interest in sociology in the field of accounting since the beginning of the 1980s. In 1979,
Burrell and Morgan’s book, Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis, had a
huge impact on the understanding that (European) accounting academics have of their Effects of
field (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). Even if the book was written from an organization actor-network
theory perspective and its purpose was to provide nuance to organizational analysis,
the book was also a revelation for accounting academics. It created a handy two-by-two theory
model that domesticated what amounts to the sum of “all” sociological knowledge,
subsequently allowing researchers to develop sophisticated sociological theories at a
glance, by “choosing” a favorite paradigm. Although the book was quite voluminous, it 163
was still much more accessible than many sociological writings because it reduced the
paradigmatic possibilities to four. The book largely persuaded accounting researchers
that most of the existing accounting literature was functionalist and that there were
new opportunities to be found in the so-called interpretive, radical structuralist
(Marxist) and radical humanist paradigms. Willmott (1983) and Hopper and Powell
(1984) first embarked on an analysis of the management accounting literature based on
the Burrell and Morgan paradigms and were quickly followed by Chua (1986) and
Hopper et al.’s (1987) analyses of the possibilities of radical accounting research. All
four papers proposed thinking beyond the functionalist box, and papers using new
theoretical bases and novel methodologies increasingly began to appear. New
accounting journals such as Management Accounting Research (MAR), Critical
Perspectives on Accounting (CPA) and Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
(AAAJ) developed from the premise of interdisciplinary work to supplement the
pioneering papers found in Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS). With the
advent of these journals, a new accounting research platform interested in sociology
and philosophy emerged and became institutionalized.
It would be impossible to place Latour’s work in the paradigms outlined by Burrell
and Morgan in any meaningful way because Latour rejects the very premises – such
as the distinction between the subjective and the objective – that form the basic axes in
Burrell and Morgan’s categorization scheme. Still, the book and its reception by the
community of accounting researchers helped pave the way for the Latourian approach
that was to develop about a decade later within the field of accounting research.
As the emergence of new journals witnesses, the discovery of these different social
theories by accounting researchers has spawned much new research. However, one
cost has been forcing the phenomena to be explained through reference to macro
conditions or personal sensemaking, thus turning accounting phenomenon into an
appendix of these other phenomena or causing such phenomena to be completely
encapsulated by them. These other hidden factors may be referred to as “functions” (as
in functionalist explanations), Capitalism (in the Marxist explanations) or individuals’
unobservable motives, meaning-construction and sensemaking (as in the interpretive
perspective). Even though these three “paradigms” are radically different in many
aspects, they share the idea that the real explanation is somehow beyond the
accounting phenomenon. Accounting is not what it seems to be; it is essentially
something else. It seems to be all about technicalities, but in reality it is a tool that e.g.
serves the dominant capitalist classes, or it functions to create trust or social cohesion,
or it is relativized by the individual’s own meaning creation
Latour’s (2005a) approach is in sharp contrast to such perspectives and his idea of
“keeping the social flat” is a criticism of such reductionist explanations. He attempts to
analyze every setting as a “flat space” where empirical observations help identify the
boundaries of the setting (Latour, 1996, 2005a). There is no “backstage” reality behind
AAAJ the appearances and therefore the dichotomy of appearance/reality is rejected. ANT is
24,2 anti-dualist and anti-reductionist in the sense that observations are not reduced to a set
of general explanatory factors “behind” the scene or “underneath” the surface.
The emergence of actor-network theory in accounting research can therefore be
viewed as an attempt to reposition, or even rehabilitate, accounting technologies in the
sociological explanation. One possible advantage derives from ANT’s insistence that
164 inscriptions and calculations are central to explaining activities and not just the effects
of conditions and contexts even if the accounting entities derive their power from
associations between calculations and conditions (Latour, 1986).

Actor-network-theory in accounting research

As a broad theoretical constellation, actor-network theory is a label attached to an
assemblage of work by different authors (Law, 1999). Classical ANT is often identified
with the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon (e.g. Callon, 1986) and John Law (e.g.
Law, 1994). However, there is no doubt that Latour’s writings have had the most direct
influence on the accounting literature and for this reason we limit our focus to the
influence of Latour’s writings on accounting research[2].
Some ANT-inspired accounting studies are ethnographic case studies (e.g. Preston
et al., 1992; Briers and Chua, 2001), while others are historical analyses, tracing the
emergence of different accounting phenomena (e.g. Miller, 1991; Quattrone, 2004a, b,
2009; Preston, 2006). Still others draw on Latour’s work to set forth new research
agendas, methodologies and vocabularies that might inspire the community of
accounting researchers (e.g. Robson, 1991, 1992; Lowe, 2001, 2004a), while a smaller
amount of papers engage in self-reflexive discussion about the relations between ANT
and accounting studies (Lowe 2004b, c; Chua, 2004).
Most of the accounting studies inspired by Latour’s work focus on accounting
change[3]. From a constructivist perspective, change is not understood as the result of
linear, rational improvements or functional adaptations to new demands in a changing
environment. Instead, accounting dynamics are viewed as the outcome of historical,
contingent processes in which new accounting constellations (Miller, 1991) appear
because heterogeneous elements, such as different groups of people, different
vocabularies and various technologies, are temporarily linked together at a particular
moment in time. ANT-inspired accounting literature typically analyses these processes
with reference to Latour’s concept of translation (Callon and Latour, 1981; Latour, 1987,
1999a, 2005a), which has remained a recurrent key concept in Latour’s work since the
1980s. Applied to accounting research, Latour’s constructivist approach poses a
challenge to agency, functionalist, Marxist, interpretive and contingency perspectives
alike.
The ANT concept of translation is not easily grasped, but one of the definitions
given by Latour (1999a, p. 179) is that: “[translation] mean[s] displacement, drift,
invention, mediation, the creation of a link that did not exist before”. The concept is
closely linked to the concept of the actor-network, which does not refer to the
agent/structure dualism but, on the contrary, to the idea that any actor is a network.
Again, there is not one completely consistent definition of the concept, but in a recent
text Latour (2005a, p. 217) provides this explanation:
So, an actor-network is what is made to act by a large star-shaped web of mediators flowing
in and out of it. It is made to exist by its many ties: attachments are first, actors are second.
ANT is a constructivist approach. However, the point is not that accounting Effects of
phenomena are constructed instead of being naturally given. This is a premise. Instead, actor-network
the aim is to show, at quite a detailed empirical level, how accounting practices and
technologies partake in construction processes and how multiple, and sometimes theory
surprising, effects are generated as a consequence. Constructions are on-going
processes rather than delimited acts, and any stability achieved is, in principle,
temporary and fragile. Latour’s constructivism is not the same as social constructivism 165
in the sense of Berger and Luckmann (1991) because no domain (such as “the social”) is
assumed or privileged in advance. Latour (2005a, p. 91) makes a sharp distinction
between social constructivism, on the one hand, and constructivism on the other:
[. . .] “[c]onstructivism” should not be confused with “social constructivism”. When we say
that a fact is constructed we simply mean that we account for the solid objective reality by
mobilizing various entities whose assemblage could fail: “social constructivism” means, on
the other hand, that we replace what this reality is made of with some other stuff, the social in
which it is “really” built.
This produces the somewhat counter intuitive and potentially controversial idea that
non-humans have agency, too (Latour, 2005a), a premise that is a defining
characteristic of actor-network theory.
In the accounting literature, the first references to the Latour’s work appear in the
late 1980s (Hines, 1988; Pinch et al., 1989), but it was not until the beginning of the
1990s that accounting research inspired by Latour began to develop, particularly in
AOS, and a few years later in other accounting journals (e.g. AAAJ, MAR, CPA).
Latour’s wrote the foreword in the book Accounting and Science (Power, 1996b), which
may also have contributed to making accounting researchers aware of the potential
similarities between science studies and accounting studies. The interest accounting
researchers show in Latour seems to be increasing and, if measured by the number of
references made to Latour in the accounting journals mentioned above, this interest
reached a peak in 2008, as illustrated in Figure 1.
The fact that AOS was the first accounting journal to take an interest in Latour’s
work is unsurprising because of the influential agenda set forth in AOS by Burchell

