“He Hears”: An essay celebrating the 25 year anniversary of The Audit Society

Bottausci, Chiara; Robson, Keith

doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2023.102581

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Last but not least, one study indicates that constructing discourses through formulation and reformulation of subjectivities is also one way to build the condition for displacing performativity. Bottausci and Robson (2023), in their essay celebrating the 25th of Mike Power’s seminal work on the Audit Society, highlight how auditees, through the production of accounts and audit trails for auditors, start to actively embrace the ways how audit trails work instead of resisting them. There is a displacement from “pushing” audit compliance to “pulling” of audit trails as part of actors’ everyday practice via auditee’s continuous formulation of the selves into audit subjects.…”

Section: The Use Of the Performativity Thesis In Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

How accounting research understands performativity: effects and processes of a multi-faceted notion

Yu,

Huber

2023

QRAM

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Purpose This paper aims to review the literature on the use of the notion of performativity and its related concepts in accounting research. The literature uses the term performativity in almost diametrically different ways, yet most papers assume that the meaning of the term is self-evident. We build on recent reviews of the notion of performativity and explicate the implicit tensions in the accounting literature, discovering a need to clarify how the accounting literature has explored the processes – how accounting becomes performative – and effects – what is performed – of accounting performativity. The paper develops suggestions for future theoretical and empirical research. Design/methodology/approach The authors have searched in six leading accounting journals (Accounting, Organizations and Society, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Management Accounting Research, Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management) for the terms “performativity” and/or “performative” and/or “performable”. This yielded 289 results from which we distilled a core sample of 92 papers which substantially draw on the concept and explicate their use of the term. Findings The authors find that the accounting literature has paid almost equal attention to the conforming and amplifying effects of performativity but has mostly explored how conditions of performativity are built. Less attention has been paid to how accounting generates multiple worlds and how differences in these worlds are coordinated by accounting. Building institutions and searching for accounting incompleteness have been developed as the two main processes where accounting is made performative. Research limitations/implications The paper develops avenues for future research, highlighting the potential for a deeper understanding of how the notion of performativity can be used. We do not advocate homogenizing the literature, instead exploring its fruitful tensions to discover a renewed interest in how accounting is constitutive of existing and/or new worlds. We illustrate this potential by reflecting on the debates about accounting incompleteness and the boundaries of accounting. The authors also suggest the potentials for concepts of performativity in studying emerging phenomena such as big data and sustainability and revisiting the ethics of using accounting as a social and organizational practice. Originality/value The literature review explicates differences in the use of the term performativity, which usually remain implicit in the literature. The study develops a framework that attends to both the processes – problematizing the conditions for performativity or not – and effects – conforming and amplifying – of performativity accounting studies have drawn upon, which clarifies how the accounting literature has mobilized the notion of performativity and the contributions the accounting literature has added. Further, the authors extend Vosselman’s (2022) review both in scope and nuance.

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Section: The Use Of the Performativity Thesis In Accountingmentioning

confidence: 99%