Accounting as an affective technology: A study of circulation, agency and entrancement

Description
This paper argues that accounting is an affective technology. We show how people’s feelings
and emotions are constructed through accounting practices and templates. Much
research in accounting and economics is based on rationality assumptions that suggest that
people act after working through cost–benefit calculations. Information may be imperfect
and our cognitive abilities constrained but such modes of calculation and economic reasoning
are assumed to drive action. Whilst not setting aside the significance of rationality and
intelligibility, this study illustrates that it is affect and passion alongside cognitive calculation
that generate movement and action in organisational networks. An in-depth case
study of a very large and well known global American corporation spanning 4 years illustrates
how affect is engineered by corporate executives through accounting templates and
targets. In local sites, periods of excitement and elation ensue but so do anxiety and sleepless
nights as yet again, budgets are cut and stated targets rise. Productivity spreadsheets,
planning pyramids and human resource programs all contribute to the circulation of affect
in the global network as new identities (both individual and collective) are defined and
underperforming employees managed out. The committed and devoted ‘Players’ of the
organisation express love for the firm, tolerate inconsistent instructions and overlook what
might (by outsiders) be conceived as breaches of trust.

Accounting as an affective technology: A study of circulation,
agency and entrancement
q
Christina Boedker
?
, Wai Fong Chua
School of Accounting, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Quadrangle Building, Room 3072, High Street, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia
a b s t r a c t
This paper argues that accounting is an affective technology. We show how people’s feel-
ings and emotions are constructed through accounting practices and templates. Much
research in accounting and economics is based on rationality assumptions that suggest that
people act after working through cost–bene?t calculations. Information may be imperfect
and our cognitive abilities constrained but such modes of calculation and economic reason-
ing are assumed to drive action. Whilst not setting aside the signi?cance of rationality and
intelligibility, this study illustrates that it is affect and passion alongside cognitive calcula-
tion that generate movement and action in organisational networks. An in-depth case
study of a very large and well known global American corporation spanning 4 years illus-
trates how affect is engineered by corporate executives through accounting templates and
targets. In local sites, periods of excitement and elation ensue but so do anxiety and sleep-
less nights as yet again, budgets are cut and stated targets rise. Productivity spreadsheets,
planning pyramids and human resource programs all contribute to the circulation of affect
in the global network as new identities (both individual and collective) are de?ned and
underperforming employees managed out. The committed and devoted ‘Players’ of the
organisation express love for the ?rm, tolerate inconsistent instructions and overlook what
might (by outsiders) be conceived as breaches of trust. As such, they collaborate in their
own entrancement. We conclude that accounting technologies play on people’s passions
and emotions rather than purely on their intellectual and reasoning skills, and that it is this
emotive edge to accounting that generates and sustains action in organisational networks.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
In this paper, we explore the connections between
accounting, affect and action. We draw upon the concept
of an ‘affective turn’ as a new and emerging way in which
to theorise the social (Clough & Halley, 2007; Massumi,
2002; Sedgwick, 2003; Thrift, 2008). Grounded in these
ideas, this paper argues that rationality and passion, intel-
ligence and feeling are employed simultaneously in the
making of economic markets and organisations. The affec-
tive turn presents an opportunity to consider the possible
ways in which calculative devices and technologies can
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2013.05.001
q
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at the Accounting, Organizations and Society Workshop on Accounting and Strategising at Imperial
College, UK, May 11–12, 2009; the Management Accounting Control Conference at the London School of Economics, 7 April 2008; and the Management
Accounting in Global Organisations conference at Alberta Business School, Canada, September 21–22, 2007. The authors thank the workshop and conference
participants, as well as the two anonymous reviewers and the editor-in-chief for their many helpful comments and guidance with this paper. We are also
grateful for the support provided by the case organisation in permitting access, and thank all the many staff who volunteered their time. The School of
Accounting at the University of New South Wales and the Australian Research Council have provided research funding which greatly assisted with the
development of this project.
?
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 02 9385 5839; fax: +61 02 9385 5925.
E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Boedker).
URL:http://www.business.unsw.edu.au (C. Boedker).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
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both be generated by and aid the circulation of affect (such
as desire, fear, enjoyment, excitement, sadness, shame and
distress) in organisational networks. With its origins in
economics and sociology, an affective perspective allows
for a nuanced understanding of the interdependencies of
the emotions, bodies and material artefacts that govern
our lives. It offers theoretical re?ections on the powers of
affect and the possibilities they pose for deepening our
understandings of how calculative technologies can mobi-
lise particular organisational actions.
There has been a long tradition of studying accounting
in action (Burchell, Clubb, Hopwood, Hughes, & Nahapiet,
1980; Hopwood, 1979) and this is grounded in diverse the-
oretical traditions ranging from interpretive sociology to
labour process perspectives to postmodern frameworks
and, more recently to practice and performative theories.
The practice turn has encouraged scholars to study
accounting as verbs, not nouns (Chua, 2007), to examine
the processes of economisation as opposed to ‘the econ-
omy’ (Çalis ßkan & Callon, 2009, 2010; Callon, 2007; Mac-
Kenzie, 2008), and to investigate strategising as an
ongoing activity instead of a black-boxed noun, ‘strategy’
(Boedker, 2010; Jørgensen & Messner, 2010; Skaerbaek &
Tryggestad, 2010; Whittington, 2003, 2004; Whittington,
Eamonn, Mayer, & Smith, 2006). In particular, the works
of Latour (1987, 1999, 2005), Callon (1998, 2007) and Cal-
lon and Muniesa (2005) have stimulated renewed interest
in accounting calculation as a relational, situated activity
and highlighted the need to focus on analysing practical
action without evoking underlying meta-narratives that
might by some be seen to be intellectual cages rather than
liberating programmes.
From this ontological stance – this heterogeneous mode
of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of the organisation and markets –
numerous research insights have been produced. It is by
now common knowledge that material forms of account-
ing (be they budgets, standard costs, annual accounts, bal-
anced scorecards, strategic plans, and the like) act not
merely as privileged spokespersons ‘representing’ organi-
sations (Quattrone, 2004, 2009) but also – and by doing
so – as ‘generating entities’ that mobilise particular actions
and move people in certain directions (Ahrens & Chapman,
2007; Briers & Chua, 2001; Ezzamel, 1994; Giraudeau,
2012; Jones & Dugdale, 2002; Kaplan, 2011; Lowe, 2001;
Miller, 1991; Mouritsen, 1999; Mouritsen, Hansen, & Han-
sen, 2010; Mouritsen, Larsen, & Bukh, 2001; Ogden, 1997;
Preston, Chua, & Neu, 1997; Qu & Cooper, 2011; Robson,
1992). Accounting numbers are no longer seen as passive
representations of an unproblematic economic situation
but as actors that re-present and actively construct partic-
ular realities. Such numbers may circulate in long net-
works; that is, in complex action nets that traverse large
expanses of space and time. They can act as both producers
of effects as well as outcomes, some of these intended and
others not. As such, accounting helps constitute both
meaningful interaction and the normative and political
rules of organisations and communities. Using works such
as those by Foucault, Giddens, Schatzki, Bourdieu, Latour
and Callon, accounting researchers adopting a practice turn
have theorised and empirically demonstrated the actor-
hood of accounting technology.
Yet, what is less clear in this growing genre of scholarly
accounting work are the many ways in which the move-
ment of actors is achieved and their energy mobilised.
When presented with accounting, people seem motivated
to act, although their actions are often not predictable.
But how this movement is achieved and how the energy
of actors is sustained is less transparent. It is often as-
sumed in the social sciences that action emerges through
processes of cognitive thought (e.g. Simon, 1989). One acts
after working through cost–bene?t calculations – after
assessing advantages, disadvantages, and risks – both tan-
gible and intangible, both economic and political. Informa-
tion may be imperfect and our cognitive abilities
constrained but such modes of calculation are assumed
to drive action. Thus, the early notions of ‘‘muddling
through’’ (Lindblom, 1959), ‘‘bounded rationality’’ (Simon,
1957) and of ‘‘emergent strategy’’ (Mintzberg, 1987),
which in?uenced the emphasis of accounting as emergent
and ?uid action, are grounded still on a premise of cogni-
tive rationality.
In this paper, we suggest that it is affect along with cog-
nitive calculation that generates energy and collective ac-
tion. Whilst not setting aside the fact that intelligibility
and rationality are constitutive of action and movement,
we focus on how people’s feelings and emotions are con-
structed through the accounting targets and templates
examined. We believe that insuf?cient attention has been
paid in extant accounting literatures to how accounting
operates as an affective technology. The affective turn de-
parts from earlier literatures, including actor network the-
ory, by re?ecting on how material artefacts and
technologies play on people’s passions and feelings, rather
than purely their intellectual and reasoning skills. Whilst
the general management literature has witnessed a surge
of research into emotionality (e.g. Ashkanasy & Cooper,
2008) and there has been emerging interest in emotions
and ?nancial decision-making (see Pixley, 2004; Taf?er &
Tuckett, 2010) as well as in auditing (Chung, Cohen, &
Munroe, 2008; Gendron & Bedard, 2006; Kida, Moreno, &
Smith, 2001), less has been done to bring to bear the issue
of affect and feelings in accounting research
1
. Here we sug-
gest that in an affective economy, value is produced through
enlivening and modulating affect and that accounting tech-
nology plays a role therein.
In the case study that follows, concerns about a loss of
market leadership by Wall Street analysts set off an affec-
tive storm inside the global corporation and generated a
wealth of new activities intended to re-establish the orga-
nisation’s ‘rightful’ global leadership position and people’s
pride. We record people’s anxieties, sense of exultation,
talk of love and many passions. In short, we illustrate
how affect is circulated via corporate accounting technolo-
gies in action nets – and vice versa how affect moulds
accounting targets and templates. We argue that account-
ing technologies are productive of action because of their
affective origins and effects. This emotional force is ampli-
?ed when accounting acts in concert with other actors. In
1
An exception to this is Roberts (2009) who mentions affect and
accounting.
246 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
the case that follows, a whole series of actors – some near
and others afar – became drawn into action nets that
spanned large geographical distances. In other words,
accounting never acted alone. The organisation (which
we followed for over 4 years, and still research today) is
a very well-known global corporation with operations in
96 countries, 51 subsidiaries worldwide, ?ve regional cen-
tres, employing around 60,000 full time employees, 30,000
contractors and 650,000 partners. There are few detailed
case studies (that we know of) of a corporation with this
scale and reach.
Affect, accounting and action
Affect as emotional energy in circulation
Affect is used in this paper as a term that encom-
passes but moves away from the notion that affect
equates to an ‘internal drive’ or a discrete ‘intrapsychic
structure’ secret to the individual as would be con?gured
in orthodox Freudian analysis. Our de?nition instead en-
ables an engagement with a set of interpretations that
focus on how affect is collective, circulating across and
between individuals, bodies and material entities. We
will be referring to what Thrift (2004, p. 60) has de-
scribed as ‘‘an approach to affect that works with a no-
tion of broad tendencies and lines of force: emotion as
motion both literally and ?gurally’’. Affect occurs not
‘within’ or ‘without’ the body, but rather ‘between’
bodies, and when bodies interact with non-living organ-
isms, such as technologies, images and other material
devices. In the words of Sedgwick (2003, p. 19), ‘‘affects
can be, and are, attached to things, people, ideas, sensa-
tions, relations, activities, ambitions, institutions, and any
other number of other things, including other affects’’. In
this sense, one can be excited by anger, disgusted by
shame, or surprised by joy. Or, one can feel elated by
images and material artefacts (audacious growth targets
included). Whereas the Freudian notion of ‘physiological
drive’ is relatively narrowly constrained and internally
focused, here, affects have wider reach, can have multi-
ple aims and focus on many different objects. According
to Thrift (2004, p. 61), affects:
range across all kinds of aims (one of which may simply
be to stimulate their own arousal – what Tomkins calls
their autotelic function), can continually rede?ne the
aim under consideration, can have far greater freedom
with respect to time than drives (an affect such as anger
may last for a few seconds but equally may motivate
revenge that spans decades) and can focus on many dif-
ferent kinds of object.
