The ‘performativity thesis’ and its critics: Towards a relational ontology of management accounting

Abstract

This paper explores accounting's mediating role in bringing theoretical statements from economics into life. It addresses the so-called performativity thesis that claims that economic theory does not just observe and explain a reality, but rather shapes, formats and performs reality. Accounting mediates in that process by creating cognitive boundaries that embed societal practices in economic theory. However, the performativity thesis is not without criticisms. Its main criticisms concern a lack of proof of the thesis; an overestimation of the power of economics to extend beyond the virtual; and a lack of a critical stance. In order to bring more nuance in the discussion on the performativity thesis the paper reflects on evidence from the field of accounting. The review of accounting studies reveals how accounting, to different degrees, is implicated in strategic and operational activities in markets and organisations and how it is a performative mechanism of economisation. Moreover, in order to accentuate the ‘good’ in society and to challenge the ‘bad’, the paper suggests a further development of (critical) management accounting research into the performativity of both economics and other social theories. A relational ontology of management accounting that is in politics and that is sensitive to ‘unlocalisable’ virtual powers of social-historical formations of management accounting may be developed.

Keywords:

• calculative agencies
• calculability
• performativity
• virtualism

Acknowledgement

The paper benefited from discussions at a seminar of the Research Center on Accounting and Control Change, January 2013, Nijmegen. The clear guidance by the Associate Editor, Sven Modell and the helpful reviews were highly appreciated. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1. Although the term ‘actor’ is part of the name of the theoretical approach (‘actor-network theory’), Latour (1992) prefers the term ‘actant’ above the term ‘actor’ because the term ‘actor’ has a human connotation. The term ‘actant’ refers to all acting entities, both human and non-human. In this paper, both terms (‘actant’ and ‘actor’) will be used interchangeably.

2. Scholars differ as to how they theorise the status of non-human agency relative to human agency. For instance, Callon (1986) and Latour (2005) posit these agencies to be symmetrical; both humans and other-than-humans are symmetrical in the sense that they are both made to act by many others. The other-than-humans are not simply in the hands of humans. Others see humans and other-than-humans as interwined (Pickering 1995) or entangled (Suchman, 2007). The basic point is that other-than-humans (for instance, accounting) have an impact in concrete socio-material networks.

3. See Modell (2013) for the development of a parallel discussion to make institutional accounting research more critical.

4. Callon borrows the term from Deleuze and Guattari (1998).

5. Callon uses the term ‘performativity’ in a developed sense that goes beyond a social constructivist sense of the term. From a social constructivist perspective human actors may be engaged in politically laden struggles, fighting with each other on their different views. Accounting, then, is performative when it assists the most powerful human actors in reaching their aims. In a more developed sense, accounting is performative when it produces possibilities and constraints related to economic models or frameworks. It has unexpected effects.

6. This is consistent with a suggestion by Callon (2007a) to include the issue of how ‘the anthropology of economics is constantly confronted with other, equally performative, anthropological programs’ (p. 347) in the research agenda.