Figure 1.
Number of papers
referring to Latour’s work,
year by year
AAAJ et al. (1980, 1985), who challenged the dominant positivist, functionalist and behavioral
24,2 accounting research paradigms and made a case “for a study of accounting as a social
and organizational phenomenon to complement the more prevalent analyses which
operate within the accounting context” (Burchell et al., 1980, p. 22). This statement,
which encouraged views about accounting external to the discipline, such as
perspectives drawing on organization theory, sociology and philosophy, opened up a
166 new discursive space for alternative accounting research that has since developed in a
number of different directions (Baxter and Chua, 2003).
In the 1980s the accounting literature, inspired by social theory, primarily took a
neo-institutional, Foucauldian or radical/Marxist approach[4]. However, in the beginning
of the 1990s, seminal work, also published in AOS, by Miller (1990), Robson (1991, 1992)
and Preston et al. (1992) began combining a Foucauldian and/or neo-institutional
perspective with actor-network theory, inspired particularly by the work of Latour.
Latour’s writings from the 1980s have had a primary influence on accounting
literature since the 1990s and the vast majority of accounting studies drawing on
Latour do so with reference to Science in Action (Latour, 1987) and the conceptual
apparatus and methodological rules presented there. Figure 2 illustrates how
frequently Latour’s books are referred to from 1988-2008.
The criteria for including accounting articles to inform the argument of our paper
are as follows. First, papers have to make direct use of actor-network theory and refer
explicitly to Latour’s work. Second, we focus mainly on papers published in accounting
journals[5]. Finally, we only include texts written in English. These three pragmatic
criteria limit how accounting and ANT are connected in our paper, a disadvantage that
can be juxtaposed against the possible advantage that the texts selected for analysis
are widely known and available. This introduces a certain measure of accountability.
As Figure 1 illustrates, quite a large number of accounting studies building on
Latour’s work are available, the sheer number making it impossible to review all of
them in one paper. As a result, we have selected a few studies that are reviewed in some
detail as characteristic of ANT-inspired studies (see the Appendix, Table AI). The
early, seminal and, in our view, agenda-setting papers of Miller (1990, 1991), Robson
(1991, 1992) and Preston et al. (1992) are given relatively more attention because they
set the scene for the development of ANT-inspired accounting research. Although the
following review goes into some detail, it is not merely descriptive but also analytic in
the sense that we relate and compare the different studies and explicate the specific

Figure 2.
Frequency with which
Latour’s books appear in
reference lists in the
journals AOS, AAAJ,
MAR and CPA from
1988-2008
“translations” of Latour’s work in the various studies in a way that is more or less Effects of
implicit in the studies themselves. We discuss how such translation often consists in actor-network
bringing ANT and other theoretical resources together. Recombining heterogeneous
elements in a new way constitutes, as the above quote demonstrates, translation in the theory
Latourian sense of the term. At the end of each thematic section regarding specific
studies, we discuss the general contribution of the reviewed papers by comparing them
to other approaches/contributions in the accounting literature. This section is 167
structured topically, emphasizing a particular connection between a Latourian set of
concepts and a more “classical” accounting theme. Under each thematic heading we
describe and discuss a few exemplary studies. The aim is not to produce a “complete”
representation of ANT-inspired accounting literature, which would be inconsistent
with Latour’s (1999a) idea of representation.

An assemblage of ANT-inspired accounting research

Histories of accounting innovations: action at a distance, inscriptions and the linking of
programs and technologies
Miller (1990, 1991) was one of the first accounting researchers to be explicitly inspired
by Latour’s work. He used this inspiration to develop the Foucauldian, historical
approach to accounting phenomena that had significant impact on accounting research
in the 1980s (Burchell et al., 1985; Loft, 1986; Hoskin and Macve, 1986; Miller, 1986).
Miller combined a Foucauldian genealogy of accounting phenomena with Latour’s
ideas of translation, inscriptions, centers of calculation and action-at-a-distance, all key
concepts in Science in Action (Latour, 1987). By supplementing the Foucauldian
approach with this new set of concepts it becomes possible to extend the idea of
accounting as a technology and to focus on the particular, contingent linkages created,
maintained and/or challenged by various accounting technologies.
Miller (1990) traces the making of the modern state back in time and shows how this
emergence is linked to simultaneous and intertwined innovations in accounting
techniques and practices of government. He argues that both “accounting” and “the
state” are effects of contingent, historical processes rather than distinct phenomena
with inherent and separate essences. This view is consistent with Foucault’s
genealogical approach, but what is new is the explicit Latourian emphasis on the
constitutive role that specific technologies play in these processes. In order to develop
the analysis of technologies further Latour’s (1987) notion of inscriptions is invoked:
Written reports, books of accounts, pictures, charts all represent a domain and can be
deployed in attempts to administer it. As technologies they do not have a neutral function of
recording the real, but literally represent in such a way as to make it susceptible to evaluation,
calculation and intervention (Miller, 1990, p. 318).
According to Miller, such mundane and material technologies make it possible to
translate “programmatic” ideas of government into practice because inscriptions allow
the kind of “governing at a distance” that characterizes the modern state and its
relation to its population. Inscriptions make it possible to mobilize and make present
absent things and people in “centers of calculation” (Miller, 1990; Latour, 1987). The
insight that modern government depends on representations of its population is not
new, but the specific Latourian supplement opens up a detailed focus on the materiality
of the specific techniques of calculating that enables centers of calculation to work.
AAAJ A similar line of thought is followed in Miller (1991), where the emergence of a
24,2 particular accounting innovation is analyzed. Here, the Latourian concepts of
translation and action at a distance are explicitly emphasized as key concepts put to
use in the analysis of the history of discounted cash flow (DCF). DCF is not a technique
with a particularly inherent and unchangeable essence but a set of loosely coupled
ideas, technologies and calculative practices that take on a contingent constellation at a
168 particular moment in time. Miller uses the notion of an “accounting constellation”, and
although the concept is not ascribed to Latour in the paper, it bears a close resemblance
to Latour’s actor-network in the sense that both concepts allude to the idea of the
linkages of heterogeneous effects as a particular outcome of complex, historical
processes.
Whereas Miller’s (1990, 1991) work is concerned with the histories of particular
accounting innovations, Robson (1992) generalizes the theoretical discussion of how
the Latourian vocabulary might contribute to an understanding of accounting. Robson
is also interested in accounting history and like Miller he recognizes the Foucauldian
legacy and the agenda set by Burchell et al. (1985). However, Robson (1991, p. 550)
explicitly responds to Burchell et al. by advocating for a Latourian supplement to their
approach:
Although the outline of the Burchell et al. (1985) mode of analysis is, without doubt, very
condensed and possibly partial, it is still, perhaps, unclear how the connections between
accounting and its context can be analysed historically. The processes through which
accounting and the social are interrelated remain relatively underdeveloped.
The point is that it is sufficiently established that accounting and the social are
interrelated, but how such linkages are forged in practice has been less examined.
According to Robson, this may be due to a lack of adequate analytical tools, and in
order to provide these, he turns to the work of Latour and other related theoretical
input from the “sociology of science”[6]. Both accounting and science are “clothed in the
discourse of neutral, technical endeavor” (Robson, 1991, p. 550), but when studied in
practice it becomes clear that both practices are highly political and rhetorical.
Furthermore, both accounting and science practices are dependent on and produce
various representations of the different objects they want to talk about. However, any
representation is, in Robson’s Latour-inspired view, at best partial since it is “always
produced in the absence of its referent” (Robson, 1991, p. 551). At the same time,
representations are closely linked to the particular techniques of categorizing,
measuring and inscribing. In order to better understand the processes of accounting
change and the interrelation between accounting, technology and the social,
Robson(1991, p. 550) suggests that Latour’s concept of translation is particularly
useful, and, in relation to an analysis of accounting change, he defines translation in the
following way:
For present purposes, translation will refer to the process through which often pre-existing
accounting techniques, and their associated roles, are articulated discursively, in ways that
construct the individuals’ and groups’ “interest” in those techniques, and may subsequently
provide motives for producing accounting change.
On this basis, Robson develops a historical analysis of the emergence of the
Accounting Standards Steering Committee in the UK. Even though Robson is inspired
by Latour’s approach, reminiscences of institutional theory are also quite easy to detect
in his argument. Robson assumes the existence of “institutional actors” (Robson, 1991, Effects of
p. 557, emphasis added) and “the institutional arena of the accounting profession” actor-network
(Robson, 1991, p. 563,) and argues that the analyzed episodes may be seen as “garbage
can” processes and the outcome of “institutional convenience” (Robson, 1991, p. 566). theory
This notion of institutions is foreign to the vocabulary used in Science in Action, but
Robson’s particular translation of Latour’s approach is still quite common in the
accounting literature. 169
Robson’s (1991) paper, which is primarily theoretical with an empirical
exemplification, can be read as an attempt to set a new research agenda and inspire
new kinds of research in the accounting field by drawing attention to Latour’s
conceptual apparatus. In a later paper, Robson (1992) holds onto this aspiration but the
discussion takes on an explicitly epistemological turn and is devoted to a discussion of
“the number” as “the dominant metaphor of accounting” (Robson, 1992, p. 685). In line
with Latour (1987), Robson argues that numbers are not privileged representations that
correspond to reality, but rather a specific kind of tool that enables certain kinds of
action, including action at a distance. Numbers are put to work through diverse
inscriptions that are a specific kind of translation defined by materiality, combinability
and a relatively high degree of stability (Robson, 1992, pp. 691-700; Latour, 1987).
Robson relates this general discussion of numbers and inscriptions to the specific
practices and technologies of accounting.
The contribution of Miller’s (1990, 1991) and Robson’s (1991, 1992) seminal papers
was to introduce Latour’s work to the accounting field in a manner consistent with the
emphasis on Foucauldian histories of accounting. It can be argued that Latour is read
through a Foucauldian lens (primarily by Miller) and, to some extent, an institutionalist
lens (primarily Robson’s 1991 paper). That is, they translate Latour’s work not only by
bringing it into the field of accounting, which is new, but also by combining some of
Latour’s concepts with a Foucauldian/institutional conceptual apparatus. Latour can
easily be seen as a supplement to Foucault as both are anti-essentialist and both
challenge the belief that the existence of present-day phenomena can be traced back to
a single cause. This is also the way both Miller and Robson approach accounting
phenomena, such as DCF and accounting standards. The specific Latourian twist is
provided by adding to the anti-essentialist approach a strong emphasis on the question
of how specific technologies and inscription devices forge new linkages and enable
certain kinds of action and new practices. However, the way that discourses,
institutions and “programmes” are assumed in the texts discussed above is something
that Latour in his later work criticizes (Latour, 2004b, 2005a). This does not mean that
Miller and Robson “misread” Latour, as translation is always a transformation and a
recombination of different elements (Latour, 1987).
At the theoretical level, Miller’s and Robson’s ANT-inspired work challenged
dominant positions in the accounting literature, including not only contingency theory
and functionalist explanations, but also Marxist accounts of accounting history. Their
approach differs significantly from contingency theory because accounting practices
are not seen as passively adapting to environmental demands. Rather accounting as a
technology acts and is acted upon by the contexts in which it is intertwined. At the
same time, the predominantly synchronic view of contingency theory is challenged by
the historical view on accounting practices (e.g. Robson, 1991, p. 547). Also, the
functionalist approach is challenged because it is argued that “[t]he evidence of a
AAAJ practice is not explained by reference to its ultimate function. The effects of a practice
24,2 may be unintended [. . .]” (Robson, 1991). This quote points to a radical separation of
cause and effects and displaces the research interest towards a focus on contingent
effects and the heterogeneous processes leading to certain effects at the level of
practice.