This openness or collective nature of affect creates the
possibility for circulation. Circulation refers to the trans-
fer of emotive energies from one person to another, or
between persons and objects, or between different ob-
jects as non-human actors. Material artefacts (such as a
poster of a fashion model, a photo of a mother with
her newborn baby, or even an accounting spreadsheet
with red indicators ?agging downward trends in perfor-
mance) have the potential to generate and distribute af-
fect in networks of readers, politicians, managers,
investors and others.
An actant’s work can in this instance be understood as
its effort to amplify and modulate the ?ow of affect and
stimulate emotive imaginings. It is not necessarily the
job of so-called designers or managers to create meaning-
ful or interpretable artefacts but rather to construct mal-
leable artefacts aimed more at the modulation of affect
(see e.g. Massumi, 2002; Vasquez & Cooren, 2012; Wis-
singer, 2007). Whilst traditionally, the aim of designers
has been to assign a speci?c meaning to an material arte-
fact and to delimit it, understanding actants merely in
terms of their meaning misses a good portion of the force
of their potential. We suggest here that an actant is ‘suc-
cessful’ when it is capable of generating multiple meaning
and of enticing actors into emotive imagining and then
constructing a wider range of possible futures. Thus, a
‘good’ actant is not just meaningful; rather, some of its
power lies in its lack of precise meaning and its ability to
generate affect.
The ability for accounting numbers to generate multiple
and diverse meanings have, in part, already been theorised
through the notion of accounting reports as plastic bound-
ary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989; see also Star, 2010)
that appear solid on the outside but are capable of diverse
interpretations (see Briers & Chua, 2001; Townley, Cooper,
& Oakes, 2003). They have also been seen as modes of
imagery (Preston, Wright, & Young, 1996: Preston & Young,
2000; Quattrone, 2009) that narrate stories of organisa-
tions and social collectives. Here, we wish to add that
accounting technologies are also affective vehicles for the
narration of unful?lled potential or loss that entice and en-
trance actors to make imagined futures real. An adverse
pro?t number when placed in a benchmarked ?at global
map can call up a range of emotive energies – regret, guilt,
fear and/or excitement – at the prospect of being empow-
ered to regain a paradise lost. Like other good artefacts,
accounting numbers can create imaginations of a range
of potential futures that can have wide reaching conse-
quences. Yet, whilst some of these technologies could be
intentionally engineered, their effects may only be dimly
realised.
Affective engineering
Social scientists (e.g. Thrift, 2004, 2008) have sug-
gested that affect can be deliberately manipulated and
produced through somewhat mundane and insidious
means. In other words, the circulation and production
of affect is not an accident. Rather, affect can be system-
atically ‘engineered’ in conscious ways to create body
politics and to move people in particular directions with
certain aims in mind. Large corporations, especially, are
endowed with considerable resources and have the reach
and skills to deliver affective charges and in?uence peo-
ple’s disposition through various means of emotive
seduction and entrancement. Thrift (2004) introduces
the concept ‘‘affect engineering’’ to show how individual
autonomy is con?gured. He writes that societies are ‘‘en-
tranced’’ by affect – half awake and aroused only period-
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 247
ically by highly politicised and intense affective events.
In other words, society is prone to belief movements that
are shaped by skilful political interventions. Indeed, en-
tire networks can be switched on and con?gured by par-
ticular issues with high affective resonance. Waves of
affect are transmitted and received, constantly changing
the consenting self as institutions and governments gen-
erate so-called ‘affective storms’. An example of this kind
of affect engineering is the marshalling of aggression
through various forms of military training, such as drills
(see Thrift, 2004). Drills involve bodily conditionings that
allow anger and other aggressive emotions to be chan-
nelled into particular situations with effects (e.g. in-
creased ?ring rates and higher kill ratios), which the
military had not previously achieved. This may appear
to some to be an extreme example, but in the words
of Thrift (2004, p. 64), ‘‘it is illustrative of a tendency to-
wards the greater and greater engineering of affect’’ in
contemporary society.
Inside corporations, it is likewise possible to posit that
people’s disposition and motivation is being changed by
the more or less conscious engineering of affect. Cognitive
psychologists write of the need for organisations to pre-
vent the escalation of commitment and attachment to
doomed enterprises (Staw, 1976) and to motivate employ-
ees in diverse ways. Since the early work of Maslow (1943)
and Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959) on motiva-
tion, there has been considerable research not only on how
to design organisations that motivate so-called ‘appropri-
ate behaviours’ but also on selection tools that enable
organisations to ef?ciently chose and mould individuals
and groups to ‘?t’ desired behavioural norms. Indeed, since
the 1980s, human resource management has been elevated
to a ‘strategic enterprise’ and a source of ‘competitive
advantage’ (Barney, 1991; Miles & Snow, 1984) and many
executives are nowadays mentored in how to institutional-
ise certain behavioural standards and mental models
amongst their cohorts. The more critical scholars point to-
wards these interventions as insidious modes of accultura-
tion that entrap in new ways (Barker, 1993; Sewell, 2006;
Willmott, 1993) whilst others argue that employees are
now required to perform certain forms of emotional labour
and exhibit certain levels of emotional intelligence (Hochs-
child, 1979, 1983; Sennett, 1998). That is, emotions and
personal values, once the province of relative autonomous
choice, have now become the battleground of commodi?-
cation and institutionalised regulation (see also Kunda,
1990; Mumby & Putnam, 1992; Van Maanen & Kunda,
1989).
Parallel to this, there has been considerable research
in accounting on the enrolment of actors in action nets
(Chua, 1995; Jones & Dugdale, 2002; Lowe, 1997). Whilst
not akin to ‘acculturation’ or ‘emotional labour’, enrol-
ment is a form of conditioning of a person’s heart and
mind intended to lure actors into action nets and pro-
gress speci?c political agendas. The focus is on the net-
works that actors become enlisted into and the
uncertainties this creates. Network construction and
enrolment is said to be a fragile endeavour characterised
by anti-programmes (Tryggestad, 2005), power games
(Covaleski, Dirsmith, & Rittenberg, 2003) and sudden
shifts in political agendas with unanticipated conse-
quences (Skaerbaek & Tryggestad, 2010). Yet, whilst ac-
tor network theory debate uncertainties, politics and
enrolment, less has been done to address the issue of
emotive energies in assembling action nets and advanc-
ing particular political agendas. We wish to add to this
body of knowledge by asking; how does enrolment
happen and how are networks assembled? Is it through
appeals to cognition and the intellect? Or is it
through affective appeals and processes of emotive
seduction?
By way of comparison, scholars in the affective turn
point to the imitative or contagious nature of affect in
action nets as a more insidious way in which to enlist al-
lies and promote certain types of work efforts. Enrolment
occurs in subtle ways by institutionalising contagious
behaviours through affect circulation. ‘‘Affect is social in
that it constitutes a contagious energy, an energy that
can be whipped up or dampened in the course of inter-
action’’ (Wissinger, 2007, p. 232). Enrolment happens in
these instances because organisational members will mi-
mic certain behaviours and emotive responses in order
to be accepted by members in the network, to achieve
regard and recognition and to not risk dismissal. The
concept of ‘herding behaviour’ in ?nancial markets and
elsewhere exempli?es this. There is comfort in numbers,
in using trading strategies that are seen as sensible and
legitimate, in not standing out from the crowd, and in
being a member of a cohort with shared goals in mind.
Mostly, the players do not even know they are mimick-
ing or copying the behaviours of others. Through such
acts of mimicry actors reinvent themselves in the image
desired and wanted by others. Thrift (2008, p. 238)
points out that ‘‘we always desire what others desire,
in imitation of them, and not under our own impetus’’.
This echoes Lacan (1977), who wrote of the concept of
an ‘autonomous self’. Autonomy is an illusion since the
self, in desiring to be loved, desires an identity de?ned as
lovable and acceptable by others. Love, then, is essentially
seduction of the self by powerful actors on whom one
depends.
What is distinctive about today’s corporations is that
people’s feelings and sensations are increasingly available
to be worked on and cultivated by executives and others
through an affect-based form of performance manage-
ment. It is perfectly possible to ramp up feelings of anxiety,
fear or excitement in action nets in efforts to move
employees in certain directions or promote particular
managerial responses. In the case study that follows, we
empirically trace the pervasive and contagious nature of
affect in a contemporary workplace as a means through
which actors become enrolled and particular behaviours
and ideals promoted and sustained, albeit with ambiguous
consequences. We illustrate the processes by which local
actors in Australian move from non-engagement to avid
compliance, to the tolerance and acceptance of contradic-
tions, and to the active co-creation of new processes that
in effect further entrance and discipline. Like other forms
of behaviour, feelings can now be moulded, disciplined,
taught, exempli?ed, imitated and indeed, circulated via
technologies.
248 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
Technologies used for affect engineering: Affective
technologies
Affect production and modulation requires technology
because it is through technology and material artefacts,
such as images and accounting templates that affect –
hope, desire, passion, fear, anxiety and the like – comes
alive and is able to circulate. In other words, affect needs
vehicles of transportation to move and to live. Indeed, to
some, the development of capital and economic progress
is ‘‘unthinkable without the simultaneous development
of technologies for the modulation of affect’’ (Beller,
1998, p. 91). The affective turn, with its focus on technol-
ogy, offers in this regard an opportunity to consider how
visual objects, accounting templates, images and other
non-human devices mediate between people and entities
to transfer emotional energy and generate action. We sug-
gest that accounting technology acts as a centre of transla-
tion that helps to change things, that makes people’s
feelings amendable to intervention and that has the power
‘‘to force others to go out of their ways’’ (Latour, 1990, p.
26). Yes, humans trigger passions and desires, but so too
do non-living organisms such as performance ratings, bud-
gets and corporate scorecards. The production and manip-
ulation of affect or feeling is achieved through human
contact that is partly material.
It should be noted that when we use the words
‘accounting technology’, we are referring to a wide range
of inscriptions and reports. These range from mediators
that mould and transform human action, such as the Bal-
anced Scorecard (e.g. Norreklit, 2003; Qu & Cooper,
2011), cost accounting and enterprise resource planning
systems (Briers & Chua, 2001; Chua, 1995; Lowe, 2001;
Mouritsen, 1999; Preston et al., 1997; Quattrone & Hopper,
2005), capital budgets (Covaleski & Dirsmith, 1988; Ezza-
mel, 1994; Miller & O’Leary, 1987, 2007), ?nancial targets
(be they sales, productivity or other targets) (e.g. Ahrens
& Chapman, 2007; Dambrin & Robson, 2011; Mouritsen
et al., 2010), risk management and audit systems (Power,
1997, 2007) to new performance measures of emotional
intelligence (Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008), and intel-
lectual capital statements (Mouritsen et al., 2001). Even
the now widespread deployment of ‘employee value state-
ments’ can be conceived as a form of technological inter-
vention that has become part and parcel of a
corporation’s toolkit. Whilst some of these technologies
seek to hold employees responsible for a larger set of
non-?nancial performance variables such as ‘good work
ethic’ and ‘appropriate team behaviours’, others seek to
regulate behavioural norms and instruct that individuals
develop self-images and work orientations that are con-
gruent with organisational objectives (see, Alvesson &
Kärreman, 2004; Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Kärreman &
Alvesson, 2004). Common to these technologies is an en-
hanced capacity to transform, distort, expand and modify
the practices of human actors (Latour, 2005).
Affective technologies can be the workings of powerful
elites. A large multinational can for instance deploy a vari-
ety of accounting processes and devices that in subtle ways
instil a sense of empowerment and agency in local manag-
ers; but which in essence intend to seduce managers to
pursue corporate goals in such a way that managers think
they ‘own’ these as their own. Employees are touched in
ways which may well instil the feeling that they are the
originators of that thought, belief or action, rather than
simply and mechanically reproducing the beliefs of a char-
ismatic order. Consider the excitement and elation felt by
managers when hard-earned performance targets ?nally
come through at the end of the ?scal year. Or the fear of
failure and nervousness when corporate executives an-
nounce budget cuts that curtail spending on new strategies
designed to deliver to the targets set by the very same
executives. An accounting target then, is not merely a
number on a spreadsheet or a monitoring device intended
to hold people accountable. Rather, it symbolises the
unrealised potential of an individual to grow and be recog-
nised as a ‘star performer’ destined for larger roles into the
future.
