Making accountancy practical

Accountancy is generally assumed to have a practical function. This function is that of guiding decisions within firms towards the end of economic efficiency. Even when this function is considered to have been lost, it is by reference to such a notion that calls for reform are made (Johnson, H. T. & Kaplan, R. S., Relevance Lost (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1987)). This paper questions the self-evidence of this category, arguing that the notion of acountancy's practical function is the end point of complex processes of conceptual invention, rather than an a priori grounding. The paper argues that these processes are neglected in recent influential studies of accounting innovation, and examines how certain key concepts that enable accountancy's practical function to be represented as unproblematic are "made up". These processes of conceptual invention are argued to be an important and neglected aspect of accounting innovation. To illustrate this thesis the paper addresses one set of concepts formed during the 1930s in the U.S. that was of decisive importance in elaborating the notion of accountancy's "practical" function. Particular rhetorical devices drawn from political culture and articulated in the administrative literature of the period made it possible for accountancy's practical function to be represented as one clearly differentiated from political and moral objectives. Two aspects of "making accountancy practical" are identified: firstly "making up the cooperation" as a democratic and contractual entity; secondly, "making up the individual" as a person endowed with the ability to make decisions and assume responsibility, and representing leadership as an essential executive function. © 1990.