170 When management accounting ideas travel: translating new systems in practice
Several accounting studies draw on actor-network theory to produce different accounts
of “implementation processes” – a classical topic in management accounting research.
Here, Latour’s notion of translation is used to challenge rationalistic and functionalist
approaches, and the idea of implementation as a linear process is rejected. The
distinction between the thing to be implemented and the implementation process is
deconstructed.
A much cited example of such a study is Preston et al. (1992), who examined the
“fabrication” of a management accounting system in a particular contemporary
setting. Although their primary ANT source is Science in Action, it is interesting to
note that Preston et al. (1992) emphasize Latour’s notions of fabrication, network and
black box, whereas both Miller and Robson focus on inscription, action at a distance
and center of calculation.
However, like Miller and Robson, Preston et al. are particularly interested in the
concept of translation, but in contrast to Miller’s historical studies, their study is a case
study, drawing not only on historical documents but also on qualitative interviews and
field observations. Focusing on the introduction of a new budgeting system in the UK
health sector, Preston et al. (1992) follow accounting while it is in the making.
Methodologically, the main idea is to arrive at the empirical scene “before the
controversies involved in its fabrication are closed, before the complexities of its inner
working are taken-for-granted and before the patterns of organizational power and
influence, instrumental in the formation of management budgeting, are forgotten or
rationalized” (Preston et al., 1992, p. 564). That is, before the new system has been
turned into a black box, which in Latour’s terminology is defined as something that
passes as undisputed and acts as an integrated whole. Despite its turbulent making
and heterogeneous, network-like composition, the successfully constructed black box
acts as one (Latour, 1987, p. 131). While Miller (1990, 1991) adapts the Latourian
approach in a way that fits with Foucault’s historical genealogical approach, Preston
et al. (1992) accept Latour’s methodological advice of studying things while they are
still in the making (Latour, 1987, p. 258). They focus on the processes, which they, with
a clear constructivist choice of vocabulary, call the fabrication of a particular
management budgeting system. Following Latour closely, they argue that the fate of a
system is always in the hands of others (Preston et al., 1992, p. 577). According to this
view, a management accounting system is never a ready-made package to be
implemented, but rather a loosely coupled set of ideas and technologies that are
constantly shaped and reshaped when they “travel” from one setting to the next. This
implies that the budgeting system in question is reshaped by the professionals who
react to it and who use it in particular ways. Or put more precisely, the fabrication of
the system is an on-going translation process, implying that the traditional distinction
between a design phase and an implementation phase becomes irrelevant, or even
misleading.
 In this way, the ANT approach challenges the “diffusion model” of change. An Effects of
accounting technology, such as a budgeting system, is never merely “diffused in the actor-network
sense of transmitting and passing on a fixed object. The management budgeting
initiative is modified, strengthened and undermined in the process” (Preston et al., theory
1992, p. 578). Therefore, one part of the process to be analyzed is the ways in which
people’s interests are shaped and how attempts are made to persuade potential skeptics
about the benefits of the system. This critique of the diffusion model is also directly 171
inspired by Science in Action (Latour, 1987, p. 132), where Latour suggests that the
dissemination of practices should be analyzed and understood in terms of translation.
In a similar way, Chua (1995) draws on a case study of the health care sector in her
analysis of “new accounting numbers” in the making. Whereas Miller (1990, 1991) and
Robson (1991) include macro level, “programmatic” discourse in order to explain
accounting change, Chua’s analysis focuses at the organizational micro level and
shows how diverse organizational interests are reconfigured and eventually, although
fragilely, tied together through the use of different persuasion techniques. She argues
that a management accounting system can only work if it is part of a larger network
that translates the management accounting system.
Another interesting example is Briers and Chua’s (2001) study of the
“implementation” of activity-based costing (ABC) in a manufacturing firm where
actor-network theory is linked with Star and Griesemer’s (1989) notion of the boundary
object, which is defined as something that “[. . .] ties together actors with diverse goals
because it is common to multiple group but is capable of taking on different meanings
within each of them” (Briers and Chua, 2001, pp. 241-2). In their analysis, Briers and
Chua show how ABC functions as a boundary object that helps connect different “actor
worlds” in an implementation process in which many different actors participate[7].
The studies discussed in this section show, at a detailed empirical level, how
abstract ideas become materialized in new management accounting technologies and
how unexpected results often follow when systems meet practice and practitioners who
challenge, modify or even undermine the system. At the same time, they show how
individual and organization interests often change when practitioners become enrolled
in new networks. In a traditional sense, this kind of research has similarities with
implementation studies, but they challenge the view of implementation as being a
specific phase, distinct from the design phase. If a given system “succeeds” in practice,
it is because a network of allies that support it has been established (Latour, 1987). Like
the Miller and Robson papers discussed above, these studies combine the Latourian
approach with other theoretical resources. For example, Chua explicitly rejects
Latour’s view that non-humans have agency (Chua, 1995, p. 117) and thereby translates
ANT in a way that makes it resemble social constructivism.
At the theoretical level, both the mainstream, rational approach to implementation
processes and the neoinstitutional explanation of accounting change are challenged.
The former is rejected with the argument that it does not make sense to set up a
distinction between a design phase and an implementation phase, ascribing all
innovation to the first phase. Instead creativity and fabrication continue when a system
travels into new settings where it acts and is acted upon by the actors in that new
setting. The neoinstitutional perspective is challenged through an implicit critique of
the isomorphism metaphor (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). Although isomorphism
might seem to prevail on the surface, it is shown that, in practice, the implementation of
AAAJ an accounting system is not a homogenization process because systems are translated
24,2 differently, depending on the specific setting in which they become enrolled and
mobilized (Latour, 1987). It is shown how accounting phenomena that appear to be
identical (black boxes) become different things when they are translated in practice.
When they travel they are translated rather than diffused.