A person’s affective state is in such instances monitored
and conditioned through various material artefacts and
processes that play to their passions and imaginations
(see Puyou, Quattrone, McClean, & Thrift, 2012) rather than
purely their logical and reasoning skills. Moscovici (1985)
argues that affective appeals try to create an ‘illusion of
love’ via a range of techniques – affective, corporal and
psychological – and this involves the use of symbols,
images, ?ags, af?rmations, phases, speeches and slogans.
In the words of Thrift (2008, p. 243) affective technologies:
are premised on making appeals to the heart, passion,
emotional imagination, to and through a realm of affect
that is co-present with the psychic and the emotional
rather than the intellect and reasoning.
Instead of reducing people’s feelings to a nuisance or an
obstacle to organisational progress that causes poor deci-
sion making (e.g. Simon, 1989), in this paper we investi-
gate how affect provides a form of intelligibility/
accountability/reasonability for what people do collec-
tively and the directions in which they move. We show
how affective technologies bind people to organisations
in ways that are more subtle and potentially also more
insidious. Through the advent of a whole series of affective
technologies, faraway spaces and times can be made visi-
ble and enlarged so that they can be knowingly operated
upon and equivalences drawn. Simultaneously, affective
technologies can also extend and modify the chain of
events and entice actors to engage in work efforts not pre-
viously imagined possible.
Research approach and methods
Because we are interested in action nets, a ?eld study
approach has been required to trace the footsteps of actors
and action making. Especially, the work of Latour (1986)
has informed our approach to data collection and analysis.
Latour suggests that, as researchers we need to be sensitive
to the possibility of multiple actors and origins. To use the
word ‘actor’ means that it is never entirely clear who and
what is acting since an actor on stage is never alone. There
are audiences, near and distant; there are spaces that in?u-
ence acting; there are times that matter. People located in
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 249
diverse spaces labelled as ‘local’ or ‘global’ could be drawn
into the action nets that ensue. Like William Thackeray’s
Vanity Fair, the cast is literally many and action is dispersed
both temporally and spatially. Thus, the analysis has to fol-
low many. In this study, we followed the movements and
shifts in the corporation’s global network very closely over
1 1/2 years (with visits 3–5 days a week), and more loosely
over another 2 1/2 years. We paid particular attention to
the acts of persuasion, negotiation and enrolment and
the changing of forms from one to another (Callon, 1986;
Callon & Latour, 1981). Tracing the footsteps of so many ac-
tors was not easy. To provide research focus our data col-
lection centred on the interaction between corporate
actors (in America), regional actors (in Asia–Paci?c
(APAC)), and local actors (in Australia). The corporate
headquarters oversees the global operations and sets the
worldwide strategies. The APAC of?ce manages the
subsidiaries in the Australasian region, focusing on sales,
operations and ?nance. Most of our time was spent with
Australian managers, who are charged with selling the cor-
poration’s products. We carried out 54 semi-structured
interviews with employees, managers, consultants and
others, lasting between 40 and 90 min.
Furthermore, as Latour (2005) suggests, some actors
will be inscriptions in the form of accounting numbers
and technology and some will be machines. We adopted
a principle of generalised symmetry (Latour, 1987), which
meant to eschew pre-conceived boundaries between
spaces, times and modes of agency. We assumed from
the onset that action is dislocated, diffracted and distrib-
uted via many entities, including non-human actors. In
the words of Latour (2005, p. 50):
By de?nition, action is dislocated . . . the most powerful
insight of social sciences is that other agencies over
which we have no control make us do things.
Thus, a challenge for researchers is how to make these
seemingly silent and passive non-human actants talk. The
solution, we suggest is to investigate what non-human ac-
tants make actors do and how they bend the actions of ac-
tors. As such, we focused on the many accounting
templates used by the corporate headquarters to monitor
the performance of the 51 subsidiaries worldwide. These
included business plans, strategy memos, accounting tem-
plates (e.g. budgets, forecasts, ‘Accounting Cascades’, Bal-
anced Scorecards), performance surveys and measures,
and slide presentations. News articles were also collected.
We looked at how local actors in Australia were reading
and using the templates; how they populated and ?lled
in empty ?elds and the controversies this created. The
aim was to learn how the templates framed and condi-
tioned the interests, emotions and actions of local actors.
In situ observations were conducted at 89 meetings
2
over 18 months. These ranged from 2 to over 600 employees
from all areas and levels of the organisation. When permit-
ted, a digital voice recorder was used; alternatively, detailed
diary notes were typed up. Over 350 A4 pages were typed
up and more than 700 ?les (or 800 MB of electronic data)
were compiled. The researcher would usually sit in a cor-
ner to not intrude on the actors. Attention was paid not
only to ‘what was being said’ and ‘not said’, but also to
the symbolic gesturing and body language of the partici-
pants, including ‘who sat next to whom’, ‘who spoke the
most’, ‘who seldom spoke’, and ‘who was not invited to
participate in meetings’. The researcher recorded people’s
emotional responses, including their facial reactions to
statements and events, such as wrinkles in the forehead,
smiles and looks of worry. These communication signals
are harder to capture when interviews are used in isola-
tion and when there is no social encounter to follow. In
situ observations differ in this regard to interviews in that
they enable the researcher to get a closer look at people’s
facial and bodily responses. In addition, many informal
gatherings in the café, elevator, corridors and at strategy
retreats were attended. In late 2006, the researcher had
become such a familiar face that questions were asked
about her whereabouts when she missed a meeting. At
no time did the researcher perform consulting work for
the organisation.
The data was analysed intensely over a 6 month period,
and this continued during the write-up phases (over a
6 year period). This has been a lengthy process of listening
to data, taking notes, writing up drafts to tease out themes
and ideas, then piecing these together, rewriting sections,
re-analysing the data and ‘re-jigging’ it in attempts to form
a coherent story. At ?rst, this resulted in a 218 page docu-
ment, which (over 5 years and after several conferences,
workshops, reviewer comments, and a few headaches)
has been shortened, re-analysed and rewritten into this
current paper.
The 3 year growth strategy
Background
Fig. 1 provides a chronological summary of the empiri-
cal accounts presented in this paper. It gives an overviewof
the American headquarters’ use of accounting technologies
as these became prominent at different points in time. In
total, ?ve accounting technologies were in circulation dur-
ing the study. Three of these are discussed here: the Mid-
Year Review Templates, the Accounting Cascades, and the
True View Tool.
In 2005, the corporate executives in America launched a
new 3 year growth strategy worldwide following concerns
by Wall Street analysts that the corporation had dimming
growth prospects and was losing its 30 year position as
market leader. A new MYR template was issued by the cor-
porate executives and for the ?rst time ever, local subsidi-
aries were asked to think 3 years ahead. In Australia, this
prompted local leaders to come up with a ‘big hairy $1 bil-
lion revenue target’ 3 years out (see Fig. 1). This audacious
target required multiple changes to be made to business
operations. Twelve of these initiatives are illustrated in
Fig. 1 and discussed in the empirical accounts that follow.
The changes were initiated in October 2005 and followed
2
Observed meetings included strategy workshops, planning, budget,
‘synchronisation’ meetings, operations meetings, Senior Leadership Team
(SLT) meetings, rehearsal meetings, and performance review meetings with
regional actors and amongst local actors.
250 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
closely until December 2006, and loosely till 2009. During
this time, the compounded annual revenue growth rates
(CAGRs) went up and down many times along with
changes in the environment, shipments of personal com-
puters and other things (see Fig. 1). Our narrative traces
how local actors became seduced by a ?nancial target
and its promises of a better future.
The MYR template: The growth ambition
Strategising Initiative #1: Call to action and the $1 billion
revenue target
In 2005, local and global actors became increasingly
concerned about ‘‘how to grow the business?’’, ‘‘how to
achieve double digit revenue growth?’’, ‘‘how to realise
our full potential?’’, and ‘‘how to regain our pre-eminent
leadership position?’’ (quotes from various meeting con-
versations). A news article in the public press in America
illustrated the growing scepticism of Wall Street analysts
and investors towards the future pro?tability of the corpo-
ration and ‘‘its dimming growth prospects’’ (news article).
They demanded corporate executives to ‘‘build more
growth into the share price’’. This led the American CEO
to ‘‘speak in front of several hundred institutional inves-
tors . . . and to meet one-on-one with top investors’’. The
news article went on to say:
Even though Corporation X is twice as pro?table . . . share-
holders grouse that the boss is in denial about the com-
pany’s dimming growth prospects. It’s time for him to
make his case. But unless (the boss) delivers more than
one of his famous high-energy pep talks about the Corpo-
ration’s rosy future, Wednesday’s event will back?re.
Investors just won’t buy it these days.
Another news article similarly referred to competitive
pressures and said there was plenty to fear in a market
where competition was getting stronger:
The Corporation’s share price plunged 11% in a single
day last week after the company said it would spend
an additional $2.5 billion to compete against riv-
als. . . . in recent days the Corporation has been criti-
cised for failing to react quickly to changes in the
business. Yet, its attempts to catch up risk inviting reg-
ulatory penalties. On the surface, there is plenty to fear.
In response to such pressures, in 2005 the corporate
executives asked the 51 subsidiaries around the world to
prepare new business initiatives to grow revenue. This re-
quest was presented as part of the corporation’s ‘empow-
erment initiative’
3
which intended to increase delegation
of decision-making powers to the subsidiaries. Strategy
making had previously been a centralised activity directed
largely by corporate executives in America, but now execu-
tives wanted to hear local actors’ ‘‘own ideas’’ for how to
grow their revenues ‘‘over and above business as usual’’
(quote from message from corporate of?ces). This was to
be done for a 3 year time horizon from the Financial Year
2007 (FY07) until 2009 (FY09). The corporate headquarter
promised that additional resources would be allocated to
fund the subsidiaries’ proposed growth initiatives. The pro-
posals and associated investment requests were to be pre-
sented to up to 100 corporate executives during their
annual Mid-Year Review on January 13, 2006, at the regional
of?ce in Singapore. The headquarters’ MYR Kick Off message
stated that an important objective of this event was to ‘‘Dis-
cuss Long Term Growth Opportunities (new focus area for
FY06)’’.
Fig. 1. Global accounting technologies and local strategising initiatives (2005–2009).
3
The empowerment model had been introduced via the delegation of
responsibility for pro?t and loss statements controlled and managed by the
Customer Segment and Business Group Leaders at the subsidiaries.
Interviewee V explained how this change in decision making responsibility
operates at the subsidiary: ‘‘in the past you’d be given money for people,
money for T&E, money for training, money for computers, money for
everything . . . And you’d be told, right, there you go, there’s your budget,
don’t spend any more . . . . But now with the empowerment model . . . you
know what your total revenue, sorry that total variable divided by your
adjusted revenue is your cost of sales percentage . . . and that’s the number
that we’ll judge you on, we don’t care how you spent your money, you can
decide you want to spend all your marketing money on people, you can
spend all your BIF on marketing, you can decide not to have computers, you
can decide to send everybody on a training course . . . or use the money to
drive marketing . . . they are only constrained by the cost of sales
percentage’’.
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 251
The headquarters’ call for growth prompted numerous
initiatives in the Australian subsidiary. These started in
October 2005 when a search for growth opportunities in
the local market was initiated. Leading the change agenda,
the Australian Managing Director hired expert consultants
to help develop the growth strategy and ensure a success-
ful MYR. Five full day strategy workshops were conducted
with around 35 Directors and Senior Managers (called Se-
nior Leaders hereafter), alongside many meetings and
smaller workshops. During the opening speech of the ?rst
workshop, the Managing Director noted that ‘‘the subsidi-
ary is being empowered to make a difference’’ and empha-
sised that the ‘‘corporate centre says you must decide
where to invest’’. That is, the subsidiary’s future and by
implication the futures of individual Senior Leaders was
now in their own hands.
