Housekeeping? Yes, but which house? Meaning and accounting context -- A case study

This paper attempts to show how a large number of meanings connected with the same administrative unit can be attached to accounting figures at different organizational levels. The analysis starts from a conversation during a management group meeting, where accounting rules for charging internal rents were on the agenda. A concrete case is used to test and give meaning to a proposed rule. The exchange in terms of a current recipe for decentralized cost cutting is then interpreted, and finally it is shown how a sale-lease-back deal gives a third meaning to the proposed rule. Each of these levels of interpretation, which largely correspond to levels of organization, requires different data sets to describe the specific context and its related discourse. Which discursive and non-discursive arguments apply will differ between levels. To be competent and trusted means to be able to distinguish between discourses and to perform to expectations in the intended context. Certain asymmetries in communication between levels should be expected.