172 Accounting systems, standards and expertise: re-opening the black box of established
management technologies
The research discussed in the previous section examines how relatively abstract ideas
or systems are transformed and diversified when they are translated in particular
settings. Other studies take a different starting point and set out to re-open the
constructed black boxes by tracing the processes of becoming of taken for granted
accounting phenomena.
Like Briers and Chua (2001), Jones and Dugdale (2002) focus on the ABC system, but
instead of analyzing an implementation process they argue that the system itself is the
outcome of a complex and non-linear construction process that has largely been forgotten,
i.e. it has become black boxed (Latour, 1987). They set out to re-open the ABC black box
by tracing and following the central “human” and “non-human” actors in the construction
process. Their paper shows how the construction of ABC cannot be attributed to an
original author but is the effect of a complex and contingent translation process where
management consultants and computer systems had more impact on the formation of
ABC than the “original inventor” (Jones and Dugdale, 2002, p. 156). Hence, authorship and
agency are distributed. Also this study combines ANT with a different theoretical
resource, as Giddens’ theory of modernity is linked to the ANT-inspired analysis.
Llewellynn and Northcott (2005) also engage in opening the black box in their
analysis of how the “hospital of average cost” is constructed in the UK to create a
benchmark that enables comparison and control in the hospital sector. Their paper
tracks the complex processes that have led to the construction of a standard for
measuring cost, hence enabling benchmarking and an increased standardization of the
everyday practices at different hospitals.
Gendron et al. (2007, p. 103) examine how auditors “link the general idea of NPM
[New Public Management] with validating specific performance measures [. . .] [and]
the how the Office [of the Auditor General of Alberta] acquired expertise in measuring
government performance”. Expertise is seen as being founded on fact building
processes and the establishment of a supporting network. Again, the primary reference
is Science in Action, here with a focus on “three features of fact building, namely,
laboratories, networks, and the observation that the fate of a factual claim rests in its
reception by others” (Gendron et al., 2007).The general theoretical point is that
expertise is a construction that does not develop naturally from a profession. However,
even though the construction of expertise does not follow a line of necessary
development, it is not a random or “easy” task. It depends on the establishment of a
network, the overcoming or conversion of adversaries and the building of facts that
serve to construct, maintain and legitimize the status of expertise. In that sense, the
Office can be compared to a laboratory where the construction of expertise is both
costly and potentially fragile.
The contribution of the studies mentioned above consists in re-opening
well-established accounting black boxes. Whereas the papers in the previous section
could be read as a novel approach to implementation studies, the studies discussed in Effects of
this section have a different aim. They are concerned with the issue of translation, but actor-network
use this concept to understand processes of becoming that are now largely forgotten
because they have been black boxed. Instead of following accounting in the making, in theory
“real time”, they trace back the complex processes that have made it possible to talk
about ABC in the singular, or to perceive government auditors as the “natural” experts
regarding performance measurement in the public sector. 173
Again, there is a challenge to rationalist and functionalist explanations at the
theoretical level because it is shown that the processes leading to phenomena such as
ABC or the “average hospital” are not linearly developed on the basis of societal needs.
Instead, needs and interests are constructed by the technologies in question. On the one
hand, some of the studies resemble institutional studies in the sense that they show
how ABC, expertise and benchmarks can be seen as institutions that are now taken for
granted, i.e. their “social construction” has been forgotten. On the other hand, the
difference is related to the central role of non-human actors and allies in the studies
included in this section.

Distance, control and integration: the construction of space and time

Some accounting studies use ANT to question whether technology stabilizes or
extends control and integration; in effect they say that integration is always in
jeopardy. Quattrone and Hopper (2005) examine how a particular management
accounting technology, SAP, mediates organizational and managerial relations of
distance, integration and control. In the anti-essentialist spirit of Latour, they show that
SAP is not a fixed entity or a set of fixed solutions to be implemented. Based on two
different case studies they analyze two very different SAP implementation efforts,
showing that spatio-temporal distances between controllers and the controlled are
always constructs that do not follow in any simple or linear way from technological
input. Quattrone and Hopper (2005, p. 760) observe that “it is more pertinent to trace
continual changes in loci of control rather than trying to identify a specific center that
exerts action at a distance based on modernist presumptions of a dichotomy between
the controller and linear and uniform time and space”.
Dechow and Mouritsen (2005) examine two firms pursuing integration of
management and control through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. They
study the heterogeneity of networks of power and seek to analyze “how human actors
and ERP systems happen to each other and influence each other in the course of
exploring integration. What exists and what has to be made sense of, are the
connections that can be traced by exploring how actors are related to other actors of
various kinds and swap competencies” (Dechow and Mouritsen, pp. 695-6). ERP is not
a fixed object. The technological features of ERP systems enable and constrain what
can be modeled and made visible and the infrastructure of the technologies used to
support the ERP system develop differential access to the ERP system. ERP systems
are moldable but they fight back because programming choices for one item can return
and make other items impossible. ERP systems are thus unruly, but, as Dechow and
Mouritsen claim, ERP systems are more than their technology. Strategies for
programming are informed by visionary objects that transform a database into a
strategic claim to the future of the firm.
AAAJ The contribution of this research is to demonstrate the precarious nature of
24,2 integration by showing how flexibility and fluidity in technology and management
move management agendas in surprising ways. Fluidity and heterogeneity make the
technological objects involved in the management of the firm less certain than
expected. Technology is not stable; it does not produce stable organizational practices.
Although the study by Quattrone and Hopper may resemble the “implementation”
174 studies of Preston et al. (1992) and Chua (1995), an important difference relates to the
way that Quattrone and Hopper connect the issues of integration and management
accounting with a theoretical and quite complex discussion of the questions of time and
space. In this discussion, they explicitly challenge the way the Latourian concept of
action at a distance is often understood and used in the accounting literature. This
concept has rested on a “problematic linear notion of space and time” (Quattrone and
Hopper, 2005, p. 738). Likewise, Dechow and Mouritsen’s study may also be seen as an
implementation study, but they add to Preston et al.’s (1992) account the proposition
that fabrication involves a curious notion of stability. Even when stable, the network of
activity can continue to add to it, e.g. by supplementing local information systems that
challenge the power of ERP, which sometimes is stronger than any individual, but in
this capacity, the ERP system may produce a reluctance to adapt rather than efficient
processes.

Networks, organizational boundaries and the role of mediating instruments

ANT-inspired research proposes that organizational boundaries as defined in systems
theory are complex effects. Typical systems theory would suggest that, first, there are
boundaries between firms; that something is inside and that something else is outside
the firm’s boundaries. In contrast, ANT-inspired research argues that what counts as
an effective boundary is the result of interacting actors, of which accounting systems
are one important category.
Mouritsen (1999) argued that competing accounting calculations dominate
dialogues between managers about the realism of strategy. The competition
between two versions of the economy of the firm – contribution accounting and
activity-based costing, which “differed according to the object made amenable to
control as they regionalized space differently” (Mouritsen, 1999, p. 49) – was central.
Contribution accounting, which distinguishes economic visibility for direct and
indirect costs, persuaded managers to transform indirect costs into direct costs and
seek outsourcing of activities. Activity-based costing, which made the indirect cost
portion of product costs visible, persuaded managers to make internal costs visible and
compete by direct control of production, and thus seek to insource as much of
productive activities as possible. The two calculations motivated the development of
organizational boundaries in diametrically different ways as contribution accounting
increased the number of activities outsourced to suppliers, while activity-based
calculations tended make production activities amenable to control though direct
control within the boundaries of the firm. The boundaries between firm and
environment became variable depending on the types of calculation that provided the
impetus for placing production activities within or outside of the firm (see also
Mouritsen et al., 2009).
Chua and Mahama (2007) show that accounting phenomena are involved in
formulating and reformulating relations between focal and subcontracting firms.
When accounting calculations made the consequences of complex contracts visible, the Effects of
relation between the firms would be re-negotiated. A contract would stipulate prices actor-network
and rules of engagement, and rely on certain assumptions made by each party about
the conduct of the other party. Such assumptions will not always be open and theory
well-understood and when a party starts to act in unpredictable ways, the calculated
economic benefits may end up being meager. The interaction between contract and
accounting dynamically influences the relationships between the parties to a 175
relationship, which therefore gains new properties. The contract gets changed due to
the knowledge created by accounting calculations. This change reflexively influences
the contract and the relationship between the parties. In episodes like this, the
relationship between the parties undergoes changes and the boundaries between the
actions of one party and the actions of the other party are dynamic.
Other research develops similar types of accounts of the role of accounting in the
negotiation of organizational boundaries. Mouritsen and Thrane (2006) illustrate
self-regulating and orchestrating mechanisms in network relations, and Miller and
O’Leary’s (2007) analysis of mediating instruments illustrates how a road map may
organize and coordinate a whole body of firms towards collective innovation. In both
cases, calculations are “on top” of multiple firms, coordinating their interactions.
The contribution of this research is to show that calculations have constitutive roles
in forming the boundaries between firms. Calculation participates in developing new
boundaries between what is inside and what is outside, i.e. what is the firm and what is
its environment? Second, organization becomes an effect of calculation rather than its
premise, which has customarily been a feature of much contingency theory and
transaction cost theory in relations to the development of accounting systems.
ANT-inspired accounting research claims that organizational boundaries are mediated
and partly constructed by accounting calculations, although the calculations, in turn,
are also translated by the organizational actors.