Early in this process, many of the 35 workshop partici-
pants, whose support and ‘‘buy in’’ needed to be mobilised,
were initially sceptical about the strategy exercise, recall-
ing the ‘‘unsuccessful’’ attempts of previous years. Com-
ments during the ?rst two workshops included ‘‘this is a
repetition of last year’’ (Participant M) and ‘‘the real issue
is internal constraints and problems in operations’’ (Partic-
ipant B). Participant B also highlighted that ‘‘in the past we
have never gone from the achievement of the plan to the
actual execution of the plan. . .’’. Participant F similarly
pointed out:
We’ve had these management consultants in before, but
nothing changes anyway . . . so why should it change
now? . . . I support the process but am not sure what
effect it will have . . . what it will change. They’ve been
through it before and nothing changes.
Metaphors, some with sexual overtones, were used
extensively during this time and there was much talk
about ?nding the ‘‘Big Rocks’’, discovering the ‘‘Big Hairy
Audacious Goals’’ and achieving ‘‘Double Digit Growth’’
(quotes from meetings and slide presentations). During
the opening speech of the ?rst strategy workshop labelled
‘‘Our Imperative For Growth’’, the Managing Director (as-
sisted by the most Senior Consultant) made a call to action
and outlined three scenarios for the subsidiary’s future
revenue performance (see Fig. 2). Scenario 3, the most
attractive, showed a $1 billion (bn) revenue target 3 years
out. The Managing Director referred to the possibility of
1 day reaching this target, and provided illustrations of
what ‘‘double digit growth would look like’’ and ‘‘could re-
sult in’’. He mobilised support and interest, asking the Se-
nior Leaders in a challenging manner ‘‘where do we
position ourselves?’’ and ‘‘is it possible to do this – to reach
the $1 bn by 2009?’’ As he asked these questions, he
pointed at the target on the presentation slide. Feedback
was given from the ?oor where many nodded their heads
and agreed that ‘‘the $1 bn could and should be their tar-
get’’. Several participants became excited about Scenario
3 and made supportive comments, saying ‘‘yes, we can
do it’’, and ‘‘yes, a $1 bn revenue number should be our
3 year target’’. Some participants explicitly mentioned that
‘‘it will make us look good to Corporate’’.
The $1 bn target was an important visual image that
represented a seemingly better future. It was carefully
crafted by the workshop facilitators to evoke affective re-
sponses from the Senior Leaders and to ‘‘hook them’’.
And it worked. People become aroused, even passionate
about the 3 year audacious target. The PowerPoint slide
and numbers helped local leaders imagine a future much
better than they had previously thought possible.
Furthermore, one single number appeared to crystallise
a shared ambition about the future and focussed attention
when attaining such focus was not easy. Participant A, a
newcomer to the organisation, commented on this
dif?culty:
I have tried asking people for some time to talk about
strategy . . . but it became patently obvious that in the
normal transactional day where everyone is multi-task-
ing it is virtually impossible to ask people to take even
30 minutes out and put a different thinking hat on and
go more creative and conceptual . . . so discussions
tended to stay with what is broken today and what
can we ?x – which is very operational and tactical.
Fig. 2. Imagining and desiring a better future FY07–09 (three possible futures).
252 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
But it is transactional think mode, so it works very well
for them because they can say the last thing that
broke . . . versus being able to see how in two years’
time the business can change.
Later in the morning of the ?rst strategy workshop, the
Senior Consultant again used accounting numbers to mobi-
lise support and emotionally arouse the Senior Leaders.
Discussing the annual revenue growth rates required to
reach the $1 bn target, she problematised the situation
by saying ‘‘you are still only on 5–6% growth year on year’’
and ‘‘that is just not enough to reach the $1 bn target
3 years out’’. Much higher growth rates were needed. She
also painted a picture of the possibility of getting a front
page story in the Australian Financial Review, with the
headline stating ‘‘How Did They Do It?’’ ‘‘How did they
reach the big hairy growth number?’’ As such, metaphors,
accounting numbers, an appeal to regaining their ‘rightful’
leadership position, and talk of ‘making their own future’,
were combined to shape a collective vision of the future.
Notably, these sessions were an appeal to people’s identity
and carefully designed to stimulate their imaginations.
There were promises of stardom in the news and recogni-
tion and glory, with the actors’ images of themselves as
adulated star performers strongly coupled to the projected
identity of the corporation of the future. The prospect of
fame and praise could become real if only local allies
would all agree to sign up to the double-digit growth tar-
get. Managers were seduced by the many affective appeals
skilfully put into place by the Managing Director and ex-
pert consultants.
Numbers were used in a similar fashion by the Finance
Director later that morning during a presentation called
‘‘What do the Numbers say?’’, albeit here to evoke a sense
of fear. One of his slides showed the corporation’s share
price from an American stock exchange. It listed the last
12 months of sales, net income, price earnings ratio, and
earnings per share (EPS) in comparison with thirty of the
corporation’s competitors (see Table 1). The Director
pointed out that the corporation was ‘‘underperforming
relative to its competitors’’ especially on EPS and share
price, emphasising that ‘‘capital markets are not rewarding
the company’’ and that ‘‘there is not enough growth built
into the share price’’. After 30 years of market leadership
‘‘we are not leading anymore’’, he said. The heading of this
slide stated that ‘‘many other competitors have better
growth and earnings stories than our Company’’. This ech-
oed the pressures for growth by the Wall Street analysts.
There was now a sense of anxiety and nervousness devel-
oping amongst the workshop participants that the corpo-
ration was losing its market leadership position. This
potential loss formed an appeal to the pride of audience
members and awoke their desire for a corporate success
story within which their own life story was located. Similar
to the Managing Director, the Finance Director used
accounting data to arouse local leaders, and to get them
to ‘‘buy into’’ the growth strategy. Again, the presenters
were playing on people’s emotions and imaginations. The
Finance Director went on to make a ‘‘call for action’’, rais-
ing the important question: ‘‘what do we need to do to
get there?’’ – to achieve the $1 bn growth target, boost
the share price and EPS and achieve a better future? His
proposed solution that would rescue the declining share
price and restore people’s pride and self-esteemas ‘‘market
leaders’’ reiterated the $1 bn as the 3 year ‘‘hairy, auda-
cious goal’’. Accounting numbers again represented the
possibility of a more prosperous future and self.
During the course of these workshops, the initial scepti-
cism expressed by the workshop participants lessened
somewhat. Participant B and Participant M ceased to dis-
rupt the conversations and presentations as they had done
initially, and the atmosphere changed during the second
and third days of the strategy workshops. More people
were now participating in the conversations and express-
ing their support, even excitement. Some spoke of how
important it was that they (the subsidiary) deserved to
be trusted and empowered to craft their ‘own’ strategies.
It seemed that the extensive courtship of the consultants
and Managing Director had been successful; local actors
Table 1
Comparison of company performance to that of peers/other relevant companies.
Ticker Name Last 12M Price Market Cap Estimate Last 12M Last 12M Last 12M
Goldman Sachs
Software Index
Sales Market Cap PE EPS EBITDA Net Income
MSFT MICROSOFT CORP 40340.00 27.05 287,832,000,000 20.56 1.31 16019.00 12867.00
ORCL ORACLE CORP 12352.00 12.51 64,449,320,000 15.66 0.72 5049.00 2896.00
CA UN COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTL INC 3683.00 28.86 16,926,040,000 30.35 0.76 967.00 188.00
SYMC SYMANTEC CORP 3163.71 19.19 22,998,140,000 19.30 0.55 1052.38 230.56
ERTS ELECTRONIC ARTS INC 3021.63 59.32 18,019,690,000 39.11 1.29 574.69 375.52
INTU INTUIT INC 2079.95 48.06 8,590,371,000 21.12 2.06 664.48 381.63
DOX UN AMDOCS LTD 1917.76 27.73 5,526,890,000 19.37 1.37 426.81 282.42
ADBE ADOBE SYSTEMS INC 1885.45 32.22 15,920,790,000 28.69 1.06 748.57 560.09
VRSN VERISIGN INC 1616.57 23.78 6,303,439,000 22.63 0.96 406.94 249.86
BMC UN BMC SOFTWARE INC 1491.20 19.03 4,147,537,990 18.84 0.38 245.3 53.10
ADSK AUTODESK INC 1384.42 46.65 10,665,530,000 37.53 1.08 377.12 291.21
SEBL SIEBEL SYSTEMS INC 1352.75 10.42 5,513,135,000 64.72 0.20 177.48 34.55
ATVI ACTIVISION INC 1347.59 17.20 4,707,517,000 31.68 0.31 176.02 84.01
TTWO TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE 1332.45 18.39 1,303,001,000 31.76 1.28 182.21 80.91
CDNS CADENCE DESIGN SYS INC 1293.92 16.12 4,573,376,000 19.90 0.79 357.23 82.57
CPWR COMPUWARE CORP 1239.29 8.03 3,111,211,000 21.70 0.30 192.85 117.24
NOVL NOVELL INC 1178.05 7.52 2,872,573,000 83.56 0.11 96.94 394.94
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 253
were increasingly approving of corporation’s new growth
strategy. Their faith was being gained, sparked in part by
their desire to please corporate executives and ‘look good’
but also by their love affair with the vision of a more desir-
able future in which they could play a lauded part.
Once support for the $1 bn revenue growth target
3 years out had been mobilised, subsidiary actors were
faced with a question as to ‘‘how to achieve this target?’’’.
They now needed to come up with new ideas and business
initiatives. The action net continued to grow and expand
because this required the mobilisation of many more ac-
tors and artefacts, as follows.
Strategising Initiative #2: New subsidiary strategy, the house
and three growth initiatives
Solutions for how to reach the $1 bn magic number
were found in the creation of a ‘new’ subsidiary strategy la-
belled the ‘‘customer experience strategy’’. In this respect,
the $1 bn growth target provided impetus for change. This
strategic vision was crafted during an ‘exciting’ half day
workshop where the consultants provided the Senior Lead-
ers with ?ve alternative strategic visions intended to
achieve the $1 bn target. The chosen strategy was repre-
sented in a drawing called ‘the House’ (see Fig. 3), which
summarised the subsidiary’s 3 year Vision (i.e. to Drive
Growth through Exceptional Customer Experiences); the
Strategic Goals (i.e. Win, Drive, Great); and the Transfor-
mation Agenda (listing initiatives across the business).
The House was important in a number of ways that again
linked processes of identi?cation with the wooing and
seduction of local allies. It represented the group as ‘a fam-
ily’, who had spent much energy and time together build-
ing their ‘new house’. It summarised the many elements of
strategy that had surfaced during the 5 day workshop into
a single drawing. It symbolised their shared ambitions and
identity, and was again an attempt to seduce actors into
compliance with organisational goals by appealing to their
emotive side.
Of all the elements in the House (Vision, Goals and
Agenda), the growth initiatives were given most focus as
these were directly linked to the 3 year $1 bn growth tar-
get. Developing the growth initiatives proved complex
and dif?cult, and the initial scepticism of Senior Leaders
at times seemed to resurface. Freeing up people from their
usual operational mode and helping them become more
creative and strategic continued to be a challenge. To com-
plicate matters, there was also scepticism amongst the Se-
nior Leaders as to whether the consultants were ‘‘truly’’
adding value to the subsidiary. Some showed muted resis-
tance, as pointed out by Participant K in his description of
the meetings with the consultants; he said: ‘‘Some people
never showed up for the meetings, some showed up late,
some meetings were cancelled and e-mails were not re-
sponded to’’.
In this context, accounting numbers once again came to
play a role in enticing and arousing local actors to partici-
pate and exert effort. For example, during a workshop in
which the growth initiative for the largest customer seg-
ment, Customer Segment #1, was discussed, Senior Lead-
ers continued to show a degree of scepticism, but a
turning point came when one of the Senior Consultants
presented a convincing analysis with compelling revenue
numbers projecting much better ?nancial years ahead.
The consultants showed penetration levels into three cus-
tomer categories (high, average, and low revenue custom-
ers). Customer segmentation at the subsidiary had so far
been based on company size. This new analysis took a dif-
ferent approach and segmented customers based on prod-
uct penetration, showing the revenue opportunities ‘‘not
yet explored’’ for each customer group. The analysis re-
vealed that an additional $30 million (mn) could be gener-
ated in revenue over a 3 year period if the gap in product
penetration between the ‘‘average’’ and ‘‘high revenue’’
customers could be narrowed by 10%. For the average cus-
tomer group, this would imply a $24 increase in revenue
per installation per annum. This could be replicated to in-
crease the number of products per customer in all three
customer categories. This was very convincing data and
the Senior Leaders all applauded the result and agreed that
the analysis was great, even to the extent that they would
present it to corporate executives at the forthcoming MYR.
