Lecture 3: Miller, Peter and O’Leary, Ted (1987). Accounting and the construction of the governable person.

Question 1

Critical or interpretive?

Answer 1

Interpretive

Question 2

What does the author investigate?

Answer 2

Accounting has not taken into consideration the social sciences

Accounting is seen as essentially having a functional role in society

However, different methodological (theoretical) starting points lead to different understandings of accounting.

There is a need to develop an understanding of accounting and its past that are distinct from critical theory.

Question 3

Explain Power (informal and formal)

Answer 3

The work of Michael Foucault
Emphasise POWER, and the difference between formal and informal power.

Formal power = Given to someone in regard to their position in the organisation

Informal power = Something a person earned itself (Education)

Question 4

What are the main findings?

Answer 4

Describe the emergence of standard costing and budgeting

Explain how these techniques emerged through a network of expert knowledge and political, journalistic and philosophical discourses

Network of ideas, discourses and power relations

Question 5

What is the conclusion?

Answer 5

Current accounting techniques stems from an ambition:

• To govern the individual
• To make the efficiency of the individual visible in a way that is possible to manage from a distance
• To set standards against which the individual can evaluate herself and others and thereby become the governable person.

From this perspective accounting cannot be understood as purely technical practice, Instead accounting should be understood as a social practice implicated in networks of power.