IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ebg/heccah/0932.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The making of the management accountant. Becoming the producer of truthful knowledge

Author

Listed:
  • Lambert, Caroline

  • Pezet, Eric

Abstract

In this paper, the authors analyse the practices through which the management accountant is constructed as a knowing subject and becomes a producer of truthful knowledge. They draw on a case study of an automobile equipment manufacturer in which management accountants play a central role. The centrality of their role is evidenced, among other aspects, by their participation in online reverse auctions, wherein they commit themselves and their company to long-term projects. This commitment is constitutive of their identity as knowing subjects and organisational truth tellers. However, the “validity” of the truth they produce can only be assessed over time. They argue that, in this firm, monthly performance review meetings constitute “accounting trials of truth” during which peers and senior management crossexamine the accounting truth presented. Preparations for these trials of truth constitute a form of subjectivation whereby management accountants act on their ways of being in the firm and become the producers of truthful knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Lambert, Caroline & Pezet, Eric, 2010. "The making of the management accountant. Becoming the producer of truthful knowledge," HEC Research Papers Series 932, HEC Paris.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:heccah:0932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hec.fr/var/fre/storage/original/application/58887e6e6673f24cf6b9cf860eb70009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson-Gough, Fiona & Grey, Christopher & Robson, Keith, 2005. ""Helping them to forget..": the organizational embedding of gender relations in public audit firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 469-490, July.
    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. Sèna John-Ahyee, 2012. "La stabilité des activités des contrôleurs de gestion est-elle paradoxale?," Post-Print hal-00690976, HAL.
    2. Kornberger, Martin & Justesen, Lise & Mouritsen, Jan, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you”: An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 514-533.
    3. Nair, Sujay & Abernethy, Margaret A. & Jiang, Yile (Anson) & Lillis, Anne M., 2024. "The interdependence between the choice of fixed-term professional workers and the control environment," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. McDaid, Emma & Andon, Paul & Free, Clinton, 2023. "Algorithmic management and the politics of demand: Control and resistance at Uber," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. Joyce, Yvonne, 2014. "Knowledge mandates in the state–profession dynamic: A study of the British insolvency profession," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 590-614.
    6. Martin Kornberger & Lise Justesen & Jan Mouritsen, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you” : An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Post-Print hal-02276736, HAL.
    7. Thomson, Ian & Grubnic, Suzana & Georgakopoulos, Georgios, 2014. "Exploring accounting-sustainability hybridisation in the UK public sector," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 453-476.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13554 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Rowe, Casey & Shields, Michael D. & Birnberg, Jacob G., 2012. "Hardening soft accounting information: Games for planning organizational change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 260-279.

    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. Guénin-Paracini, Henri & Malsch, Bertrand & Paillé, Anne Marché, 2014. "Fear and risk in the audit process," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 264-288.
    2. Kornberger, Martin & Justesen, Lise & Mouritsen, Jan, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you”: An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 514-533.
    3. Philip Law, 2010. "Examination of the actual turnover decisions of female auditors in public accounting: Evidence from Hong Kong," Managerial Auditing Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 25(5), pages 484-502, May.
    4. Dambrin, Claire & Lambert, Caroline, 2012. "Who is she and who are we? A reflexive journey in research into the rarity of women in the highest ranks of accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-16.
    5. Maria-Victoria Uribe-Bohorquez & Juan-Camilo Rivera-Ordóñez & Isabel-María García-Sánchez, 2023. "Gender disparities in accounting academia: analysis from the lens of publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 3827-3865, July.
    6. Caroline Lambert & Éric Pezet, 2007. "Discipliner les autres et agir sur soi:la double vie du contrôleur de gestion," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 10(1), pages 183-208, March.
    7. Kuasirikun, Nooch, 2011. "The portrayal of gender in annual reports in Thailand," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 53-78.
    8. Bitbol-Saba, Nathalie & Dambrin, Claire, 2019. "“It’s not often we get a visit from a beautiful woman!” The body in client-auditor interactions and the masculinity of accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    9. Ashley, Louise & Empson, Laura, 2016. "Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 76-87.
    10. Dambrin, Claire & Lambert, Caroline & Sponem, Samuel, 2006. "Control and change studying the process of institutionalisation," HEC Research Papers Series 842, HEC Paris.
    11. Kornberger, Martin & Carter, Chris & Ross-Smith, Anne, 2010. "Changing gender domination in a Big Four accounting firm: Flexibility, performance and client service in practice," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 775-791, November.
    12. Michèle Saboly & Rim Khemiri, 2011. "Les femmes experts-comptables en Tunisie : Perceptions et réalités," Post-Print hal-00650536, HAL.
    13. Ioana Lupu & Marie-Astrid Le Theule, 2012. "Les nouvelles frontières entre vie professionnelle et vie privée chez les femmes comptables professionnelles," Post-Print hal-00691104, HAL.
    14. Yves Gendron & Laura F. Spira, 2009. "What Went Wrong? The Downfall of Arthur Andersen and the Construction of Controllability Boundaries Surrounding Financial Auditing," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 987-1027, December.
    15. Ioana Ioan, 2009. "Women in the French accountancy profession: the test of the labyrinth," Post-Print halshs-00475216, HAL.
    16. Hammond, Theresa & Clayton, Bruce M. & Arnold, Patricia J., 2009. "South Africa's transition from apartheid: The role of professional closure in the experiences of black chartered accountants," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 705-721, August.
    17. Dierynck, Bart & Kadous, Kathryn & Peters, Christian P. H., 2024. "Learning in the auditing profession: A framework and future directions," Other publications TiSEM eb74c8e4-bc4a-4b71-b88a-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Baker, Darren T & Brewis, Deborah N, 2020. "The melancholic subject: A study of self-blame as a gendered and neoliberal psychic response to loss of the ‘perfect worker’," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    19. Mara Del Baldo & Adriana Tiron-Tudor & Widad Atena Faragalla, 2018. "Women’s Role in the Accounting Profession: A Comparative Study between Italy and Romania," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, December.
    20. Lambert, Caroline & Dambrin, Claire, 2006. "La question du genre en comptabilité : analyses théoriques et méthodologiques," HEC Research Papers Series 843, HEC Paris.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • M49 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ebg:heccah:0932. 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: Antoine Haldemann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hecpafr.html .

    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.