Such brilliant analyses would make them ‘‘look good to
corporate executives’’, they said. Again, accounting
Fig. 3. The house.
254 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
numbers made emotive appeals and enticed local actors to
become allies. Their original scepticism waned when they
were shown the numbers and there was now a sense that
the desired future was increasingly do-able and realisable.
After the meeting, the Consultants were pleased (and re-
lieved) that the meeting had gone so well, especially given
that a number of previous meetings had been shifted
around and some cancelled due to a lack of availability of
subsidiary staff.
Many such meetings took place during the pre-MYR activ-
ities in late December 2005 to early January, 2006. The court-
ship pursued by the Managing Director and assisted by the
expert consultants resulted in the development of a wide
range of new business initiatives, as follows.
Strategising Initiative #3: Inscribing the growth strategy
theme via the MYR slide decks
The development of the new growth initiatives was
guided, in part, by the MYR Main Tent Slide Deck, which
was released by the corporate headquarter 6–8 weeks
prior to the annual MYR. The Slide Deck consisted of a ser-
ies of pre-designated templates into which subsidiary ac-
tors were required to record data. The entries were
prepared using Slide Guidelines (also issued by the corpo-
rate headquarters), which instructed Senior Leaders how
to complete the templates and how much time to spend
on each. The templates were grouped under nine topics
4
comprising thirteen templates. Topic number 9 was labelled
‘‘Financial Performance’’ and had three templates. Template
number 13 (partially replicated in Fig. 4) was labelled ‘‘Long
Term Growth – Financials’’ and contained approximately 160
accounting numbers (mainly revenue measures). Subsidiary
actors were asked to ?ll in their revenue forecasts, including
the revenue quota and targets they were ‘‘signing up to’’ for
the 3 year period (FY07–09). This included the much talked
about $1 bn revenue target. The MYR template was impor-
tant because it framed the conversations and activities of lo-
cal leaders as they prepared for the review.
Yet the corporate templates were not without ?aws,
and local actors perceived this as indicating a lack of re-
spect or care, as pointed out by Participant S:
But here’s the thing that is a lasting emotion about Mid-
Year Review and that is that the corporation creates the
deck that the PowerPoint template . . . invariably the
template has faults in it. So the numbers that are meant
to ?ow through from slide 1 to slide 32 don’t correlate
or there’s lack of data available to complete a template.
And the amount of work and the amount of frustration
that surrounds completing the template and loading the
template is unbelievable and the fact that the corpora-
tion, our headquarters, has not nailed that was a real
in my view bordering . . . I won’t call it an insult ’cause
it wasn’t an insult but it’s bordering on disrespectful,
that you put the countries through the pressure to com-
plete these templates, present in your format yet you
don’t put in the work to make sure that’s a ?awless
template.
The ?aws of the template and the frustration that they
generated however did not stop local actors from using
them and the initial scepticism was soon replaced with tol-
erance. Indeed, the templates quickly became a main focal
point during the many rehearsal meetings leading up to
MYR. During these rehearsals, local actors discussed what
information to feature and how to present this to the cor-
porate executives at MYR in Singapore. A ?nal rehearsal
took place on the day of departure for the MYR, on January
11, 2006, where the MYR delegates and their support staff
met in the Boardroom to do one last ‘‘run through’’ of the
MYR Slide Deck. The draft MYR Slide Deck had been
printed up in A3 colour copies and distributed to the meet-
ing participants. This turned into a 4 hours rehearsal meet-
ing attended by twenty-two Senior Leaders and many
support staff. The atmosphere was ?lled with tension and
excitement as last minute issues were attended to by the
many support staff assisting the MYR delegates. The MYR
delegates scrutinised the performance of themselves and
their colleagues frequently referring to the templates,
which they went through in chronological order. They de-
bated what the corporate executives ‘‘would focus on this
year’’ and ‘‘what they were looking for’’. As they listened
to each other’s presentations, they provided suggestions
on ‘‘what to say’’ to the executives, ‘‘what to emphasise’’,
‘‘what to expect’’, ‘‘what to leave out’’ and ‘‘how to position
delicate issues and key points’’ (various quotes from the
meeting). The templates transported the desires of distant
actors (executives and Wall Street analysts) across time
and space, although physically these important actors
were absent. Local actors reinvented themselves in their
image at the coalface of the templates.
Fig. 4. X-axis in MYR Template #13: Long term growth – ?nancials.
4
The nine topics included: (1) State of the Business; (2) Citizenship
Discussion; (3) Customer and Partner Experience, including The XX Survey
Results and Satisfaction; (4) Business Discussion; (5) Market View; (6)
Customer Segment Map; (7) Customer Satisfaction Discussion; (8) Financial
Results; (9) Long Term Growth – Customer Segments #1 and #2, and
Financial Performance.
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 255
Local actors were obviously very committed to this pro-
cess because their reputation was tied to the templates and
the many ?nancial indicators therein. They were keen to
impress corporate executives and to ‘‘look good’’ at MYR.
Indeed, for those Senior Leaders chosen to present at
MYR, this distinction was won with pride. A Senior Direc-
tor commented on the positive emotions and energy that
he had experienced at MYR including the praise, even
cheerleading, that corporate executives might provide if
the performance by local actors was successful:
there’s a whole range of emotions from the positive
stuff that comes out of it . . . and you have the right
executives in the room who really, you know people
like [name of famous executive] . . . and so you’ll always
go away quite positive and energised by the way he
engages because he knows the business and he’s, you
know, he’s a cheerleader, he’s encouraging.
During this rehearsal time in January 2006, the revenue
growth rates and targets proposed by the consultants a
month earlier at the last strategy workshop, started to
change. The CAGR for the 3 year period (FY07–09) to be re-
corded into the MYR template was forecasted at 14.9%. The
Managing Director thought this was a bit high, and said:
we must have a clear vision about this when we talk to
the regional centre, about the difference between quota
and goal. We are accountable for the quota but can set
ourselves a higher goal – we must be careful not to set
big goals which become quotas.
So there was a degree of nervousness about overstating
the target and this had to be carefully managed. One way
to reduce this uncertainty was to pro?le the subsidiary’s
proposed growth initiatives to the corporate executives.
Three such initiatives had been prepared with the help of
the expert consultants (see Table 2 for one example). The
initiatives were the three largest in terms of revenue. They
also met the ‘‘costs of sales’’ rule of the ‘‘within empower-
ment’’ model,
5
and were thus best suited to achieve the
$1 bn target 3 years out. The three initiatives took place in
Customer Segment #1; Customer Segment #2; and in one
of the Business Groups. The investment requests totalled a
little more than $4.5 mn in year one.
6
At MYR in Singapore, the corporate executives approved
of the three growth initiatives and applauded the Austra-
lian Senior Leadership Team for their great efforts. The rev-
enue growth target signed up to by the Senior Leaders at
MYR for FY07 was 9.8%, a signi?cant increase over the 4–
5% growth rates in previous years. The CAGR rate for the
3 year (FY07–09) period was set at 10.1%, thus lower than
the 14.9% put forth by the consultants earlier on. Yet not
surprisingly the growth targets continued to change for
many months to come. The funding requests for the
growth initiatives also continued to change as they were
negotiated with corporate and regional actors during the
budgeting and planning period in subsequent months
(from February to July 2006), as follows.
Strategising Initiative #4: Investment prioritisation
Following MYR, the Managing Director, along with
other Senior Leaders from Finance and elsewhere, initiated
an investment request and prioritisation exercise for the
subsidiary. Many investment requests (totalling over
$50 mn) were put forward by local leaders from across ?f-
teen business areas. Eager to be recognised, and in the pur-
suit of growth, local actors sought to reinvent themselves
as leaders once more. During this time, the three growth
initiatives presented at MYR all received funding approval,
though not at the level originally promised. During the
negotiation process with the regional centre in Singapore,
the $4.5 mn in additional funding requested by the sub-
sidiary at MYR was reduced signi?cantly to approximately
$3.3 mn, yet with no associated change in the revenue
growth targets. So whilst the revenue targets went up,
the promised funding went down. It may have been quite
conceivable for local actors to focus on construing this
revision of promised funding as a betrayal or breach of
trust, yet intriguingly they did not interpret the situation
in those terms. Instead they responded with a wider range
of new processes and tools (as detailed below) and found
creative ways in which to ‘make do’. Such overlooking of
breaches of trust and potential inconsistency may be an
indicator of the ongoing processes and nature of the enrol-
ment and seduction that was taking place and instituted by
the corporate executives and the Managing Director.
During this period it became increasingly clear that the
Australian leaders were being put under growing pressure
to produce higher revenue growth rates within a tighter
budget. Again, these processes of wooing local actors into
exerting extra efforts had an affective dimension. The Man-
aging Director explained during this time that he some-
times would tell his managers that he ‘‘loves them’’,
initially much to their surprise. He said he used the word
‘‘love’’ to mean things such as ‘‘to help others to extend
their own boundaries’’, ‘‘exert more effort’’ and ‘‘to grow’’:
MD. I introduced love at a company meeting and I can
remember the bizarre reaction.
MD: I said ‘‘guys you know if we get focused on where
we’re going together, if we really become a team, if
Table 2
MYR slide with growth initiatives and funding requests ‘‘investment
opportunity: within or beyond empowered productivity’’.
Customer Segment #1
Opportunity 1 FY07 FY08 FY09
Incr. investment $ 1520 1800 2500
Incr. billed $ 10,000 25,000 40,000
Within current empowerments Yes
5
The ‘‘Within current Empowerment?’’ line listed in the table means
that the business leaders in the subsidiary can add the additional expense
because it does not take them over the required CoS% (variable expense to
adjusted revenue ratio).
6
The total funding request to fund the three growth initiatives in year
one in the MYR slides was a little over $4.5 mn and approximately $21 mn
for the 3 year period. The total revenue return on the three projects in year
one was $27 mn and approximately $195.4 mn over the 3 year period.
256 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
we’re really aligned, if we’re really behaving and treat-
ing each other well there will be over time a sense of
love that starts to build amongst us’’. And they laughed
and I said it’s not that kind of love because they’re all
dirty-minded as you can imagine but I will say that I
had one of my executives come in to see me about
18 months into the journey and he said to me, you
know when you talk about love, I think I now under-
stand what you’re talking about . . .
Interviewer: Why did you want to talk about love?
MD: That’s a really good question. Well what is
love? . . . M Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled
de?nes love as having the commitment to the spiritual
development of another person.
Interviewer: So, love is to help someone else grow?
MD: Yes, andthat’s why youcanhave love ina teamwhere
the team members feel that everyone is here supporting
me in my development, in helping each other grow. . .
The Accounting Cascades: Anxiety develops
Following the MYR with the executives, the corporation
began its annual budgeting and planning period. This runs
from February to July each year. During this time, the cor-
porate headquarter transmits a budget alignment tool
known as the ‘‘Accounting Cascades’’ with ‘‘top down
worldwide targets’’ to each of the 51 subsidiaries. The Cas-
cades and targets are used by local actors to prepare the lo-
cal budgets for the forthcoming ?nancial year, which starts
on July 1. The Cascades provide ‘‘guidance’’ on the head-
quarters’ expectations of subsidiary performance across a
range of accounting measures, speci?cally revenue, operat-
ing expense (OPEX) and contribution margin (CM). Over
300 accounting measures are featured in the Cascades.
Fig. 5 illustrates a simpli?ed version of an Accounting Cas-
cade. A series of so-called ‘‘review meetings’’ take place
with regional executives during this time.
In 2006, besides the doubled revenue growth target of
9.8% and the reduced additional funding for the growth ini-
tiatives approved at MYR, the 2006 Cascades also high-
lighted a lower than expected increase in OPEX budget
for the Australian subsidiary. After adjusting for realloca-
tions,
7
the OPEX budget for the Australian subsidiary in-
creased by only $1.5 million over the previous ?nancial
year, whilst the revenue growth target doubled from 4.5%
to 9.8%. Again, funding was being withdrawn by the head-
quarters despite previous promises.