Emerging markets: the performativity of accounting

A few accounting studies (MacKenzie, 2009; Callon, 2009; Miller and O’Leary, 2007)
apply an ANT approach to the idea of emerging markets. They focus on the
performative[8] role of accounting in the processes of making new markets, such as a
carbon markets where permits to emit greenhouse gas are commodified.
MacKenzie (2009, p. 441) argues that economic life is performed by economics,
defined as:
A term that encompasses not just the academic discipline but also economic practices such as
accounting and marketing.
He analyses how greenhouse gas emissions allowances are brought into the frame of
economic calculation and become an object with a price, an object to be bought and
sold in markets. The project of creating a carbon market is a political project whose
aim is to get polluting companies to bear some of the costs related to emissions.
However, as MacKenzie notes, political decisions are never enough to create a market.
In order for a market to work in practice, it must also be defined technically, and to this
end, scientists and accountants become involved. Whereas scientists calculate
“exchange rates” that make different kinds of greenhouse gases commensurable,
accountants make these new economic items visible (MacKenzie, 2009, p. 447), but to
AAAJ do so they must undertake a good deal of classification work. Technicalities are never
24,2 trivial, but participate in the constitution of the way a new market will eventually
function. This is the performativity of accounting. Once the technical aspects and
debates of both the scientists and the accountants have been settled, the result will be
black boxing. Few will question the equations and standardizations. A similar
approach and theme is found in Callon (2009), although his paper does not have an
176 explicit focus on the role of accounting.
The contribution of these studies relates to the role of accounting in the making of
new markets. It challenges the liberal belief in the autonomous working of market
mechanisms by showing how politics and economics are intertwined, and how the
specific calculations and classifications of accountants and other professionals make a
difference to the specific construction and functioning of new markets.

ANT-inspired accounting research in action: when the accounting objects

act
The contribution of actor-network theory to accounting research
I would define a good account as one that traces a network. I mean by this word a string of
actions where each participant is treated as a full-blown mediator. To put it very simply: A
good ANT account is a narrative or a description or a proposition where all the actors do
something and don’t just sit there. Instead of simply transporting effects without
transforming them, each of the points in the text may become a bifurcation, an event, or the
origin of a new (Latour, 2005a, p. 128).
The discussion of ANT-inspired accounting research developed above shows how this
perspective has inspired new lines of inquiry and ways of analyzing accounting
phenomena.
First, the use of the concept of translation has given a novel perspective on accounting
change. Our review has shown how a number of different accounting studies use this
inspiration to analyze what happens when accounting objects (such as an ABC system or
a budgeting system) “travel” from one setting to another. The shared premise is that
accounting systems do not have inherent essences but take on new properties when they
engage with new constellations of actors, i.e. when they are translated. One main
conclusion is that accounting phenomena are never merely diffused, adopted or
implemented; they are adapted and translated and, at the same time, they are enrolled in
an actor-network that reconfigures other actors’ interests. This aspect is clearly unfolded
in the studies of e.g. Briers and Chua (2001) and Preston et al. (1992).
Second, in each of the reviewed papers, accounting technologies and calculative
devices are granted a new and prominent role because they are seen as actors that take
part in the formulating, construction – and often stabilization – of organizational
activities. They are salient examples of what Latour refers to as non-human actors
(Latour, 1987). However, no actor acts alone and the notion of the actor-network points
to the idea that action is distributed. The actor is not an atom, but receives identity and
“actorhood” through its relations to other (human and non-human) actors. One
important implication of this is that the completeness of an accounting phenomenon is
determined less by its relation to an underlying economic reality than to its role in the
particular network that makes it important and translates it in a particular way. This is
demonstrated in a number of papers in our review and it implies an emphasis on the
materiality of technologies. Accounting calculations are understood to be inscriptions
that are the contingent effects of specific procedures rather than a more or less precise Effects of
mirroring of the world. Inscriptions are interesting not because of what they say, but actor-network
because of the kind of action they enable, by being material, mobile and combinable.
Robson (1991, 1992) and Miller (1991)[9] are among the authors that clearly emphasize theory
and demonstrate how the materiality of accounting is of importance.
Third, ANT-inspired accounting research rejects traditional sociological
dichotomies, such as micro/macro, subject/object, structure/agency and 177
technical/social. Instead of reducing the explanation to either side of such dualisms,
ANT rehabilitates the detailed description of processes and actions at the empirical
level. Latour (2005a, p. 165) argues for an approach that he refers to as “slowciology”,
based on the methodological slogans “go slow”, “don’t jump” and “keep everything
flat” (Latour, 2205a, p. 190). Dechow and Mouritsen (2005) and Quattrone and Hopper
(2005) are examples of studies that take this methodological advice seriously and,
through detailed empirical analysis, come up with a host of surprising candidates for
explaining accounting change and practices. When each element in a translation is
considered, it is suddenly clear that any presumption of having grasped a process via
simple a priori models may be misleading.
These three main characteristics make ANT-inspired research different from other
notable approaches to accounting research. ANT-inspired accounting research is
interested in specific actions as they appear in specific episodes. Latour (2005a) contrasts
his “sociology of associations” with a more traditional “sociology of the social”. The latter
position claims that it is possible to understand phenomena by short-cuts and
substitutions where conditions take over the properties of the phenomenon. This may be a
possible approach, Latour says, only if the researcher is not interested in transformation
and change and when the matters under consideration are not controversial. However,
this is rarely the case because important research questions concern controversies, which
is why the sociology of association is typically more warranted and interesting.

ANT and its alternatives

In this section, we compare the ANT-inspired approach to accounting with other
influential theoretical perspectives. We structure the comparison around the concept of
context, which has been central in most of the sociologically inspired accounting
research since Burchell et al. (1980, 1985) as well as in more mainstream contingency
and functionalist perspectives (e.g. Chenhall, 2003, 2007). Compared to these very
different approaches, actor-network theory provides another understanding of context,
and for this reason, the concept can be used to crystallize the specificity and originality
of Latour’s work, both generally and in relation to accounting research. Latour (2005a,
p. 167) warns us that reference to context can become an excuse for “jumping” instead
of carefully following connections and association on a detailed level. Table I presents
some differences in explanations preferred by some contemporary approaches to
accounting research as well as the actor-network theory response to them. It shows
how ANT attempts to rework the distinction between context and phenomenon.
This table, which shows differences between various positions taken in accounting
research and the perspective offered by ANT, is not exhaustive. We acknowledge that,
for specific purposes, drawing on different approaches in the study of accounting
phenomena can be relevant. Yet, it may help in defining how an ANT approach
develops its particular explanations.
 24,2

178

Table I.
AAAJ

accounting research –
and the ANT response
Central theorizations in
Theorization View of accounting phenomenon The ANT response

