Contenu du sommaire : Sociologie de la comptabilité

The article aims to show the utility of studying financial scandals for a sociology of accounting. Such situations give an uncommon visibility to accounting which tends so to become a social and political stake evaluated in public arenas. These social discourses offer to observer a paradox. They lean on accounting to frame events as financial scandals and to mobilize but they becomes often in the same time critical when multiplicated disclosures of misconducts in calculative practices arouses a wide suspicion on accounting devices. This general suspicion commit in return regulatory process meant for restoring confidence.

We look at accounting as a system of social categorizations and have taken into account sociological research done on the construction of social groups and the categorization which goes along with it. Using two examples, that of the accounting reform of Chinese companies and that of the reform of French budgetary accounting, we attempt to show, on the one hand, that the sociological analysis of social categorizations can bring a lot to the study of accounting and, on the other hand, that it is the interest of the sociologist to include the accounting question in his analysis of economic and social phenomena.

A sociological approach to accountancy improve the model because we understand the whole rules and principles which come from collectif choices at one moment. To this aim, convention's theory offers us an original reading. By this way, we awoid to counts' productor and we replace him in determined frames of mimetic and social coordination.

The paper proposes an accounting perspective on inter-firms networks, based on a wide approach of transaction, embedded in a relational exchange. This leads to integrate contributions of the economic sociology to the definition of relational exchange and to make the choice of a qualitative approach. Two case studies are carried out, trying to understand the social networks undertaking these groups. We analyze interviews of managers and we develop a structural analysis of transactional ties of a network. The concept of accounting externalities, produced by the social interactions is proposed and defined, giving an illustration of sharing partnership value between managers. These results lead to consider that accounting is a social practice for managers too.

The concept of spectacle, as it was defined by Guy Debord, is broader than a critical approach of a society driven by the medias. Management discourses involve spectacular representations which can be observed under different forms : concentrated, diffuse, and integrated. After having summarized Guy Debord's conceptual paths, this paper shows how such a dimension might produce a new mindset about management. It seems especially possible to re-read recent accounting stories through this situationist criticism.

In the wake of Enron, transparency has been highlighted in the media like, it seems, never before. In this article, we try to understand what it means for the audit world. At first, queries on databases allow us to review the notion's diffusion and to point out its ambiguity. We then scrutinize a sample of 80 articles extracted from press reviews made for an audit firm, which leads us to distinguish a procedural transparency from a substantial one. An interpretation of these notions makes us argue audit's transparency ideology is about favouring and strengthening the control of firms by financial markets, and making it more exclusive. Transparency is thus understood as an ideology of control.

Historically, the development of budgetary control in French businesses took place within the ideological context of the debate on organisation of the economy following the economic and political crises of the 1930s and 1940s. Budgetary control was seen by many actors as one of the practices that could provide a solution to the economic and social problems facing them. In other words, its increasingly widespread adoption was not only due to the search for ever-greater efficiency, but also to a clear ideological attraction. The development of budgetary control is examined in the light of the general political and economic history of the 20th century, associating accounting practices and the capitalist institutions of a given period and country. We stress an as yet largely unexplored aspect : the role played by the critique of capitalism and the social reformers' proposals in changing business management methods.

This paper has two objectives : 1) to provide an alternative sociological framework to explain accounting choices ; 2) to understand why Saint-Gobain-Pont-à-Mousson adopted the generally accounting accepted principles in United Stales (US GAAP) as soon as 1970. An in-depth case study shows that both theories help as to understand the phenomenon under study. Thus, we conclude that sociological aspects must not be neglected in accounting research.

This article presents a framework to illustrate the Canadian standard-setting process as perceived by users. The dimensions of Hardy's power framework (1994) are adapted in the context of the Canadian standard-setting process. The framework is then enriched with the input from financial statement users obtained through interviews. Results indicate that relevant categories illustrating the standard-setting process include among others the comparative sources of power, the strategies used to exercise power, the usefulness of accounting standards, the pursuit of public interest by the standard-setter, the characteristics of the due process, the existence of non decisional committees, the personal characteristics of the members of the standard-setting committees, and the standard-setting role attributed to the accounting profession.

In the management control area, academic research as well as managerial practices come from two main sources. If the first one highlights the management control tool, the second one privileges the study of management accounting's impact on individuals and groups. Taking these two dimensions into account, the aim of this article is to surpass the technical approach which all the more often views management control tools as inert objects disconnected from actors for which and by which they were created. To do this, a conceptual model suggests an immanent link between actor's games and management control tools. This original theoretical viewpoint is applied to a case study for the following academic contribution : to improve the understanding of activation process in the management control tool.

The finality of this research is to understand how local actors (controllers and operational managers) exert influence on the implementation of a management control system which they receive from head office. Starting from the standpoint of subjectivist contingency, this research is based on a comparative analysis of eight case studies conducted at the regional level of a large French bank's distribution network.

The financial and accounting management of the social security bodies is based in France on the principle of the separation between the functions of the director (the official with power to authorise expenditure) and those of the accountant, and, since 1993, on the principle of cooperation between the former and the latter in what regards internal control. On the basis of weaknesses that were reported on this internal control system (reports to the Parliament of 1999, 2002 and 2003), we have undertaken a qualitative study in four family allowance offices. The accountant, who is answerable for the application of the law, is under the hierarchical authority of a board of directors, that has been itself marginalised. He depends on the director in terms of resources and promotion. Does the ambiguity of his role and status and the inherent conflicts of rationality doom the attempts to establish an internal control to failure ; or, on the contrary, does this ambiguity, by allowing the reinterpretation of what internal control is about, unexpectedly favours the emergence of a network of agents, whose project is precisely the achievement of internal control ?

Drawing on Anthony Giddens' theory of structuration, the author presents a case study in the field of management control. The research, offering a new vision of the concept of « management control », is based on a research protocol designed to enhance our understanding of the elements that generate surveillance, one of the institutions of modernity (Giddens, 1990). This structurationist type case study demonstrates that management control is a set of integrative practices that both structure human activity and are structured by it.

This article goes back on the research programme that Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) has been promoting for the past 25 years. The research programme is envisaged here through the editorials written by AOS' editor-in-chief, Anthony G. Hopwood. In these short contributions, Hopwood has advocated for the study of accounting « in action », that is to say as being immersed in its social and organisational context. In spite of the strong methodological requirements implied by Hopwood's research agenda, a strong academic legitimacy has been gained and substantial research been produced.