Accounting and the Hope of Action

Abstract

The paper discusses the role of hope in the construction of an accounting technology to realize a program, by looking at a process of choosing non-financial indicators in an effort to achieve healthier workplaces. By exploring the literature dealing with the concept of hope and by drawing on the debate on the relationship between accounting and action, we highlight the features of three hope-related concepts (hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope). We also highlight how these concepts relate to different areas of uncertainty (validity, accuracy, and relevance) in the development of accounting technologies. Evidence collected through particiapant observation of a team involved in the construction of indicators offers empirical material to investigate the interplay between hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope in relation to uncertainties concerning the link between accounting and action. Beyond analyzing how team members move from a naïve to a reflective hope in making the accounting–action link, the paper shows that among practitioners it is accepted that unintended consequences constitute the rule rather than the exception in the accounting–action link.

Acknowledgements

We authors wish to thank the MUSICA group at Stockholm Business School, participants at the 2014 European Accounting Association conference, as well as Ingrid Jeacle and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank Meredith Tharapos for revising the English of the manuscript. This work was supported by Vinnova and Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Stiftelse under the Grant ‘Studies in the Consumption of Accounting’.