How Accounting Ends: Self‐Undermining Repetition in Accounting Life Cycles

• Published in: Contemporary accounting research 2022-10, Vol.39 (4), p.2790-2824
• Main Authors: Palermo, Tommaso, Power, Michael, Ashby, Simon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accounting; accounting life cycle; Accounting procedures; Ambiguity; Comments; Contingencies; Culture; culture du risque; cycle de vie de la comptabilité; enquête; Life cycles; practice; pratique; process theory; Reflexivity; Repetition; risk culture; Risk exposure; répétition; Social studies; survey; Sustainability; Sustainability management; théorie du processus
• ISSN: 0823-9150; 1911-3846
• DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12800

ABSTRACT This study develops a process model of how accounting may come to an end. Grounded in a longitudinal study of a risk culture survey, this model focuses on the dynamics that underpin the repetition of accounting practices, and sheds light on two boundary conditions of successful repetition and continuation, which are in tension with each other. On the one hand, there are pressures for repetition that preserves continuity and comparability. On the other hand, there is the ongoing organizational need to adjust accounting practices. Iterating between the case study findings, social studies of accounting, and the sociology of replication in scientific practice, the model shows how moving too close to either boundary increases the risk that repetition undermines the accounting practice being repeated: “perfect repetition” may be perceived as uninteresting and decision‐irrelevant; very “imperfect repetition” may be perceived as something too different and idiosyncratic, and hence also decision‐irrelevant. As a result, the analysis extends a rich literature that has examined empirical instances of failure of the conditions that sustain the repeatability of accounting practices. Via the theory of “self‐undermining repetition,” this study shows how the possibilities for accounting's ending are paradoxically inherent in the very act of repetition. This notion of “self‐undermining repetition” is deepened by a discussion of how it may be affected by four contingencies: task ambiguity, organizational politics, organizational actors' reflexivity, and external networks of support. Overall, the analysis of the self‐undermining dynamics of repetition and related contingencies contrasts with research that foregrounds the constitutive nature of repeated uses of accountings. It shows how repetition may also undermine, rather than cumulatively consolidate, accounting practices. RÉSUMÉ Comment la comptabilité prend fin : la répétition autodestructrice dans les cycles de vie de la comptabilité Cette étude développe un modèle de processus pour expliquer comment la comptabilité peut prendre fin. Fondé sur une étude longitudinale d'une enquête sur la culture du risque, ce modèle se concentre sur la dynamique qui sous‐tend la répétition des pratiques comptables et met en lumière deux conditions aux limites de répétition et de continuation réussies qui sont en tension l'une avec l'autre. D'une part, il existe des pressions en faveur de la répétition qui préserve la continuité