IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v72y2020ics1045235419300802.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The counter-performativity of calculative practices: Mobilising rankings of intellectual capital

Author

Listed:
  • Boedker, Christina
  • Chong, Kar-Ming
  • Mouritsen, Jan

Abstract

This article investigates accounting as a counter-performative practice. For two years and nine months, we followed State Corporation, which participated in a ranking exercise using the Intellectual Asset Health Check launched by the Australian Federal Government in 2010. We find that sceptical employees seized the opportunity made possible by the ranking system to air alternative strategies. Rather than working in a predictable or performative manner, the ranking system was taken out of the hands of management and used against them. The study contributes to extant literatures by showing how accounting can become a tool to mount and sustain resistance. The ranking system, and the ideology it represented, became counter-productive because it produced effects that were ‘counter’ or contrary to its own intent and ideals.

Suggested Citation

  • Boedker, Christina & Chong, Kar-Ming & Mouritsen, Jan, 2020. "The counter-performativity of calculative practices: Mobilising rankings of intellectual capital," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:72:y:2020:i:c:s1045235419300802
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2019.102100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235419300802
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2019.102100?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Kornberger & Chris Carter, 2010. "Manufacturing competition: how accounting practices shape strategy making in cities," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(3), pages 325-349, March.
    2. Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1990. "Relative Performance Evaluation for Chief Executive Officers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 30, April.
    3. Donald MacKenzie, 2006. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262134608, December.
    4. Cooper, Christine, 2015. "Accounting for the fictitious: A Marxist contribution to understanding accounting's roles in the financial crisis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 63-82.
    5. Natalie Buckmaster & Jan Mouritsen, 2017. "Benchmarking and Learning in Public Healthcare: Properties and Effects," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 27(3), pages 232-247, September.
    6. Roberts, John & Jones, Megan, 2009. "Accounting for self interest in the credit crisis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 856-867, August.
    7. Owen, David L. & Lloyd, Anthony J., 1985. "The use of financial information by trade union negotiators in plant level collective bargaining," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 329-350, July.
    8. Mouritsen, Jan & Hansen, Allan & Hansen, Carsten Ørts, 2009. "Short and long translations: Management accounting calculations and innovation management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 738-754, August.
    9. Burchell, Stuart & Clubb, Colin & Hopwood, Anthony & Hughes, John & Nahapiet, Janine, 1980. "The roles of accounting in organizations and society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 5-27, January.
    10. Paolo Quattrone, 2017. "Embracing ambiguity in management controls and decision-making processes: On how to design data visualisations to prompt wise judgement," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 588-612, July.
    11. Quattrone, Paolo, 2009. "Books to be practiced: Memory, the power of the visual, and the success of accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 85-118, January.
    12. Matias Laine & Eija Vinnari, 2014. "The dynamics of voluntary benchmarking in the water sector," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 297-304, July.
    13. Lucien Karpik, 2010. "Valuing the Unique: The Economics of Singularities," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9215.
    14. Michel Callon, 2010. "Performativity, Misfires And Politics," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 163-169, July.
    15. Ezzamel, Mahmoud & Willmott, Hugh & Worthington, Frank, 2004. "Accounting and management-labour relations: the politics of production in the 'factory with a problem'," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 269-302.
    16. Thomas Ahrens & Christopher S. Chapman, 2004. "Accounting for Flexibility and Efficiency: A Field Study of Management Control Systems in a Restaurant Chain," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(2), pages 271-301, June.
    17. Fabian Muniesa, 2014. "The Provoked Economy: Economic Reality and the Performative Turn," Post-Print halshs-00989576, HAL.
    18. Yves Gendron & Michael Barrett, 2004. "Professionalization in Action: Accountants' Attempt at Building a Network of Support for the WebTrust Seal of Assurance," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(3), pages 563-602, September.
    19. Ezzamel, Mahmoud & Willmott, Hugh & Worthington, Frank, 2008. "Manufacturing shareholder value: The role of accounting in organizational transformation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(2-3), pages 107-140.