As a result, local actors in Australia became increasingly
concerned and somewhat anxious about how to reach the
higher than usual target within the tighter budget. Some
even had sleepless nights, as mentioned explicitly by the
leader of Customer Segment #2, who had signed up to an
exceptionally large revenue target at MYR. One of the se-
nior expert consultants described the use of ‘‘big, fat tar-
gets’’ as a means to entrap people and ‘‘tie them down’’:
we used numbers to tie their feet to the burning post;
now that they have a budget, and their bonus depends
on it, they have to do it; we ?rst develop common
understanding, and then we use numbers to tie them
to a big, fat target. . .. it’s peer group pressure that makes
them sign up to the target; once they sign up, they can-
not run or hide; then they are held accountable and
then it’s no longer my responsibility.
It is possible to suggest here that local actors whilst
working very hard to produce these numbers had, in fact,
been complicit in embracing a process that effectively con-
strained and entrapped them. They had publicly signed up
to the growth ambition and committed to the audacious
billion dollar target. Not only were their bonuses now tied
up with achieving a future that they had partly crafted,
their sense of worth as seen by self and others was also
at stake. The careful crafting of an array of affective appeals
using accounting targets during the courtship process now
had a darker, more insidious side and the sentiments in lo-
cal sites started to shift to nervousness and worry.
The targets committed to by the local subsidiary were
taken very seriously by regional and corporate executives,
and subsidiary leaders would inevitably be held tightly
accountable to these. This heightened the nervousness felt
Fig. 5. Accounting Cascades.
7
This, for example, included adjusting for certain retailing fees, which
previously had been listed under ‘adjusted revenue’ but which were now
moved into operating expenses. The 2007 number was also adjusted for
resources allocated to special, one off, events in the 2007 budget.
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 257
in the local subsidiary. A staff from the legal department
commented on the strong focus on metrics and scrutiny
and how this had changed over time as corporate head-
quarters had become more focused on metrics; he said:
the level of reporting and metric keeping is moving to the
level of granularity . . . that may be because of the matur-
ing of the business and more investment . . . there has
been a transformation in the corporate reporting require-
ments over the past years and the introduction of more
KPIs . . . the APAC centre is increasingly required to check
on the subsidiaries, which is where measures start to kick
it . . . they use a ‘check-off reporting process’ . . . where
APAC must tick off the required boxes.
A senior staff member in IT, a newcomer to the organi-
sation, likewise highlighted the corporation’s obsession
with numbers; he said:
everyone here is very numbers conscious . . . very report
and metric conscious . . . they drill down into every-
thing . . . want to know where every little piece of data
comes from. . . can I rely on this number? . . . can I put
my hand on my heart and swear that this number is
correct?
This ‘‘drilling down’’ became evident during the planning
review meetings with regional and corporate executives.
Here, subsidiary actors were examined to see if they ‘‘truly’’
knew their business and if their budget numbers in the
Accounting Cascades were ‘‘true’’ and ‘‘reliable’’. In response,
local actors rehearsed and memorised vast amounts of
accounting information before the review meetings. These
sorts of examination techniques enabled surveillance and
had high affective resonance. They produced anxiety, even
fear amongst local staff. A staff member from a product
group mentioned the following when he talked about these
‘‘inspections’’ by the corporate executives:
corporate do special reviews each year where they pick
a subsidiary and call them over to the US for an in-
depth review of their business . . . some said this year
it was going to be Australia . . . but China was called in
instead . . . so we were relieved.
The Managing Director (MD) similarly pointed out that
this kind of scrutiny by the corporate and regional execu-
tives on the numbers promoted anxiety and nervousness
among his staff, who were concerned they would be
‘‘found out’’ and that they could not meet their targets.
MD: This is legend . . . the [former CEO’s] ability to go
into every little detail of every part of the business
and [the current CEO] is the same and by the way it’s
a great attribute of leaders to be able to understand
every bit of detail and get in there.
Interviewer: You feel like it’s a performance?
MD: It is a performance.
I: So what are the skills required to perform well?
MD: (A) you know your stuff, (B) you put the issues on
the table; don’t wait for them to discover the issues.
I: Cause they will discover it?
MD: They will discover it. So call the issues early and
you’ve obviously got to be able to communicate in a
constructive and positive way, so you don’t use the
blame tone, you demonstrate that you’re accountable,
that you’re constructive in your criticism, you offer your
suggestions so it’s pretty stock standard. . .
MD: So, I’d spend quite a bit of my time saying ‘just
relax, you’re okay, you know your stuff, don’t worry’.
Because particularly for them they had less exposure
to that audience and so it’s a make or break. . .
Local actors were by now entrapped in a somewhat
dangerous game of under/over-performing within a tighter
OPEX budget and higher than usual revenue target. Much
was at stake and the big question was: would the growth
strategies and business initiatives work?
In the following, we trace four business initiatives that
unfolded in response to this growing pressure to perform
with fewer resources.
Strategising Initiative #5: Customer accounts segmentation
One new initiative was an in-depth segmentation of the
customer accounts in Customer Segment #1, the largest
revenue segment. Customers were segmented based on
‘‘value’’ (de?ned as revenue generated from the customer)
rather than on the absolute size of the customer. There was
talk about how ‘‘20% of the customers drive 80% of reve-
nue’’, and how there was a lack of knowledge of who these
20% were. In-depth analyses were performed on the 2000
major customer accounts, led by the ?nance team. Each ac-
count was examined and future revenue opportunities as-
sessed. This had not been done in such detail before. It
involved an assessment of recurring revenue, the time per-
iod that the revenue was scheduled to accrue, the perpetu-
ity of the revenue and the assumptions behind this, as well
as the renewal rates (for deals over AU$25,000).
Strategising Initiative #6: Review of the Regional Sales
Directors’ revenue quotas
The account segmentation exercise gave rise to another
initiative, namely a review of the revenue quotas of the Re-
gional Sales Directors in Customer Segment #1. The quotas
for each Director and his/her sales territory were reviewed
and analysed and new quotas were allocated, informed in
part by the customer account segmentation exercise, but
also by historical data and market trends. Allocation had
previously been based on last year’s performance and lifted
by an annual growth rate of around 5%. In some cases an Ac-
count Manager’s quota increased while in other cases less
quota was allocated. The reallocations aimed to ensure that
resources were ‘‘directed at maximising impact and re-
turns’’, thus tying in with the growth strategy theme and
the 9.8% revenue growth target. Afurther aimwas to ensure
that ‘‘resources’’ (i.e. people) were being deployed in the
‘‘right places’ andtheir utility was maximised, thus support-
ing the productivity strategy withinthe context of the lower
258 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
than expected OPEX number. Some managers were allo-
cated higher quotas and this generated some concern.
Strategising Initiative #7: Level order planning
The pursuit of growth and productivity also triggered a
new planning process called Level Order Planning. This
was based on the principle of Cascading Targets, whereby
targets were ‘‘cascaded down across three levels of staff’’
(see Fig. 6). This was called ‘‘alignment’’.
Consultants were again hired by the Managing Director
to implement this new process. Corporate representatives
travelled to Australia during this time to ‘‘observe’’ the
new planning process and praised local actors who were
seen to be highly successful in advancing the corporation’s
interests and growth agenda. The objectives behind the
new planning process were to ‘‘achieve greater clarity of
resource utilisation and goals’’, ‘‘make the business more
granular’’ and ‘‘better aligned’’, and ensure that ‘‘resources
were directed at business outcomes’’ (quotes from meet-
ings and business documents). Each staff member would
now know exactly what his or her commitments and tar-
gets were. That was an improvement over previous years,
where staff said they lacked clarity over their areas of
responsibility, which has negative effects on business
operation and the ‘‘execution of the programmes’’, possibly
resulting in ‘‘missed targets’’.
The planning template was obviously a means whereby
the efforts and activities of local actors could be made con-
gruent with corporate agendas. Local goals at all levels
would now be ‘aligned’ even more closely to corporate
goals. Yet, the new Level Order Planning system was also
a further example of the collaboration of local actors in
the invention of new devices that would enforce closer
monitoring on them. Although, to them of course, it was
?rst and foremost a way to reduce the risk of under-per-
forming on the stated budget targets that they now
whole-heartedly ‘owned’. Yet, this very process of ‘align-
ment’ illustrates the tension imbued in the subsidiary’s
relationship with the corporate headquarters. The creative
agency of local actors was paradoxically both an act of
freedom yet also a form of submission as people busied
themselves with the co-creation of new disciplinary mech-
anisms that further intensi?ed the scrutiny of their efforts.
During this time, the subsidiary-wide revenue growth
target for FY07 (coming down from headquarters via the
Accounting Cascades) also started to change again follow-
ing reviews of local market conditions, customer trends,
etc. A ‘‘positive market outlook’’ resulted in an increase
in the revenue growth target for FY07, up 3.1%, from 9.8%
at MYR to 12.9% at the end of the budgeting period. The
revenue target had increased yet again. More people now
started to express concerns and were having ‘‘sleepless
nights’’. Would it really be possible to achieve this big rev-
enue target within the much tighter budget?
Strategising Initiative #8: Building a culture of accountability
The new 73 page planning template was however ‘‘not
enough’’ to ensure the subsidiary could achieve the higher
12.9% growth target within a tighter budget. An additional
initiative was required, the Managing Director said. This
concerned the human side of the business and included a
culture change programme which would help the subsidi-
ary build a ‘‘culture of accountability’’ (quote from slide
decks). The intention was to improve ‘‘employee commit-
ment’’ and ‘‘response-ability’’, which were seen to be
important to lifting revenue growth and productivity.
Again the local Managing Director hired expert consultants
to assist with the change process. They conducted two
Fig. 6. Level order planning and alignment.
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 259
large sessions
8
with staff during which ‘‘behavioural
change’’ was introduced. In addition, the Senior Leaders took
their teams through a series of conversations and exercises
during their weekly team meetings.
The Consultants used two mental models or metaphors
to articulate what a culture of accountability was and to
contrast and exemplify the ‘‘undesired’’ versus ‘‘desired’’
behaviours of subsidiary staff. One of these mental models
was the ‘‘Victim versus the Player’’, with the Player exhib-
iting the desired behaviour. Fig. 7 provides examples of the
respective responses by the Victim and Player for being
late for a meeting due to traf?c. Whilst the Victim would
blame the traf?c for being late, thus shifting responsibility
away from him/herself, the Player would take responsibil-
ity for the action and take it upon him/herself to leave ear-
lier from home. It was said that a workplace full of Players
would experience higher productivity (as staff would be on
time and accountable), higher customer satisfaction rat-
ings (as staff would be reliable, in control and responsible),
and higher revenue growth. This was desirable.
During subsequent times, the Victim–Player model was
often taken up and practised during meetings. The Senior
Leaders would use it during their team meetings to disci-
pline each other and to ‘‘call out’’ undesired behaviours.
When 39 staff were withdrawn from the subsidiary in July
2006 by the corporate headquarters (following the
underachievement of the revenue target in Customer Seg-
ment #2 worldwide), the Managing Director referred to
what a Player would do in this situation and encouraged
his team ‘‘to be creative’’ and ‘‘come up with ways to make
up for the loss of head count’’. Managers also used the Vic-
tim–Player metaphors in performance reviews to rate the
behaviour of staff. Ground rules were posted on the walls
in the of?ces stating: ‘‘I am accountable and hold others
accountable for these ground rules; I act as a Player, not
a Victim; I speak in ?rst person; I manage commitments
impeccably; I am always on time for meetings’’.
Participant responses were overwhelmingly in favor of
the new mental models and there was little resistance.
Some interviewees said they ‘‘really liked the two models’’
and that ‘‘it had helped them to re?ect on their actions and
change their behaviours to become more productive’’. ‘‘We
now consider our commitments and whether we can really
do it to a greater extent than before’’, one interviewee ex-
plained. Another interviewee said: ‘‘it gives us common
language’’, whilst a third pointed out that ‘‘it gives us an
opportunity to hold each other accountable’’. A fourth par-
ticipant said that it has been really helpful because:
people get frustrated because they often don’t get good
guidelines for what they should do and how. They get a
desk and a PC and then off they go . . . ?gure it out for
yourself. This may be the downside of an empowered
environment.
