Politics of managing: the dialectic of control

Description
Accounting influences the evolution of management identity by determining which aspects of performance are made
visible.However, management do not technocratically apply accounting measurements.An organizational study is
used to analyze how management use partisan performance measurements to control the labor process.Management’s
strategies are influenced by how technology, worker skill, and product competition affect worker capacity to resist.

Politics of managing: the dialectic of control
Kala Saravanamuthu
a,
*, Tony Tinker
b
a
School of Accounting & Information Systems, University of South Australia,
North Terrace, Adelaide 5000, Australia
b
Baruch College, Box B12-225, City University of NY, 17 Lexington Avenue,
New York, NY 10010, USA
Abstract
Accounting in?uences the evolution of management identity by determining which aspects of performance are made
visible. However, management do not technocratically apply accounting measurements. An organizational study is
used to analyze how management use partisan performance measurements to control the labor process. Management’s
strategies are in?uenced by how technology, worker skill, and product competition a?ect worker capacity to resist.
Management’s dilution of capital’s interest by accommodating labor’s needs, or mobilization of the e?ciency ethos,
re?ect the politics of dialectical control. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
This paper sheds more light on why management
respond to budgetary controls in di?erent ways.
Here a social analysis of how value is created in the
production process, and appropriated on sale of
the produce, is used to elucidate management’s
contradictory roles as capital and labor. The value
creation and appropriation processes are politi-
cized by virtue of being based on a competitive–
interdependent social relationship between capital
and labor.
1
To earn a living, workers sell their
labor power to capital in return for wages. Capital
has a legal claim on surplus. According to the
labor theory of value, total societal surplus is the
di?erence between wages and the exchange value of
products produced. Payment of interest, rent and
appropriation of (net) pro?t to capital is legit-
imized by ownership of the means of production.
Therefore, capital’s social role is its capacity to
place itself,
between every human productive inter-
dependency and. . .extract a return for allow-
ing this interdependent production process to
proceed (Hunt, 1990, p. 84).
Management occupy a pivotal position between
capital and workers in converting labor power into
labor. They cannot a?ord to completely disregard
any one need because it would not only jeopardize
the wealth accumulation process, but the livelihood
of labor itself (which includes management) (Fox,
1974; Thompson, 1990). Consequently, their
0361-3682/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PI I : S0361- 3682( 02) 00009- 0
Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
* Corresponding author. Fax: +61-8-8302-0992.
E-mail address: [email protected]
(K. Saravanamuthu).
1
Marx states that capitalism is characterized by four
groups: capitalists; workers; small shop-keepers and indepen-
dent craft persons (or professionals); and the poverty stricken
unemployed who serve to keep wages depressed. The ?rst two
categories are by far the most signi?cant because their rela-
tionship represents the economic base of society (or mode of
production). It is regarded as having a primary, but not the
only, in?uence on the how society transforms. (Hunt, 1990).
behavior has often been dismissed as enigmatic
(Alvesson & Willmott, 1996). The contradictory
demands of capital and labor on management’s
priorities make the task of evaluating their per-
formance a problematic one. Managerial account-
ability simply means explaining or justifying one’s
performance to others. In a competitive-inter-
dependent environment it represents the intersec-
tion of norms and interpretive schemes. Norms
refer to the legitimizing codes of managerial con-
duct. (Giddens, 1984). Because accounting is the
primary means of monitoring management actions,
it is an o?cial, albeit a contested management
norm. Accounting should have both moral and
instrumental dimensions because it in?uences how
management navigate through the contradictions
between capital and labor.
However, accounting is a partial interpretation of
reality because only certain aspects of one’s actions
are highlighted. (Ahrens, 1996; Munro, 1996; Munro
& Hatherly, 1993). Analysis of ?rms with global
operations shows that accounting signi?es control in
heado?ce terminology, thereby disregarding con-
textual di?erences due to cultural di?erences and
geographical distances (Sewell & Wilkinson, 1992).
Accounting also privileges capital’s interest over
social ones (Armstrong, 1991, 1999; Previts &
Merino, 1979; Tinker, 1991; Tinker, Merino, &
Neimark, 1982). But accounting remains a con-
tested terrain because it is interpreted in various
ways to suit the politics of local circumstances. Its
‘‘no necessary class belongingness’’ (Hall, 1982, p.