    20. Cooper, David J. & Sherer, Michael J., 1984. "The value of corporate accounting reports: Arguments for a political economy of accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 9(3-4), pages 207-232, October.
    21. Ahrens, Thomas & Chapman, Christopher S., 2007. "Management accounting as practice," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-2), pages 1-27.
    22. Andrew, Jane & Cahill, Damien, 2017. "Rationalising and resisting neoliberalism: The uneven geography of costs," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 12-28.
    23. Ed Vosselman, 2014. "The 'performativity thesis' and its critics: Towards a relational ontology of management accounting," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 181-203, April.
    24. Amernic, Joel H., 1985. "The roles of accounting in collective bargaining," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 227-253, April.
    25. Jeacle, Ingrid & Carter, Chris, 2011. "In TripAdvisor we trust: Rankings, calculative regimes and abstract systems," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 293-309.
    26. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "Executive Compensation, Strategic Competition, and Relative Performance Evaluation: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1999-2043, December.
    27. Chua, Wai Fong, 1995. "Experts, networks and inscriptions in the fabrication of accounting images: A story of the representation of three public hospitals," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 20(2-3), pages 111-145.
    28. Llewellyn, Sue & Northcott, Deryl, 2005. "The average hospital," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 555-583, August.
    29. Hopwood, Ag, 1972. "Empirical Study Of Role Of Accounting Data In Performance Evaluation," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10, pages 156-182.
    30. Skærbæk, Peter & Tryggestad, Kjell, 2010. "The role of accounting devices in performing corporate strategy," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 108-124, January.
    31. Martin Messner & Brian Jørgensen, 2010. "Accounting and Strategising: A Case Study from New Product Development," Post-Print hal-00528382, HAL.
    32. Dambrin, Claire & Robson, Keith, 2011. "Tracing performance in the pharmaceutical industry: Ambivalence, opacity and the performativity of flawed measures," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 428-455.
    33. Wouters, Marc & Wilderom, Celeste, 2008. "Developing performance-measurement systems as enabling formalization: A longitudinal field study of a logistics department," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 488-516.
    34. Cristiano Busco & Paolo Quattrone, 2015. "Exploring How the Balanced Scorecard Engages and Unfolds: Articulating the Visual Power of Accounting Inscriptions," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 1236-1262, September.
    35. Mouritsen, Jan, 1999. "The flexible firm: strategies for a subcontractor's management control," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 31-55, January.
    36. Jørgensen, Brian & Messner, Martin, 2010. "Accounting and strategising: A case study from new product development," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 184-204, February.
    37. Free, Clinton & Salterio, Steven E. & Shearer, Teri, 2009. "The construction of auditability: MBA rankings and assurance in practice," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 119-140, January.
    38. Millo, Yuval & MacKenzie, Donald, 2009. "The usefulness of inaccurate models: Towards an understanding of the emergence of financial risk management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 638-653, July.
    39. Themsen, Tim Neerup & Skærbæk, Peter, 2018. "The performativity of risk management frameworks and technologies: The translation of uncertainties into pure and impure risks," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 20-33.
    40. Fischer, Michael Daniel & Ferlie, Ewan, 2013. "Resisting hybridisation between modes of clinical risk management: Contradiction, contest, and the production of intractable conflict," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 30-49.
    41. Quattrone, Paolo & Hopper, Trevor, 2005. "A 'time-space odyssey': management control systems in two multinational organisations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(7-8), pages 735-764.
    42. Mouritsen, Jan & Kreiner, Kristian, 2016. "Accounting, decisions and promises," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 21-31.
    43. Pollock, Neil & D'Adderio, Luciana & Williams, Robin & Leforestier, Ludovic, 2018. "Conforming or transforming? How organizations respond to multiple rankings," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 55-68.
    44. Cooper, David & Essex, Simon, 1977. "Accounting information and employee decision making," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 201-217, June.
    45. Pollock, Neil & D’Adderio, Luciana, 2012. "Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 565-586.
    46. Hopwood, Ag, 1972. "Empirical Study Of Role Of Accounting Data In Performance Evaluation - Reply," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10, pages 189-193.
    47. Hines, Ruth D., 1988. "Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct reality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 251-261, April.