Local staff found comfort in the new behavioural guide-
lines. Paradoxically, what to some (sceptical academics in-
cluded) might seem like a disciplinary mechanism that
further limited people’s choices and freedom, was by local
actors perceived to provide relief from having to make
decisions themselves. However, not all staff took the mod-
els seriously, and a few mentioned that ‘‘these are only
temporary fads that come and go all the time’’. One Direc-
tor mentioned that there are ‘‘three types of staff: those
that jump on the bandwagon and think this is great; those
that play along; and those that know this will eventually
vanish again’’. To us, as observers of the process, it however
seemed that faith in the corporation’s values and adoption
Fig. 7. Victim versus player – Identity constructions.
8
One presentation was done to 140 staff at the February 2006 People
Managers’ Meeting, and another to all 900 staff during the Australian–New
Zealand Kick Off Meeting for the July Financial Year 2007.
260 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
of these new mental models were necessary to become a
member of the Senior Leadership Team. Indeed, only those
employees who expressed a strong devotion to the corpo-
ration and truly practiced these desired behaviours be-
came members of the exclusive inner leadership circle,
whilst sceptics (such as the Director mentioned above)
would soon leave (or be asked to leave) the organisation.
Over time, the mental models became so popular that
the Human Resource Director years later (in 2012) said
that they had been ‘‘overused’’ and were no longer helpful.
The new value systemand mental models were obviously
intendedas a means whereby the behaviours andvalues of lo-
cal actors could be made congruent with the corporation’s
goals. The mental models were important because it was
through these that a person’s feelings and desires were made
available to the corporation to be worked on. The identities
of local actors wouldnowbeevenmoreclosely‘aligned’ tocor-
porateideals andsharemarket desires. Onceagain, it was local
actors whoactivelyconstructedtheseattempts at identityreg-
ulation at their own initiative and, as such, participated in the
fabricationof their owngildedcageanddestiny. Oncesceptical
local actors had by now become faithful and devoted allies
and wooed into the action net by yet another affective arte-
fact targeting their hearts. Affect engineering had been
highly successful as people now committed themselves
more wholeheartedly than ever before to the corporation’s
audacious growth ambition.
The True View Tool – A longing for love and to be
trusted
In the latter half of 2006, the 12.9% revenue target for
2007 continued to inspire new initiatives and changes to
business operations. The $1 bn magical number was also
still ‘‘kept in mind’’ and talked about as an ‘‘aspirational tar-
get’’. During this time, yet another accounting template,
called the True View Tool,
9
was introduced by the American
Vice President of International Operations. He was concerned
about the ef?cient utilisation of, and return on, the corpora-
tion’s assets, most commonly measured as ‘‘cost of sales’’. So
he hired consultants fromMcKinsey to develop a Tool to rank
and compare the performance of all 51 subsidiaries. The True
View had approximately 1767 accounting measures and was
so big that it had to be printed on large size A3 paper and
even then, it was hard for local actors to read all the numbers.
Fig. 8 illustrates a simpli?ed version of the True View Tool.
Strategising Initiative #9: Planning meeting and delegation
sent to Holland
The True View Tool was ?rst discussed by the Senior
Leadership Team at the Australian subsidiary during a
3 day Strategic Planning Meeting on November 21–23,
2006 (in preparation for the 2007 MYR). The discussion
was led by the Director of Finance, who handed out colour
copies of the Tool to the meeting participants. He opened
up the discussion by going through the performance mea-
sures for Australian. These were colour coded. Blue signalled
average performance, black on or above peer average; and
red was performance below peer average. The Director
pointed out that the Tool had certain shortcomings and
?aws, especially since it ‘‘excludes nuances and subtleties
betweencountries’’; yet he alsohighlightedthat it ‘‘provides
a good foundation to start the productivity discussions’’.
This opened up a lengthy debate where workshop partici-
pants complained that the spreadsheet was ‘‘not comparing
apples to apples’’. In some subsidiaries, marketing costs
were allocated to Business, Marketing and Operations (e.g.
Australia) but in other countries it was allocated to the
Customer Segments (e.g. Canada). There was quite some
scepticism as to the ‘‘validity’’ and ‘‘truthfullness’’ of the
True View Tool and the ‘‘accuracy’’ of the numbers therein.
This scepticism however did not stop the Senior Leaders
from comparing themselves with their global peers. They
passionately immersed themselves with the many num-
bers in the template. Despite the perceived and somewhat
obvious ?aws of the Tool, they scrutinised the exceptional
performance of other subsidiaries and contrasted these
with Australia. The Director of Finance pointed out that
‘‘Italy and also Canada are doing better than Australia in
some areas’’ and highlighted that ‘‘there is room for
improvement in Australia’’, speci?cally in ‘‘the revenue
per head count numbers’’, saying ‘‘there is more upside
we can go after’’, and that ‘‘the cost of sales number in Aus-
tralia is high relative to other subsidiaries’’. He was partic-
ularly curious about Holland and raised questions as to
‘‘how do they do it?’’ ‘‘It makes me curious’’, he said, scru-
9
The True View spreadsheet has 57 rows categorising the ?fty-one
subsidiaries (plus the USA of?ce) based on revenue volume and market
(developed versus emerging) into six categories: (1) US; (2) D4; (3) Large;
(4) Medium; (5) Large Emerging; and (6) Emerging. Within each category,
the largest revenue-producing subsidiaries rank highest. The spreadsheet’s
31 columns show Total Revenue, Average Head Count, Variable Expenses,
and Fixed Expenses followed by various productivity measures for each of:
(1) Total Subsidiary; (2) Customer Segment #1; (3) Customer Segment #2;
(4) Business Marketing and Operations (BMO); and (5) Market Data. These
columns break down productivity measures for each of the customer
segments and the BMO department. The accounting measures are often
expressed as ratios and most are based on accounting numbers. They
include among others: Adjusted Revenue /HC; Variable Expenses/HC; Fixed
Expenses/HC; Cost of Sales (%); Contribution Margin (%).
Fig. 8. True View Tool.
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 261
tinising the numbers with a wrinkle forming on his fore-
head, then asking ‘‘what do we have to do to perform as
well as Holland?’’ The Senior Leaders then all looked at
the numbers for Holland and heatedly debated what Hol-
land was doing better than they were. Holland was a ‘star
performer’ according to the template and a desire devel-
oped in Australia to copy this superior performance. The
template aroused the leaders and a combination of anxiety,
hope and dreams developed at its coalface. In the end, the
Senior Leaders decided to send an Australian delegation to
Holland to learn how the Dutch leaders were achieving
such ‘‘exceptional numbers’’. At this point, local actors
had completely forgotten about the ?aws of the Tool and
their original concerns. They had become so concerned
about their inferior ranking and the prospect of their
improvement that they willingly overlooked its faults.
Strategising Initiatives #10, #11, and #12 discussion paper on
resource re-allocation and redeployment
The introduction of the True View Tool and the inferior
ranking of the Australian subsidiary provided the impetus
for a further array of new strategising initiatives in local
sites. A Discussion Paper entitled ‘‘Resource Re-allocation
and Redeployment’’ was prepared, and this was debated
during a 2 day meeting in December 2006 in preparation
for the 2007 MYR. The ‘‘below average performance’’ by
the subsidiary on several accounting measures such as Var-
iable Expenses/Head Count and Fixed Expenses/Head Count
(see Fig. 8) had led to a ‘‘freezing of headcount’’ by head-
quarters. In response, local leaders were trying to ?nd ways
‘‘around this’’, especially given the higher growth target of
12.9%. The Discussion Paper proposed nine ‘‘action points’’.
One was to outsource work to external parties. Another was
to dismiss the 27 staff that had been identi?ed as ‘‘under-
achievers’’ during a staff review. Especially six staff re-
mained questionable and were put on an ‘‘action plan to
lift their performance’’. A third was to centralise the busi-
ness functions (such as legal, ?nance and reporting) across
the Australian and New Zealand subsidiaries. Whilst the
Leader of Customer Segment #2 continued to complain
about sleepless nights, she also openly stated: ‘‘I love this
company. It sucks you in. But I really love this company’’.
In late 2006, the Senior Leaders were again rehearsing
their MYR presentations, this time for 2007. During a re-
hearsal meeting just before Christmas, they were asked
to articulate the key messages that they would want ‘‘to
communicate to the corporate executives’’ and ‘‘leave be-
hind’’. Again the leaders were keen to make sure they
would ‘‘get it right’’ and ‘‘make a good impression’’. In
rehearsing their messages to the executives, they said:
‘‘We do what we say we’re going to do’’; ‘‘We can handle
empowerment’’; ‘‘We have a plan and we can deliver on
it’’; ‘‘We have developed a culture of growth’’; ‘‘We’re com-
mitted to deliver on that’’; and ‘‘We deserve to be trusted’’.
In the choice of messages, there was an eagerness to be
trusted and a desire to be seen to be able to handle
‘empowerment’. One might say there was a longing for
love and keenness to attract the regard of distant American
executives. The devotion and faithfulness of local allies to
the corporation were no longer in any doubt whatsoever.
Postscript – Celebrations
On May 9, 2007 the Billed Revenue growth rate for the
subsidiary was at 17%, up from the budget forecast in June
2006 of 12.9% growth. At the end of FY07 (on June 30, 2007),
revenue growth had reached 20%. The three growth initia-
tives had delivered good results and it was decided they
should continue.
10
The Managing Director said with a smile
that the $1 bn target was ‘‘looking good’’ and that ‘‘this
number may in fact be conservative’’. He then suggested that
‘‘the long term growth target may be 20% growth, say for
2010’’.
At the close of FY09 (on June 30), the subsidiary ex-
ceeded the 3 year $1 bn revenue target. That year, they
won the Subsidiary of the Year award amongst all 51
subsidiaries worldwide. A big celebration party was held,
and news stories appeared in local media.
In 2012, the subsidiary set itself a revenue target of
$3 bn for 2012, and so the story continues.
Discussion
The paper has begun to explore accounting as an affec-
tive technology. Using a performative approach (Latour,
1987, 2005), we have investigated how actors in a local
subsidiary were persuaded, enticed and even seduced into
action by an audacious ?nancial target, much bigger than
ever before. Re?ecting Latour’s interest in actants, our fo-
cus has been on the actorhood of accounting technologies
and devices. Our emphasis has not been on large scale, lin-
ear relations but rather on the day-to-day use of account-
ing and how accounting bends the actions of actors, and
how accounting is itself (re)made in the process. Previous
studies have traced the powers of accounting in enrolling
actors, framing their interests and structuring their actions
(e.g. Briers & Chua, 2001; Miller & O’Leary, 1987, 2007;
Mouritsen et al., 2001; Preston, Cooper, & Coombs, 1992).
Yet, whilst acknowledging the transformative effects of
accounting devices, none has evoked a concept of affective
technology or focussed on how affect is circulated and
modulated via accounting.
The circulation of affect via accounting
Affect is a ?ow of emotional energy that travels in net-
works of technology, people, images and the like. Account-
ing technologies are important because they distribute and
circulate affect in action nets and, vice versa they are pro-
duced by affect. Affect ?ows from non-human devices to
people and back again. Material artefacts are means
through which people’s disposition and arousal levels can
be con?gured and altered. Sometimes the ?ow of energy
can stop, but in many cases, its circulation via technology
has wide reaching consequences. In the circulation of af-
10
The Customer Segment #1 initiative had delivered 0.02% under its
target of $10mn and it was decided this should transition into ‘‘core
strategy’’. The Customer Segment #2 initiative had achieved 10.3% above its
stated target of $8 mn, despite the 59.2% variance between the funding
requested and allocated, and the Business Group initiative had delivered
21.9% below its target of $9.6mn, also with reduced funding.
262 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
fect, an accounting template or target acts as a node in a
network of affect production that performs three distinct
yet interconnect roles, as follows.
Accounting as affect engineering
First, accounting is a means through which people’s
arousal levels and emotions can be moulded and managed.