Explanation refers to the forces of environment,
uncertainty and technology (contingency
theory)
Explanation refers to sensemaking and
interpretation (interpretive approach)
The accounting entity is shaped by
environmental uncertainty and technology and
often mediated by other elements of a control
package. The conditioning environmental and
technological forces are the independent
variables and the accounting entity is the
dependent variable. Hence, the accounting
entity is influenced by the properties of the
environment and technology and becomes an
effect that is consistent with the environment. In
that sense, accounting is an essentially passive
adaptation to the context.
The accounting phenomenon is an input to be
understood and interpreted by individual
sensemaking. The power of accounting is weak,
but the power of people adding their
interpretation is strong and people will
incorporate the message of an accounting
system and decide either to comply with it or let
it be irrelevant. The accounting entity is pure
information that has to be interpreted and made
sense of. In itself, it does nothing. It becomes
meaningful when interpreted; then it can be
enacted
The accounting entity is much more active. It
helps to define and articulate the state of the
environment and the issue of technology, which
is taken more or less for granted in contingency
theory. Both environment and technology (“the
context”) are to be explained rather than
assumed, and since managers can only know
about the market against the markers defined
by accounting information, their responses are
related to this knowledge. Hence, accounting
entities are neither dependent nor independent;
they are interdependent and have agency
Accounting provides inscriptions and
visualizations that highlight and make visible
certain properties. Obviously managers
interpret information, but this interpretation is
constrained by the accounting object that may
object to some interpretations. Furthermore, it is
rarely enough for a manager to be powerful. A
manager has to persuade others and this will
typically include drawing on a visualization. If
one visualization is interpreted as wrong or
inadequate, another one has to be mobilized to
conquer the first one. There is more to
accounting entities than being the backdrop to
interpretations
(continued)
Theorization
Explanation refers to the forces of social norms
and institutions (institutional approach)
Explanation refers to the logic of decision rights
and incentives (agency theory)
Explanation refers to duality of agency and
structure (structuration theory)
Table I.
View of accounting phenomenon
Accounting is driven by pressures for
normalization and homogenization, e.g. certain
accounting entities are caused by social norms
and discourses which tend to reduce variation
and lead to “isomorphism”. However,
accounting phenomena are not necessarily
rationally useful; they are often empty
legitimating devices. Hence, the institutional
context tends to determine the accounting
reality of the firm
Accounting entities are related to incentives and
designed according to the structural
characteristics of principal/agent relationships.
Accounting entities are understood to differ
according to the delegation of decision rights,
and they are expected to work because
managers are assumed to be utility (profit)
maximizing actors
Accounting systems are used in systems of
accountability. Systems of accountability are
lasting social systems that are produced and
reproduced by managers using the embedded
visibility and morality of accounting systems.
Much of social life draws upon (structural) rules
and resources that exist outside the structure,
yet bind situated practices in and through
systems of accountability
The ANT response
Accounting objects are not merely diffused in
time and space. They are translated. The central
question is not how an external social force
takes over the properties of accounting entities;
it is rather how the work of firms with
accounting entities actively draws external
social entities into the firm and adds to the
process of change. The social environment is
made up due to its association with the
emerging accounting entity
Agency models cannot encompass the empirical
complexity and use of accounting entities. The
variability among accounting entities is not
appreciated by agency theory and therefore it is
important to add knowledge about the multiple
ways in which items such as decision rights and
interests are developed and made real. This
involves studying the role of the accounting
construction of the calculation of risk and return
Accountability is exercised in relation to a fluid
set of matters of concern, whose structure
cannot be pre-defined. There are no interesting
(structural) rules and resources that exist away
from and yet explain practical interaction;
therefore, accounting is implicated in organizing
matters of concern rather than matters that have
a pre-defined institutional ordering
actor-network
theory
179
Effects of
AAAJ Contingency theory is widely used in accounting research and continues to produce
24,2 notable findings. Primarily concerned with the effect of environment and technology on
the design of accounting systems (Chenhall, 2003, 2007), contingency theory explicates
this view as a one-directional model where environment and technology are antecedents
to the format of accounting systems. The accounting system becomes an effect of
environment and technology, a largely passive adaptation to external factors. In contrast
180 to this, ANT-inspired research allows accounting entities to have power, too. The ANT
principle of symmetry states that all variables/entities have to be treated equally (Latour,
1993). As the knowledge about the environment is produced by accounting information,
the apparently dependent variable becomes explanatory. ANT suggests that if instead
we study any entity as interdependent, then it is possible to understand how the
environment and the accounting inscriptions are constituted simultaneously.
It would appear obvious that managers use and interpret accounting information
and that what is important is the study of how sensemaking and interpretation work
(Ahrens and Chapman, 2004; Boland and Pondy, 1993, 1986). It is reasonably clear that
different managers may use an accounting system for different purposes so that
depending on how managers use it, it may turn out to be a diagnostic, a belief or a
boundary system, as well as interactive (e.g. Simons, 1995). The system does not define
its uses. Sensemaking and interpretation happen. However, they are individualistic
properties and become a matter between an accounting report and an inquisitive mind.
The ANT-inspired approach would claim that the inquisitive mind is not only very
difficult to unravel independently of the input provided by accounting information but,
more importantly, even if interpretation were a central concern, the question is how the
individual takes the next step. Accounting extends the situation and influences how
managers problematize their situation and persuade others about it. If managers wish
to extend interpretation far beyond the accounting system, they have to produce new
inscriptions that can persuade the collectivity of managers and thus extend
interpretation beyond the individual.
Institutional theory (in a broad sense) emphasizes that accounting entities are the
effects of various “non-rational” drivers. Institutions and discourses influence and
override technical requirements and cause firms to install accounting systems that
they may not need. The particular format of accounting systems is guided or even
determined by external social forces. This makes the connection between the
accounting systems and the firm’s technical requirements doubtful and the
institutional environment becomes central (e.g. Modell (2001); and to a degree also
Miller and O’Leary (1993, 1994)). The ANT-inspired approach would suggest that the
social environment is ambiguous until its links to accounting have been specified. This
includes an explanation of how the external environment becomes part of the
explanation. The environment has to be invited into the setting via some mechanism.
This mechanism would also help to explain how the environment is defined and how it
is allocated a place in the development of accounting systems.
ANT-inspired research is also clearly different from agency research, an approach
that often draws up a complex set of variables and deduces implications regarding
decision rights and incentive systems (Lambert, 2007). From an ANT-perspective,
agency theory leaves too little space for empirical surprises. The assumption that much
of the empirical setting can be understood through deductive reasoning alone can be
questioned. Agency theory functions well in a laboratory setting, but ANT-inspired
research understands the laboratory as a constructed realm in which results are Effects of
selectively presented by researchers. actor-network
The duality between actor and structure so well developed in structuration theory
suggests that accounting calculations and systems are modalities between structures theory
of signification, domination and legitimation, and interact through communication,
power and sanctions (Giddens, 1984, p. 29). Accounting systems are drawn on within
systems of accountability where they stabilize the recall of structures, which are then, 181
via the duality of structure, media for and outcomes of interaction (Roberts and
Scapens, 1985). Accounting systems are modalities, i.e. mechanisms that reflect the
language, the resources and the norms pertaining to a structured social system.
ANT-inspired research is critical of theories that place emphasis on entities that are
absent from interaction. If structures exist away from interaction, where are they?
Structures in structuration theory exists as instantiations but never as objects per se –
they are enacted by practice and therefore have no existence separate from interaction.
ANT-inspired research would suggest that we should only take into account entities
that exist. If interaction is in one place, where do we go to find structures? This is a
difficult place to find. This is why when ANT-inspired research approaches questions
of accountability, it is more interested in matters of concern that can vary across
empirical situations than in interests deduced from the position of an actor in a
structure (e.g. Robson, 1993)[10].
These differences place ANT in relation to other approaches as one concerned with
the fluidity of practices; and attempt to make explanations slow. However, ANT is no
singular body of work and new directions for accounting research may be found in
Latour’s more recent work.

