No abstract

Despite calls to link management accounting more closely to management (Jonsson, 1998), much is still to be learned about the role of accounting information in managerial work. This lack of progress stems partly from a failure to incorporate in research efforts the findings regarding the nature of managerial work, as well as inadequate attention devoted to the detailed practices through which accounting information is actually used by managers in their work. In this paper I draw on prior research to develop a series of propositions focused on three primary insights into how and why managers use accounting information in their work. First, managers primarily use accounting information to develop knowledge of their work environment rather than as an input into specific decision making scenarios. In this role, accounting information can help managers to develop knowledge to prepare for unknown future decisions and activities. Second, as accounting information is just one part of the wider information set that managers use to perform their work, it is imperative to consider its strengths and weaknesses not in isolation but relative to other sources of information at a manager's disposal. Third, as managers interact with information and other managers utilising primarily verbal forms of communication, it is through talk rather than through written reports that accounting information becomes implicated in managerial work. These insights have important implications for how managers use accounting information, and, in particular, require reconsideration of the types accounting information that managers find, or could find, helpful. The paper also considers how existing experimental and field-based methods could fruitfully be adapted to focus on the detailed activities through which managers engage with accounting information.

In this paper we develop the concept of compromising accounts as a distinctive approach to the analysis of whether and how accounting can facilitate compromise amongst organizational actors. We take the existence of conflicting logics and values as the starting point for our analysis, and directly examine the ways in which the design and operation of accounts can be implicated in compromises between different modes of evaluation and when and how such compromises can be productive or unproductive. In doing so, we draw on Stark's (2009: 27) concept of 'organizing dissonance', where the coming together of multiple evaluative principles has the potential to produce a 'productive friction' that can help the organization to recombine ideas and perspectives in creative and constructive ways. In a field study of a non-government organization, we examine how debates and struggles over the design and operation of a performance measurement system affected the potential for productive debate and compromise between different modes of evaluation. Our study shows that there is much scope for future research to examine how accounts can create sites that bring together (or indeed push apart) organizational actors with different evaluative principles, and the ways in which this 'coming together' can be potentially productive and/or destructive.2

Adsorbed methane makes up a large portion of the total shale gas-in-place (GIP) resource in deep shale formations. In order to accurately estimate the shale GIP resource, it is crucial to understand the relationship between the adsorbed methane quantity and the free methane quantity of shale gas in shale formations (under high pressure conditions). This work describes and accurately predicts high pressure methane adsorption behavior in Longmaxi shale (China) using a dual-site Langmuir model. Laboratory measurements of high pressure methane adsorption (303-355 K and up to 27 MPa) are presented. Our findings show that for depths greater than 1000 m (> 15 MPa) in the subsurface, the shale gas resources have historically been significantly overestimated. For Longmaxi shale (2500-3000 m in depth), classical approaches overestimate the GIP by up to 35%. The ratio of the adsorbed phase compared to the free gas has been significantly underestimated. The methods used herein allow accurate estimations of the true shale GIP resource and the relative quantity of adsorbed methane at in situ temperatures and pressures representative of deep shale formations.