The top management also introduced a new matrix structure to change the company. As a response to the critique of the middle managers, the CFO began

38 The top management also introduced a new matrix structure to change the company. As a response to the critique of the middle managers, the CFO began

developing new accounting techniques with the aim of facilitating control purposes. The CFO had difficulties in “interpreting” the emerging context of accounting. This appeared from the episode when he made attempts to introduce these new accounting initiatives to top management. It appeared that the initiatives were not popular and through the controversies with top management he came to see his own interest as one of examining new financial opportunities, preparing the introduction to the stock exchange and to keep control of the financial resources used for the investments, etc.

These political actions illustrate how accounting during the translation process changed its characteristics and uses from principles of control to principles of financialisation. Such emergent forms of accounting reflect the political manoeuvring in the organisation as the result of the network relationships. The outcome of the controversies that involved accounting creates a view of accounting as an effect of associations. It is embedded in networks of interests as strong as the associations of entities forming the dominant network. This finding is quite consistent with the findings of Mouritsen et al. (2001). It means that accounting, and where and when it is, may continuously change and must therefore be understood in the description of the associations by which it is shaped. These associations are not entirely internal but may also involve entities outside the company. This is perhaps most likely to happen in the construction of new contexts with the development of new management initiatives as the outcome. The political uses of accounting in relation to the development of strategy may also help to broaden the focuses within literature on accounting change (Burns and Scapens, 2000; Granlund, 2001). In this literature there is a preoccupation with the instances of resistance to change (Granlund, 2001), how accounting technologies like ABC are implemented (Soin et al., 2002), how a non-financial management accounting change happens (Vaivio, 1999), etc. These studies tend to explain the change processes as introducing accounting technologies as normative mechanisms. However, our study provides a study of quite another instance in which normative calls for accounting technologies (such as NPM) are contested and changed into other accounting forms. Nevertheless, the study of Preston et al. (1992), like ours, point to the importance of studying the context in which accounting is embedded. To understand accounting change involves both the politics of the emerging context of management initiatives and the further These political actions illustrate how accounting during the translation process changed its characteristics and uses from principles of control to principles of financialisation. Such emergent forms of accounting reflect the political manoeuvring in the organisation as the result of the network relationships. The outcome of the controversies that involved accounting creates a view of accounting as an effect of associations. It is embedded in networks of interests as strong as the associations of entities forming the dominant network. This finding is quite consistent with the findings of Mouritsen et al. (2001). It means that accounting, and where and when it is, may continuously change and must therefore be understood in the description of the associations by which it is shaped. These associations are not entirely internal but may also involve entities outside the company. This is perhaps most likely to happen in the construction of new contexts with the development of new management initiatives as the outcome. The political uses of accounting in relation to the development of strategy may also help to broaden the focuses within literature on accounting change (Burns and Scapens, 2000; Granlund, 2001). In this literature there is a preoccupation with the instances of resistance to change (Granlund, 2001), how accounting technologies like ABC are implemented (Soin et al., 2002), how a non-financial management accounting change happens (Vaivio, 1999), etc. These studies tend to explain the change processes as introducing accounting technologies as normative mechanisms. However, our study provides a study of quite another instance in which normative calls for accounting technologies (such as NPM) are contested and changed into other accounting forms. Nevertheless, the study of Preston et al. (1992), like ours, point to the importance of studying the context in which accounting is embedded. To understand accounting change involves both the politics of the emerging context of management initiatives and the further

of accounting

Finally, whereas writers such as (Lowe, 2000; Hopwood, 1992; Miller and O’Leary, 1993; Preston et al., 1992) found accounting techniques “as central to the constitution of our organisations” (Lowe, 2000, p. 110), our study gives a mixed view on the centrality of accounting. Indeed our study demonstrates that accounting played a significant role in the emergence of the new strategy. On

the other hand, accounting as a principle of control was identified as an obstacle to strategy by the instigators and endowed with meanings of being bureaucratic and creating an inability to act and develop. Symbolic actions to “get rid” of accounting as principles of control were made. In this way these came to contest the government apparatus of the Ministry of Finance and NAO working to implement the control elements of the NPM. It is quite surprising how accounting in such forms was identified as being undesired, showing us that there are exceptions to the centrality of accounting. However, the story also shows that it was only in a very short period of time these actions took place. After the collapse of the network in 1997, a new strategy of tight control of resources was initiated. The intensity of the contest, the mobilisation of accounting as principles of financialisation, the political uses, and the subsequent introduction of new control principles after the collapse of the network may in the end confirm our view that accounting is in fact often central in the transformation of organisational institutions.

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