In our case, America executives skilfully engineered the
affective responses of local actors in Australia through
accounting technology. Wall Street analysts raised con-
cerns about dimming growth prospects and the future of
the corporation. In response, corporate executives re-engi-
neered the MYR template to ‘empower’ local actors to plan
and to woo them into ‘signing up’ to revenue targets dou-
ble in size to those of previous years. This was not an acci-
dent and new ?elds and spaces for Long Term Growth and
Double Digit Growth Targets were added into the template
which then had to be populated in local sites with much
rigour. Eager to please and to prove they could be trusted
to do a good job, local actors busied themselves with the
development of new growth initiatives all in the pursuit
of shareholder value. Over time, there was a build-up of
excitement and a sense of collective elation, which grew
stronger the more people that became enrolled and as
the network expanded. There was much enthusiasm
engendered by the many accounting templates and these
became important nodes in the global network where
arousal levels and emotional sentiment variously height-
ened and then dropped at different points in time in tune
with shifts in sales revenue, targets and operating budgets.
Notably, the many accounting technologies made affect
a collective affair. Rather than being hidden inside the psy-
chology of an individual, affect was now made social and
collective by the many templates in circulation. Through
these, an individual’s emotions could be made amendable
to intervention and this meant that feelings of e.g. anxiety
or excitement could now be worked on and shared among
network actors. As targets kept rising and OPEX numbers
kept dropping in the Accounting Cascades, a sense of col-
lective anxiousness developed amongst local actors. Ja-
nus-like, the accounting templates and targets had
ambiguous affective consequences. On the one hand, there
were collective feelings of enthusiasm and hope. But
equally so, there was nervousness and anxiety, all enacted
by the same templates.
This circulation of affect into collective spheres was
associated with considerable copying and imitation. The
now ‘empowered’ local actors discussed what worked in
the past and sought to mimic patterns and behaviours that
had proven successful. They noted the importance of the
time limits communicated by corporate executives and
sought to strictly follow these. They imitated the role
behaviours of Players, understanding that Victim behav-
iour would limit their progress inside the corporation.
They rehearsed extensively for the Mid-Year Review in Sin-
gapore by recalling what happened last year and by listen-
ing to stories and tales of what corporate executives said
and did back then, whilst speculating on what might work
this year. The lure of the True View to do ‘better’ and the
desire to visit Holland to investigate the star-like Dutch
performers produced a form of ongoing enticement and
desire for mimicry that was hard to resist. ‘‘If only we could
be as good as Holland’’, local actors said whilst staring at
the numbers in the True View. In a sense, accounting moul-
ded people’s feelings and encouraged the mimicking of
behaviours by placing actors on a ?at spreadsheet that
transported knowledge of ‘superior performance’ from far-
away places. A subtle form of disciplining took place at the
interface of accounting technology. What is noticeable is
the unquestioned need to copy and imitate behaviours that
were deemed desirable. What is less talked about is that
this is in effect a form of discipline. Almost unconsciously
this form of discipline is accepted as both sensible and
legitimate. Accounting mastered very well the emotive dis-
ciplining it was designed to produce.
Accounting as unrealised potential and loss
Yet and second, whilst for long the criteria for a ‘good’
accounting template have been to assign meaning and de-
limit potentiality, in our case a ‘good’ accounting template
did much more. Accounting technologies were not just
meaningful because of their ability to create boundaries
and depict economic ‘truths’; instead, some of their power
lay in their lack of precise meaning and capacity to conjure
forth a wealth of imaginations. Historically, accounting has
been meant to give a true and fair view of the economic af-
fairs of an organisation, and to unequivocally depict certain
economic rationales for people to pursue. Critical research-
ers have for long questioned this rational depiction of
accounting data. We wish to add to this by pointing out
that accounting is powerful because it beholds promises
of unful?lled potential or loss. Accounting has the capacity
to entice actors into imagining and then constructing a
wider range of possible futures to which people whole-
heartedly commit – emotively, cognitively and physically.
We suggest this is the essence of affective technology;
the ability to entice and seduce actors to make imagined
(and often ambiguous) futures a reality.
For example, the accounting image of the three growth
scenarios in 2005 – each with different revenue targets at-
tached – pointed not only to the Australian subsidiary’s’
present status but also to its potential status as a ‘crown
subsidiary’ in future years if only the target could be
reached. Although initially sceptical, local actors soon be-
came seduced by the prospect of fame and market leader-
ship symbolised by the audacious $1 bn target. Dreams of
fame and other passionate imaginings came alive at the
coalface of accounting technology and meant that people
soon started to do things they had previously not thought
possible. New activities ensued and the action net ex-
panded as people re-analysed their customer segments, re-
worked their quotas and budgets, reviewed their business
processes and even reclassi?ed themselves and their col-
leagues as Victims or Players. Many actions ensued in the
footsteps of the audacious target and its many emotive ap-
peals. Accounting was highly successful at stimulating
people’s desires and luring them into action in hopes that
imagined futures would become real.
On the ?ip side, it was not long before failure became a
real possibility and fear started to creep into the collective
C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267 263
sphere. Targets, whilst initially used as a ‘‘burning plat-
form’’ to ‘‘lay suit’’ and to lure sceptical actors into action
soon turned into ‘‘anchors’’ that were used to ‘‘tie down’’
local actors and make them accountable. OPEX numbers
went down whilst revenue targets kept going up and ac-
tors faced a real dilemma of how to do more with less. This
introduced the possibility of loss and failure and produced
imaginings of very different futures. Anxiety, sleepless
nights and a growing sense of nervousness soon became
the prevailing energy in local sites. Further streams of ac-
tion ensued in the footsteps of the changing numbers such
as consolidation of business functions and outsourcing of
telesales. The nervousness intensi?ed as staf?ng resources
were cut, underachievers dismissed and funding with-
drawn, all in the pursuit of shareholder value and in an at-
tempt to please Wall Street analysts. The imagined future
nowembodied a very different trajectory of doomand mis-
fortune and it was in light of such emotive imaginings that
the action net began to expand yet again.
Accounting as entrancement
Third, throughout our study, we observed a notable
dimension that characterised the case study organisation,
namely the compliance of Australian actors to relation-
ships with corporate executives that sometimes appeared
inconsistent or even contradictory. There was willingness
by local actors to overlook what might by others be con-
ceived as breaches of trust and disrespectful behaviours.
Local allies ‘understood’ well why resources had to be
unexpectedly withdrawn because of poor performance
elsewhere in the network; they were quick to act as Players
and excuse reductions that could otherwise be framed as
betrayals. They accepted the executives’ sudden reduction
in funding during budgeting periods despite previous
promises by these very actors to deliver this funding. They
accommodated the need for rising targets and agreed that
double digit growth had to be signed up to. When new cul-
ture change programs were introduced, local actors enthu-
siastically engaged in these despite obvious aims to further
align their identities with those desired by distant execu-
tives and others. When new spreadsheets (such as the True
View and the MYR templates) were issued, local allies em-
braced these in spite of their obvious ?aws and disrespect-
fulness. The executives’ so-called ‘empowerment model’
worked very well. Indeed, in certain situations, local allies
actively co-created new accounting devices and processes
(such as the planning pyramid) which in effect intensi?ed
the monitoring and scrutiny of their work efforts. Unlike
the kinds of resistance highlighted by Ezzamel, Willmott,
and Worthington (2004) in their factory with a problem,
our paper indicates that forms of resistance were mostly
absent and where scepticism did emerge, it was transient
and highly localised. There was a high degree of loyalty
and devotion of local allies. And those who proved unfaith-
ful did not stay long.
The intriguing question is how such apparently contra-
dictory practices and breaches of trust can be accommo-
dated by employees? How can such inconsistencies be
tolerated?
One answer could be that these contradictions affect
different groups of organisational actors and hence are
not experienced as such. This is essentially the notion of
loose coupling. Another is to argue that there is a lack of
understanding of such contradictions by those involved.
That would imply that local actors are ignorant of the con-
trols being exercised upon them. A third is to argue that
such contradictions are overlooked, tolerated and even ac-
cepted in order that particular emotive and identity rela-
tionships can be sustained; what we might call the
‘happy slave’ syndrome. We suggest here that it is the lat-
ter that is at play. In seeking membership of the corpora-
tion and the regard of distant executives, local actors
willingly tolerated and overlooked what might otherwise
be construed as breaches of trust. The executives skilfully
used a wider array of affective appeals that had the effect
of extending and reinforcing desired behaviours. There
were appeals to people’s pride and the prospect of fame
in the public press. There were appeals to the threat of a
loss of market leadership and, together actors agreed that
such failure should be avoided at all costs. In a sense, the
actors’ sense of self became strongly coupled to the pro-
jected identity of the corporation of the future, and the
story of the corporation provided a meta-narrative within
which they located their own life story. This meant that
an individual’s sense of self was tied up with the construc-
tion of the identity of the organisation. This acceptance of
corporate controls and tolerance of inconsistencies was
important – both to keep at bay the onset of scepticism
and disillusionment – but also because it was the only
way that the relationship (and self) could be sustained into
the future. This argument does not deny that increased
?nancial rewards were an important incentive. Rather,
our observations suggest that emotive appeals signi?cantly
strengthened the devotion of actors.
This dimension illustrates the collaboration of people in
their ongoing seduction by those regard they seek (see,
Belk, Ger, & Askegaard, 2003; Christensen & Cheney,
2002, chap. 15; Deighton & Grayson, 1995). Those who
are seduced appear to actively participate in their ongoing
subjection. In effect, they become complicit in their own
entrancement. Local actors in our study did not merely re-
ceive and adopt the accounting controls and processes
institutionalised by the corporate parent in the manner
that, for example, Kristensen and Zeitlin (2005) refer to
in their work on controls in multinational corporations.
Rather, local allies, in our case, actively sought to develop
new control devices, cultural norms and values that in es-
sence further marked their entrancement. This hands-on
participation by allies differs from merely tolerating incon-
sistencies or ?aws. It indicates that subordination is co-
produced. We suggest that to self-seduce is to overlook
breaches of trust and to repair and ‘make good’ any de?-
ciencies that may arise so as to keep at bay the onset of dis-
illusionment and to preserve self.
Conclusion
This study has investigated accounting as an affective
technology. A focus on micro-level activities has enabled
264 C. Boedker, W.F. Chua / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 245–267
insights into the many twists and turns that unfolded over
a 4 year period and illustrated that neither accounting nor
affect arrives fully formed. Producing accounts and desir-
ing a different future are fragile sense-making processes
that are given materiality and speci?c meaning through
many different actors and through different temporalities
and spatial locations.
As its main contribution, the paper has begun to explore
the connections between accounting, affect and action. The
concept of affect has helped us to understand the operation
of accounting as an affective technology, which is about
desiring and then creating a different future. The paper
has shown how organisations may seek to engineer partic-
ular affective identities and emotive imaginings through a
range of programmes, templates, artefacts and images that
promulgate de?nitions of appropriate and desired behav-
iours and which entice with promises of unful?lled poten-
tial and loss. At the interface of accounting technology,
local allies were seduced, their desires awoken, their scep-
ticism overcome, their disappointments set aside and their
devotion gained. Finally, we have sought to shed light on
how affective technologies have the potential to draw ac-
tors into ambiguous relationships and seduce people to
collaborate in their own subordination and ongoing
entrancement.
Our work is tentative and we acknowledge this. But, it is
our hope that others would also begin to explore how
accounting, affect and action can be related. An emphasis
on affect and matters of concern (Latour, 2005) seeks to
avoid a deterministic (almost panoptic) view of the power
of accounting. Future studies could investigate in more de-
tail how accounting directs yet also enables action in ways
that are not predetermined. Future research could also
examine the contradictions between promises of empow-
erment and the mundane, quiet discipline exercised
by accounting devices and how actors deal with such
inherent contradictions. Accounting scholars could further
trace the anxiety that arises when budget targets are not
met, and dare one say, the love that accrues to ‘rising stars’
who demonstrate exceptional performance. Furthermore,
researchers have for long raised questions about the pro-
fessional training of accountants and the identities that
professional associations seek to manufacture (Brivot &
Gendron, 2011; Power, 1991). They have explored how
accounting change interacts with the subjective identities
of organisational actors (Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthing-
ton, 2008; Ezzamel et al., 2004). Although a consideration
of institutionalised affect engineering could have surfaced
in such discussions of work and professional identity, this
has not been the case, and future work could explore this
in greater depth. We hope our paper will open up the pos-
sibility for such future studies.
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