80 following Gramsci, 1971; Hall, 1988; Lehman
& Tinker, 1987) provide managers with a certain
amount of leeway in either mobilizing account-
ing’s e?ciency assumptions in their strategies; or
diluting it by accommodating labor’s call for
greater humanization of work.
2
Therefore, by
re?exively applying norms embedded in account-
ing measures, management’s interpretive schemes
in?uence the e?ectiveness of the ruling ideology in
the workplace. (Allen, 1975; Giddens, 1984,1991).
Management re?exivity is, in turn, shaped by sur-
rounding circumstances that reinforce their iden-
tity-dilemma as agents and victims of control:
It is not the consciousness of men that deter-
mines their being, but, on the contrary, their
social being that determines their consciousness.
(Marx, 1970, p. 20).
Management’s enigmatic decisions comprise of
‘‘non-decisions’’ (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962) that
mobilize the prevailing organizational ethos
embedded in accounting measures, and innovative
ones that challenge the status quo. The former
type of decision-making is also referred to as
‘‘imitative–coercive’’ decisions (Cooper, Hayes, &
Wolf, 1981). Consequently, management respon-
ses to budgetary controls will be theorized by
considering their political allegiances to both
capital and labor. It will problematize their iden-
tities as agents and victims of control mechan-
isms. However, conventional literature theorizes
management’s dialectical responses from a uni-
dimensional perspective as agents of capital
(Abernethy & Lillis, 1995; Jensen & Meckling,
1976; Perera, Harrison, & Poole, 1997). It tries to
develop foolproof management monitoring and
motivational systems to ensure that the e?ciency
and growth needs of capital are not diluted.
Behavior that fails to maximize surplus is treated
as dysfunctional with little consideration extended
to the politics of managing the labor process. The
politics of managing is even more relevant in con-
temporary capitalism because management’s pre-
scriptive role as agents of capital has been shattered
by their increased vulnerability to the downsizing
and cost-control exercises (that were previously
imposed on workers).
Even radical literature has not fully theorized
the role of managers. Marx (1971) argues that the
role of the ‘‘functioning capitalist’’
3
changes as
capitalism transforms itself:
2
Management’s counter signi?cation of accounting’s
assumptions does not change the primary contradictions within
the production structure. It modi?es the superstructure, trans-
forming norms and practices—making it a dialectical outcome.
The superstructure refers to the ideo-political e?ects of the
basic economic relationship (Allen, 1975).
3
Marx (1971) refers to the functioning capitalist as the
‘‘non-owner of capital. Ownership of the capital is represented
in relation to him by the money-capitalist, the lender’’ (p. 374).
38 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
actually functioning capitalist (transforming)
into a mere manager, administrator of other
people’s capital, and of the owner of capital into
a mere owner, a mere money capitalist.’’ (Marx,
1961, Vol. 3, p. 427 cited in Hunt, 1990, p. 80).
Management’s role in converting labor power
into labor has functional and political dimensions:
The labour of supervision and management is
naturally required whenever the direct process
of production assumes the form of a com-
bined social process, and not of the isolated
labour of independent producers. However, it
has a double nature. On the one hand, all
labour in which many individuals cooperate
necessarily requires a commanding will to co-
ordinate and unify the process. . .This is a
productive job. . .On the other hand—quite
apart from any commercial department—this
supervision work necessarily arises in all
modes of production based on the antithesis
between the labourer, as the direct producer,
and the owner of the means of production. The
greater this antagonism, the greater the role
played by supervision. Hence it reaches its peak
in the slave system. But it is indispensable also
in the capitalist mode of production, since the
production process in it is simultaneously a
process by which the capitalist consumes labour
power. (Marx, 1971, pp. 383–384).
Marx (1971) likens management remuneration
to wages of skilled labor, which contributes
towards surplus value (pp. 386–387). Braverman
uses Marx’s wage de?nition to argue that top
management are capital: in addition to their hier-
archical position, their remuneration is appro-
priated from surplus generated by labor.
Subordinate management are labor because their
salaries are netted o? to generate surplus value.
Braverman’s ambiguous and tenuous categoriza-
tion has in?uenced the subsequent theorizations of
managerial tasks as productive–nonproductive
(Armstrong, 1989, 1991), coordinate–direct (Car-
ter, 1995), and control–coordinate (Edwards,
1979). Despite its theoretical rigor, the task-remu-
neration distinction is not helpful in understanding
the enigmatic role of managers, especially in more
recent transformations of capitalism where the
distinction between capital and labor has become
even more blurred.
