Accounting for tacit coordination: The passing of accounts and the broader case for accounting theory

Tacit coordination is a pervasive aspect of accounting practice. This paper teases out insights on tacit coordination from existing scholarship, starting with studies of everyday life accounting, then turning to professional practice. It develops an understanding that, in the application of rules and accounting standards, in producing, framing, auditing and using statements, records, apologies or excuses, accounting practitioners tacitly coordinate towards the passing of accounts. This passing can be articulated in terms of structures, agencies and processes of tacit coordination involved in making accounting happen. The implications of this understanding of accounting practice and the importance of the wider domain of enquiry it is indicating are discussed with respect to the stewardship position of accounting professionals and the further development of accounting theory. The passing of accounts charges accounting practitioners with the stewardship of silence and indicates a broader case for accounting theory to address the full continuum of accounting practices. One vital role of such theory is to offer antidotes against the idea that any account, any slice of information, or any amount of ‘big data’, could speak for itself – or that it should.