Science in Action and beyond

From deconstruction of facts to matters of concern and the multiplicity of things
Actor-network theory is a heterogeneous body of thought, but with respect to
ANT-inspired accounting studies, as shown in Figure 2, Science in Action is still, by far,
the most central reference. This indicates that one particular version of ANT has been the
dominant source of inspiration for accounting researchers. There is, however, an
alternative in the much less cited books Pandora’s Hope (Latour, 1999a), The Politics of
Nature (Latour, 2004a) and Reassembling the Social (Latour, 2005a), as well as in recent
papers published by Latour (2004b, 2005b, c). Taking this work into account to a greater
extent would allow accounting researchers to develop analyses of processes with a higher
degree of subtlety, where the links between accounting and society can be rendered not
only in greater detail but also more clearly “in action”. A number of the reviewed
accounting studies focus on the stabilization of an accounting phenomenon, such as DCF,
ABC or benchmarks. Apart from sharing the assumption that accounting techniques do
not have essential properties to be passed on or “implemented”, all the reviewed articles
follow Latour’s principle of following translations in the empirical details.
However, many of the studies drawing on Science in Action seem to focus on a kind
of “deconstruction” of accounting – the purpose being to show that the accounting
phenomena we tend to take for granted (such as a costing systems, benchmarks,
accounting, standards and auditing expertise) are fabricated and molded by a number
of different actors who use diverse rhetorical strategies to persuade, enroll other actors,
and, in the end, overcome resistance. In that sense, and in spite of the differences
AAAJ outlined in the previous section, some studies tend to have ambitions similar to social
24,2 constructionist and institutionalist accounting studies because the focus is on the
establishment of taken-for-grantedness, and the analysis is similar to a deconstruction
showing that what we think is real is actually fabricated. Heterogeneity is recognized
in the beginning, but it gradually fades as stronger networks and their spokespersons
manage to gain enough allies, reorganize opponents’ interests and mobilize support
182 from both humans and non-humans. If the process succeeds, we end up with facts,
experts or systems that are taken for granted, i.e. black boxed, although all the
reviewed studies would agree that, in principle, success is always temporary and
fragile. Reading Latour in this manner is indeed warranted by Science in Action as well
as other Latour studies from the 1980s and the early 1990s.
However, in his recent work, Latour (2004b, p. 231) suggests a different line of
inquiry:
My argument is that a certain form of critical spirit has sent us down the wrong path [. . .] The
question was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on
the contrary, renewing empiricism. What I am going to argue is that the critical mind, if it is
to renew itself and be relevant again, is to be found in the cultivation of a stubbornly realist
attitude – to speak like William James – but a realism dealing with what I will call matters of
concern, not matters of fact.
The focus on matters of concern is related to a new critical approach that differs from
deconstruction. According to Latour, it is no longer interesting show that “facts” are
really constructed. As the quote above states, the point is not to get away from facts,
but to get closer to them. Shortly afterwards in the same text, Latour continues this line
of argument by asking:
Can we devise another powerful descriptive tool that deals this time with matters of concern
and whose import then will no longer be to debunk but to protect and to care [. . .]. Is it really
possible to transform the critical urge in the ethos of someone who adds reality to matters of
fact and not subtract reality? (Latour, 2004b, p. 232, emphasis added).
But what does it mean, in practice, to follow an approach that is both constructivist and
realistic? According to Latour (2005a, p. 116), it implies that “[i ]t is the thing itself that
has been allowed to be deployed as multiple”. The interesting metaphors are not so much
the network as the chain and the trail. The chain outlines a trail to be followed (Latour,
2005a, p. 176). There is an difference between, on the one hand, the chain and trail
metaphors used and, on the other hand, the network builder idea from Science in Action
where a subject-like actor is driving a process; someone (a person or group of people) is
trying to persuade, enroll and mobilize actors, both human and non-human, in his or
her network. This interpretation has led some critics to view actor-network theory as
“Machiavellian” (Star, 1991). However, in Latour’s later work, the translation process is
more unambiguously presented as a-centered. This implies that the researcher is not
concerned with the rhetoric and “enrolling strategies” of potential network builders.
Instead the idea is to follow trails in whatever direction they may lead. The focus is
displaced from actors to attachments: “attachments are first, actors are second”
(Latour, 2005a, p. 217). This new set of concepts, or metaphors, may challenge
accounting researchers who read and use Latour’s work, leading to less focus on
“context” or “programmes”, on the one hand, and network (or fact) builders and
rhetorical tricks, on the other hand.
 Latour (2005a, p. 115) warns about premature closure of the explanation in relation Effects of
to his concept of matters of concern, which can be defined as “issues we care for” actor-network
(Latour, 2005c). This concept is gaining a prominent status in Latour’s recent work
(Latour, 2004a, b, 2005a, b, c) where he compares it with the concept of matters of fact. theory
The contrast between these two notions does not reflect the classical phenomenological
and social constructivist dualism between an objective and real world of objects, on the
one hand, and a subjective, interpretive human world, on the other. A matter of concern 183
keeps controversy alive. “[I]t agitates, it troubles, it complicates, it provokes speech
[. . .]” (Latour, 2004a, p.103).
Viewing the world in terms of matters of concern is, in Latour’s universe, a realist
approach to the world – a view that is more realist than the “matters of fact” world
view because the latter reduces the thing to a mute object (Latour, 2004b). A
consideration of matters of concern implies an approach in which careful attention is
paid to the rich and complex being of things, which in our context would be accounting
objects. This proposition is related to the well-known ANT premise that non-humans
are actors, too, but the new realist approach goes one step further. Latour (2004b, p.
246) advocates “[. . .] a multifarious inquiry launched with the tools of anthropology,
philosophy, metaphysics, history, sociology to detect how many participants are
gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence”. Instead of the
deconstructivist approach where matters of facts are shown to be fabricated, attention
is turned to the multiple being of this fabricated thing. It implies that “[t]he critic is not
one who debunks but the one who assembles. The critic is not the one who lifts the rugs
from under the feet of the naı̈ve believers, but the one who offers the participants an
arena in which to gather. [. . .] the one for whom, if something is constructed, then it
means it is fragile and thus in great need of care and caution” (Latour, 2004b, p. 246).
What implications may this turn in actor-network theory have for future accounting
research? Aspects of such an agenda are present already in some accounting research,
which shows how accounting systems themselves are heterogeneous or “multiple”
entities. Quattrone and Hopper (2005) indicate that the attachments to SAP more than
SAP itself constitute its identity, and Dechow and Mouritsen (2005) and Briers and
Chua (2001) state that accounting technology is often made realistic via visionary
objects; or as Mouritsen et al. (2001) suggest, for non-financial indicators of an
intellectual capital system to make sense they have to be equipped with a narrative.
Technology is an entity only when other types of participants have been assembled.
Quattrone and Hopper (2001) argue that ANT may also be used to make visible another
kind of movement that is more related to the creation of “centres of discretion” (Munro,
1999) than to the solidification of “centres of calculations”. This account brings focus to
the continued presence of multiplicity, fluidity and heterogeneity. Furthermore, such
analyses pay attention to the continued need for “fuel” that characterizes any existing
order as well as the a-centered translation processes that keep capturing accounting
phenomena and make them drift in unforeseen directions (Mouritsen, 2005; Quattrone
and Hopper, 2001; Andon et al., 2007).
The study of accounting may benefit from insights from Latour’s later work,
making it possible to understand the power of accounting numbers and inscriptions,
without assuming that they are powerful because they are copies of the world, but
rather because they have been made strong by the multiple attachments that make up
the accounting phenomenon, thus allowing it to organize the settings it is part of.
AAAJ Power and powerfulness are “explained by the multiplicity of objects given a central
24,2 role and transported by vehicles which should be empirically visible [. . .]” (Latour,
2005a, p.83).This requires research to keep the accounting phenomenon “open” as far
as possible and only letting it settle, provisionally, when the study runs out of time. In
such a setting accounting phenomena may be studied in two dimensions – distribution
and causality. As distributed, a-centered objects, accounting phenomena are spread out
184 in time and space towards heterogeneous elements that help to make their identity.
Never only “here and now,” they always represent a set of computations and
technologies developed in the historical past, a set of propositions about the future, an
assemblage of proponents used to persuade across historical time and a possible set of
new proponents that will be used to persuade in the future but via investments and
efforts mobilized just a few seconds ago or just in a few seconds. Distributed in time
and space, the accounting phenomenon is rendered an object exactly because of the
additions to and subtractions from it that it entertains over time.
The accounting object is not only distributed, but it also provides causality. Via
propositions about its power, identity, effects and influence that are constantly being
attributed to accounting phenomena, it is possible to analyze its role in episodes of
transformation. This episodic rendering of causality may be controversial, as it is
typically understood as a generalization. However, from the recent writings of Latour, it
is not only possible, but it also presents an obligation to engage with the episodes that
make accounting stand out and produce effects. This requires researchers to understand
existence as variable. This also implies understanding the powers of accounting
“without stretching, framing, squeezing, and cutting them with the four adverbs never,
nowhere, always, everywhere” (Latour, 1999a, p. 156). Accounting may have power –
causality – but not in the same way always, everywhere, nowhere, or never. The power
can be strong for one particular episode and then lose power again, retracting noticeably.
The study of accounting phenomena from this perspective requires detailed
“slowciology” from researchers as they now have to find instances of different power
effects and causality rather than instances of power that solidify one already established
model of connected relationships that gain power by generalization.