We address the lacuna in the literature by
drawing out the political in?uences on manage-
ment’s role as they satisfy the demands for
increased labor productivity, and improved work-
ing conditions. These con?icting-interdependent
needs have existed from the time management
emerged as a function in nineteenth century
industrial capitalism. In contemporary modes of
capitalism, labor tries to maintain its standard of
living in the face of increased job insecurity as well
as the constant downward pressure on wages by
channeling its savings into the capital market. The
classes of capital and labor become even more
meshed with each other as worker pension and
savings ?nd their way into global managed (spec-
ulative) funds that contribute to the employment
instability within national boundaries. French
(2000) discloses that in 1980, only 4.6 million
households in the US invested in mutual funds—
the ?gure now stands at 44 million. The global
search for the highest return on funds sets o? a
vicious circle of socially irresponsible, competitive
behavior as management react by increasing short-
term pro?ts. They are pressured to intensify the
pace of work and substitute the labor component
of production with labor-eliminating technology.
Labor exploits itself by participating in the
treadmill of short-term pro?ts. The cross-identity
of capital–labor reinforces the concept of class as
a relationship and not a speci?c group of persons
(Thompson, 1975). Burawoy (1979, 1985) provides
an illuminating account of how workers exploit
themselves by actively consenting to participate in
management’s production games. The games
obscure the underlying contradiction between
capital and labor. But he does not extend the
concept of class to management as well. He dis-
misses departmental management and supervisors
as compliant servants of employers, who are con-
cerned with the welfare of workers only in so far
as it jeopardizes workplace productivity. Fried-
man (1977) touches on management’s political
role in securing labor’s consent to exploit itself
through their discriminate application of control
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 39
strategies on di?erent types of labor. They apply the
strategy of Responsible Autonomy on ‘‘central
workers’’ and Direct Control on ‘‘peripheral work-
ers’’. Central workers are granted more autonomy
because they could cause signi?cant disruption to the
generation of surplus value. Responsible Autonomy
is an ideological means of harnessing worker
power rather than subduing it, because it does not,
remove alienation and exploitation, it simply
softens their operation or draws workers
attention away from them. Its ideal is to have
workers behave as though they were partici-
pating in a process which re?ected their own
needs, abilities and will, rather than a process
aimed at accumulation and pro?ts (ibid., p.
101, emphasis original).
Peripheral workers, on the other hand, are sub-
ject to direct control because they have less impact
on wealth creation, and may be easily replaced by
recruits if they withheld labor.
To summarize, accounting is not a rei?cation of
any ideology because managers signify its meaning
in di?erent ways to suit their local circumstances.
Because accounting is a primary means of assessing
management’s performance, its current construc-
tion re?ects the history of labor struggle for control.
Therefore, the continuing tension between the
economic and social aspects of managerial
responsibility makes the accounting’s representa-
tion of contemporary performance contestable. It
gives rise to the inconsistency between the reality
re?ected in its historical measures, and the shared
contemporary experiences of managers in control-
ling the labor process (Giddens, 1991)—paving the
way for politics of management.
The paper is structured as follows. In the next
section we examine how the various transforma-
tions of production relations from the industrial to
contemporary capitalism have politicized the role of
management. Managerial politics is related to the
tension between their accountability to capital as
circumscribed by accounting, and workers’ capacity
to control the labor process. In Section 2 we use
an organizational study to illustrate the politics of
managerial accountability. The discussion in Sec-
tion 3 identi?es circumstances under which manage-
ment adopt strategies that accommodate workers’
needs, or further alienate them through technocratic
application of e?ciency prescriptions.
1. Literature review
1.1. Management and labor process
Managers did not always exist as a profession.
They were created to maintain pro?t growth as
capitalism adapted its method of production to ris-
ing level of social consciousness and technological
advances. Therefore, we ground our theorization
of management’s identities in the competitive-
interdependent nature of production relations.
These relations are represented in Marx’s the-
ory
4
of value. Production is a combination of
constant capital (c), in the form of labor–time
value of materials and equipment, and living labor
(v). When workers sell their labor power in return
for wages, the resulting labor process becomes a
contradictory source of livelihood and exploita-
tion. Surplus (s) is generated by keeping labor’s
wages below the exchange value of products and
services. Surplus is not obtained from constant
capital because it merely transfers its (use) value to
output produced (Friedman, 1977). As capitalism
transforms, labor-replacement technology has
taken over mundane, dangerous work. But it has
also intensi?ed the pace of work, thus increasing
the rate of exploitation of labor—s/v (Hunt, 1990;
Knights, Willmott, & Collinson, 1985). Exploita-
tion also manifests as the casualization of the
workforce and utilization of a very narrow range
of labor’s potential skills with little regard for the
social, intellectual, spiritual well being of workers.