    48. Eija Vinnari & Peter Skærbæk, 2014. "The uncertainties of risk management," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 27(3), pages 489-526, February.
    49. Claire Dambrin & Keith Robson, 2011. "Tracing performance in the pharmaceutical industry: ambivalence, opacity and the performativity of flawed measures," Post-Print hal-00687848, HAL.
    50. Jordan, Silvia & Messner, Martin, 2012. "Enabling control and the problem of incomplete performance indicators," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 544-564.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lukka, Kari & Becker, Albrecht, 2023. "The future of critical interdisciplinary accounting research: Performative ontology and critical interventionist research," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Tregidga, Helen & Laine, Matias, 2022. "On crisis and emergency: Is it time to rethink long-term environmental accounting?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yu, Lichen & Mouritsen, Jan, 2020. "Accounting, simultaneity and relative completeness: The sales and operations planning forecast and the enactment of the ‘demand chain’," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    2. Giovannoni, Elena & Quarchioni, Sonia, 2019. "Exploring the generative power of performance measurement systems design," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 211-225.
    3. Crvelin, David & Becker, Albrecht, 2020. "‘The spirits that we summoned’: A study on how the ‘governed’ make accounting their own in the context of market-making programs in Nepal," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    4. van Erp, Wil & Roozen, Frans & Vosselman, Ed, 2019. "The performativity of a management accounting and control system: Exploring the dynamic relational consequences of a design," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(4).
    5. Baxter, Jane & Carlsson-Wall, Martin & Chua, Wai Fong & Kraus, Kalle, 2019. "Accounting and passionate interests: The case of a Swedish football club," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 21-40.
    6. Robson, Keith & Bottausci, Chiara, 2018. "The sociology of translation and accounting inscriptions: Reflections on Latour and Accounting Research," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-75.
    7. Palermo, Tommaso & Power, Michael & Ashby, Simon, 2022. "How accounting ends: self-undermining repetition in accounting lifecycles," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115278, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Lambert Jerman & Pierre Labardin, 2016. "Du pouvoir visuel des nombres comptables: les apports de la phénoménologie d'Husserl," Post-Print hal-01902585, HAL.
    9. Jordan, Silvia & Messner, Martin, 2012. "Enabling control and the problem of incomplete performance indicators," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 544-564.
    10. Mouritsen, Jan & Kreiner, Kristian, 2016. "Accounting, decisions and promises," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 21-31.
    11. Pollock, Neil & D’Adderio, Luciana, 2012. "Give me a two-by-two matrix and I will create the market: Rankings, graphic visualisations and sociomateriality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 565-586.
    12. Mehrpouya, Afshin & Samiolo, Rita, 2016. "Performance measurement in global governance: Ranking and the politics of variability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 12-31.
    13. Aziza Laguecir & Anja Kern & Cécile Kharoubi, 2020. "Management accounting systems in institutional complexity: Hysteresis and boundaries of practices in social housing," Post-Print hal-03134361, HAL.
    14. O’Leary, Susan & Smith, David, 2020. "Moments of resistance: An internally persuasive view of performance and impact reports in non-governmental organizations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Ronzani, Matteo & Gatzweiler, Marian Konstantin, 2022. "The lure of the visual: Multimodality, simplification, and performance measurement visualizations in a megaproject," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    16. Chenhall, Robert H. & Moers, Frank, 2015. "The role of innovation in the evolution of management accounting and its integration into management control," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-13.
    17. Oleh Pasko, 2017. "Impact of Calculative Practices on Innovation," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 4, pages 66-74, December.
    18. Martinez, Daniel E. & Cooper, David J., 2019. "Assembling performance measurement through engagement," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    19. Chenhall, Robert H. & Hall, Matthew & Smith, David, 2013. "Performance measurement, modes of evaluation and the development of compromising accounts," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51294, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Muhammad Kaleem Zahir-ul-Hassan & Reinald A. Minnaar & Ed Vosselman, 2016. "Governance and control as mediating instruments in an inter-firm relationship: towards collaboration or transactions?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 365-389, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:72:y:2020:i:c:s1045235419300802. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/critical-perspectives-on-accounting/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.