Conclusion
This paper illustrates and discusses how Bruno Latour’s version of actor-network
theory has influenced accounting research since the late 1980s. This influence has led
to highly diverse studies, but one main area of interest has been devoted to analyses of
accounting change, seen as translation processes. This view gives a very different
account of change than the contingency or institutionalist approaches, because change
is not explained with reference to a stable set of external variables. Instead, it is seen as
contingent, historical processes that often develop unexpectedly when heterogeneous
actors are brought together in particular and fragile “accounting constellations”
(Miller, 1991).
Another important aspect relating the different ANT-inspired accounting studies is
the prominence given to “non-human” actors. Accounting technologies, precisely as
technologies, are given a central role. They enable particular kinds of action when they
become part of a larger network, consisting of both humans and non-humans. For
example, accounting inscriptions enable action and distance (e.g. Robson, 1992), giving
visibility to “invisible” objects (e.g. MacKenzie, 2009); they make the absent present.
 However, even though the ANT-influence on accounting research has been quite Effects of
clear, it seems that a certain reading of Latour has dominated the accounting literature. actor-network
Science in Action has been the dominant reference and the vocabulary found in that
book continues to be used in most actor-network analyses in the accounting field. theory
However, we suggest that new inspiration can be found in Latour’s underexplored,
more recent work. It is not within the scope of this paper to explore this work in detail
and unfold the concepts developed in these texts, but we hope that our suggestion will 185
inspire future accounting research.
We note that the central topics of interest in ANT-inspired accounting research have
been the study of accounting change, the study of the formation of boundaries, the
constitutive role of accounting phenomena, the development of accounting and
auditing expertise and the assemblage of elements needed to create the identity of
accounting phenomena that is understood as the actors/actants that are involved in
creating practices and change. This paper also notes that ANT-inspired research is
different from other types of research by insisting that any environmental condition or
any political influence has to be shown rather than assumed. Not only is it important to
link the environment with accounting practices, but also the link has to be documented
and made visible in order to understand how it is that uncertainty, politics and
technology actually affect the constitution of accounting, or how accounting
phenomena are attributed the power and causality to influence the environment,
technology and organization.
This paper presents arguments for a continued inspiration from ANT for
accounting research. The critical voices that have been raised against this approach
have been omitted from this paper. There is still work to be done to understand the
possibilities and constraints of an ANT-inspired accounting research agenda.

Notes
1. For practical reasons, we use the acronym ANT. Latour has expressed ambivalence towards
both the concept actor-network theory and its abbreviation (Latour, 1999b, 2005a).
2. However, it should be noted that there is an interesting and growing ANT-inspired
accounting literature that is primarily inspired by Callon’s work on markets and by his
concepts of framing and overflowing (Callon,1998a, b). See for example: Skærbæk and
Tryggestad (2010); Skærbæk (2009) and Christensen and Skærbæk (2007).
3. For sophisticated ANT-inspired theoretical discussions of the very notion of change in
relation to organization and accounting, see Quattrone and Hopper (2001) and Andon et al.
(2007).
4. For an extensive review of alternative management accounting literature, see Baxter and
Chua (2003) and Puxty (1998).
5. Although our focus is on accounting journals, we also include papers on accounting
phenomena published in other kinds of journals (e.g. Quattrone and Hopper, 2005).
6. Actor-network theory was not a concept used at that time, but under the label of sociology of
science, Robson mentions Michel Callon and John Law, who, together with Latour, will later
be viewed as the main figures of classical actor-network theory.
7. Other interesting examples of ANT-inspired alternatives to mainstream “implementation
studies” can be found in Lowe (2000); Emsley (2008); Alcouffe et al. (2008) and Mennicken
(2008).
AAAJ 8. It can be debated whether the concept of performativity is particularly related to ANT as
such. The concept was coined by John Austin, the English language philosopher (Austin,
24,2 1962) and has inspired not only ANT, but also the more post-structuralist work of e.g. Butler
(1990, 1993). Law emphasizes performativity as a key notion in ANT (Law, 1999, p. 4), but it
is not a concept that has been used much in Latour’s own work. However, in an article from
1986 Latour juxtaposes “ostensive” and “performative” definition arguing that that “we have
to shift from an ostensive to a performative definition of society” (Latour, 1986a, p. 272) and
186 in this paper, Latour provides the following explanation of the concept “Society is not the
referent of an ostensive definition discovered by social scientists despite the ignorance of the
informants. Rather it is performed through everyone’s effort to define it” (Latour, 1986a, 273).
This distinction between ostensive and the performative definitions has been a direct source
of inspiration to a few accounting studies (e.g. Mouritsen, 2006). Latour does not use the
precise term “performativity”, but when this concept gains a prominent role in the work of
Callon (1998a, b; 2007), MacKenzie (2006), Law (1999) and others STS/ANT scholars from the
late 1990s and onwards, the concept is clearly used in a way that resemble the way it was
defined by Latour in the article referred to above. However, Callon and his colleagues turn
their attention to the links between economy, economics and “market devices” in a way that
makes the focus of this work somewhat different from Latour’s (see also footnote 2). This
version of ANT has been referred to as “the performativity version of ANT” (Holm, 2007,
p. 225). Although the Austian, the post-structuralist and the ANT traditions seem to have
developed their understanding and use of the performativity concept separately, an
interesting dialogue and critical discussion among thinkers from these different traditions
are beginning to appear (Du Gay, 2010; Butler, 2010; Callon, 2010).
9. Quattrone (2009) is a recent, very interesting study that also examines the materiality of
inscriptions.
10. The table summarizes major theoretical positions in a very general format; this, however,
may apply more to its treatment of structuration theory than the others. Structuration theory
is more complex as it attempts to develop a grand synthesis of social theory (see Giddens,
1984). However, many accounting papers have noted that Giddens calls structuration theory
a sensitising device and draw only on aspects of it (for a review, see Busco, 2009). Drawing
on the idea of duality of structure, questions about accountability surface very often; this is
understandable as Giddens himself calls the relationship between signification and
legitimation accountability (see e.g. Conrad, 2005 and the seminal paper by Roberts and
Scapens, 1985). Other important accounting research about accounting change also finds
some inspiration in parts of structuration theory (e.g. Burns and Scapens, 2000). Llittle
accounting research draws extensively on Giddens’ empirical interests such as globalization,
reflexivity, knowledge society, politics etc. (yet see e.g. Barrett et al., 2005). Jones and
Dugdale (2001) present a compelling argument for integrating ANT and structuration
theory, but Latour (2005a, p. 169) is critical of such a move.

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Further reading
Latour, B. (1986), “Visualization and cognition: thinking with eyes and hands”, Studies in the
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Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1979), Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts,
Sage, London.
Quattrone, P. and Hopper, T. (2006), “What is IT? SAP, accounting, and visibility in a
multinational organisation”, Information and Organization, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 212-50.

Corresponding author
Lise Justesen can be contacted at: lj.ioa@cbs.dk, jm.om@cbs.dk
 Accounting phenomenon Latour text referred to
Key concepts from Latour in focus Type of study Empirical evidence most in paper

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Appendix
Miller (1990) Centers of calculation, Accounting in general Historical analysis Historical documents Science in Action
network
Miller (1991) Translation, action at a Discounted cash flow Historical analysis Historical documents Science in Action
distance, “cycle of techniques
accumulation”
Robson (1991) Translation Accounting standards Historical analysis Documents Science in Action
and standard setters
Robson (1992) Action at a distance, Accounting in general Theoretical paper Documents Science in Action
inscription, translation
Preston et al. Fabrication, black box, A budgeting system Case study Qualitative interviews, Science in Action
(1992) network, translation documents, observations
Chua (1995) Fabrication, allies, network, The management Ethnography, case Observations Science in Action
actors, actor network, non- accounting system studies
human resources, inscriptions, Casemix
interessement device
Mouritsen et al. Performativity, mobilization, Intellectual capital Longitudinal study of Interviews, Science in Action,
(2001) inscription devices, referents, 17 firms questionnaires, “Drawing things
non-humans, translation observations together”
Jones and Network, allies, non-humans, ABC Reconstruction of Documents, scientific Science in Action
Dugdale (2002) black box, translation, events papers
inscriptions
Llewellynn and Center of calculation, allies, Benchmarking Critical discourse Documents, interviews Science in Action
Northcott (2005) enrolment, “cycle of analysis
accumulation”
Dechow and Network, human and non- ERP Two case studies, Participant-observation, Pandora’s Hope,
Mouritsen (2005) human actors, creation of facts “cross-case- interviews, documents “On recalling ANT”
comparison”
Gendron et al. Translation, fact building, Performance auditing Case study Interviews Science in Action
(2007) allies, networks and measurement
Quattrone and Translation, inscriptions, ERP Two case studies Interviews, documents Science in Action,
Hopper (2005) center of calculation Pandora’s Hope
MacKenzie (2009) Translation, performativity, Standards of carbon General study of an Interviews, documents Reassembling the Social
black boxing emission rights emerging practice
actor-network

Selected publications
theory

inspired by ANT
Table AI.
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Effects of