The systematization of labor’s holistic knowledge
reduces labor to an appendage of the machinery
and leaves it even more vulnerable to exploitation.
(Tinker, 1998). Workers’ hostility to their reduced
circumstances is suppressed by their dependence on
paid employment. However, it does not eliminate
retaliatory resistance—making the struggle for con-
trol an open-ended one (Thompson, 1990):
4
Marx did not use the term ‘‘theory’’. His observations
were laws of capitalism.
40 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
The apparent acclimatization of the worker to
new modes of production grows out of the
destruction of all other ways of living, the
striking of wage bargains that permit a certain
enlargement of the customary bounds of sub-
sistence for the working class, the weaving of
the net of modern capitalist life that ?nally
makes all other modes of living impossible.
But beneath this apparent habituation, the
hostility of workers to the degenerated forms
of work which are forced upon them con-
tinues as a subterranean stream that makes its
way to the surface when employment condi-
tions permit, or when the capitalist drive for
greater intensity of labour oversteps the
bounds of physical and mental capacity.
(Braverman, 1974, pp. 150–151).
In the current climate, the workforce—who are
powerless to control how the products they create
are realized and pro?ts appropriated—are alienated
further by the global pursuit for the opportunity
cost of capital. Ironically, the higher returns may
not be attained without workers’ consent to partici-
pate in worsening work conditions (Burawoy, 1985).
Whilst worker consent is secured at the macro
level by destroying alternative forms of living, it
involves obscuring the fundamental contradiction in
production relations at the micro level. In the case of
the latter, Munro (1995) illustrates how the Total
Quality Management (TQM) technique relies on
market terminology to camou?age exploitation of
labor. Its customer-focus creates an illusion that the
primary source of alienation of workers has been
dismantled. Customer satisfaction, rather than the
requirement for higher surplus value, is portrayed
as the primary determinant of employment secur-
ity of both workers and management. We trace
the evolution of the management from nineteenth
century industrial to contemporary capitalism to
understand management’s dilemma in being both
agents and victims of control.
1.2. Management and the transformations of
capitalism
When work was carried out under feudal and
guild modes of production, the mercantilist
performed the functions of management as we
know it today—that is, coordinating the process
from material acquisition to product sale. How-
ever, guild and apprenticeship rules and legislation
limit the degree of control the mercantilist could
exercise over craft persons’ potential capacity—
labor power (Pollard, 1968). Because labor is the
source of surplus value, changes had to be made to
the mode of production.
Industrial capitalism emerged to take advantage
of advances in machine and power technology,
and to reduce the cost of production through
division of labor. Not surprisingly, this early form
of capitalism began in towns that were free of
guild regulations and norms. Its centralized fac-
tory system of labor organization brought guild
journeymen and independent artisans together
under one roof. Salaried management were
employed to convert labor power into labor by:
disregard(ing) the di?erence between labor
power and labor that can be gotten out of it,
and to buy labor in the same way he (the
capitalist) bought his raw materials: as a
de?nite quantity of work, completed and
embodied in the product. (Braverman, 1974,
pp. 60–61).
The factory system formalizes management as a
function separate from entrepreneurship. By 1830,
there were well-de?ned groups of managers in
many industries. But there was no managerial
profession as such. However, entrepreneurs
regarded salaried management as the ‘‘quickest
way to ruin’’ (Pollard, 1968, p. 313). Managers’
notoriety for greed, dishonesty and alcohol addic-
tion meant that they could not be trusted to pri-
vilege the needs of capital (McKendrick, 1961;
Musson & Robinson, 1959; Everard, 1949 in
Pollard, 1968). Therefore, accounting has a dual
purpose in industrial capitalism: it assisted man-
agement coordinate the ?ow of material, labor
and technology; and it monitored management
actions. The latter compensates for loss of trust
in agency relations. But, there was confusion
over what constituted pro?t because capital was
regarded as an auxiliary to entrepreneurship and
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 41
not as the central purpose for earning a higher
return.
5
Taylor removes the ambiguity surrounding over
accounting and management’s role in his attempt to
increase control over the coordination between
workers and machines. He enlists accounting’s pro-
duction analyses, measurement techniques, and
Babbage’s cost reduction concepts to reengineer
work practices. Management play a central role in
Taylor’s attempts to raise labor control to new
heights. Taylorist managers are repositories of
knowledge gleaned from craft-persons. Knowledge
is then reduced to rules and formulae, thereby
separating the conception from the execution
aspects of work. Then, based on Babbage’s concepts
of reducing the cost of labor through specializa-
tion, this monopoly over task knowledge is used
to control the labor process. (Braverman, 1974).
Like Taylor, Weber (1947) adopts an economic
perspective of capital in de?ning management
accountability.
6
His organization is one which
strives for ‘‘capitalist pro?t’’ and its membership
‘‘generally closed’’. Weber regards his hierarchical
structure as a rational means of achieving Taylor’s
technical e?ciency. His managers draw their
authority from their skills, knowledge and training,
as well as the bureaucratic rules and norms:
every single bearer of powers of command is
legitimated by that system of rational norms,
and his power is legitimate in so far as it corre-
sponds with the norms. Obedience is thus give
to the norms rather than to the person. (Weber,
1947, pp. 324, 336 cited in Allen, 1975, p. 117).
Taylor’s and Weber’s legitimization of manage-
ment’s authority through work redesign results in
the separation of the conception from execution of
work. It was vehemently opposed by early nine-
teenth century trade unions because it not only
stripped workers of their craft knowledge, but it
also imposed ‘‘a fully-thought-out labor process in
which they function as cogs and levers’’ (Braver-
man, 1974, p. 136). Nevertheless, these contested
principles are embedded in the conceptualization
of modern management as agents of capital:
(Management) arose as a theoretical con-
struct and as a systematic practice. . .in the very
period during which the transformation of
labor from processes based on skill to processes
based on science was attaining its most rapid
tempo. Its role was to render conscious and
systematic, the formerly unconscious tendency
of capitalist production. It was to ensure that
as craft declined, the worker would sink to
the level of general and undi?erentiated labor
power, adaptable to a large range of simple
tasks, while as science grew, it would be con-
centrated in the hands of management
(Braverman, 1974, p.120–121).
Capitalism’s need for growth in the rate of sur-
plus generated means that it was necessary to
move beyond the scienti?c organization of labor.
Initially, industrial psychology was employed to
actively manipulate the sociology of work through
selection, training and motivation of workers. But,
Mayo’s (1920s) Hawthorne experiments show that
workers act collectively to resist management
standards which govern their pace of work. It
challenges industrial psychology’s presumption
that performance and ability are often related to
worker intelligence (aptitude). Human Relations
shifts the emphasis from psychology to the sociol-
ogy of work where social grouping is fundamental
to understanding individual worker behavior
(Braverman, 1974).
Although Human Relations treats the work-
place as a social system, it is premised on Taylorist
notion of work. It aims to manufacture pro-
ductivity—maximizing circumstances to over-
come the ‘‘maladjustment between parts’’ of the
5
For instance, the Duke of Norfolk’s coal accounts for
1781–1790 referred to the surplus as ‘‘pro?ts and interest’’ in
order to highlight the di?erence in returns between directly
managed enterprise and those that were sub-let. In o?ering
investors interest payments even before deducting his salary,
Alexander Mason prioritised property rights over labor’s
claims. Samuel Walker felt that as an ironmaster, his return
should comprise of separate allowances for interest on capital,
risk and management. (Pollard, 1968, pp. 271–273)
6
Incidentally, Taylor wrote his seminal work in the last
decade of the nineteenth century and it was published in 1911.
Weber wrote his Theory of Social and Economic Organizations
between 1911 and 1913. He explicates the role of management
in the context of large-scale organizations that are reminiscent
of pre-1914 Germany. (Allen, 1975).
42 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
organization (Allen, 1975, p. 163). Therefore,
symptoms of social con?ict, such as high rate of
turnover, absenteeism, and worker resistance, are
dismissed as management problems that are con-
?ned within the crucible of the organization.
Despite Taylor’s admission that rational workers
appreciate only too well the connection between
higher productivity and lower piece-rates, Human
Relations theorizes worker resistance (to piece rate
incentives) is as ‘‘irrational’’ and ‘‘uneconomic’’
behavior that are shaped by ‘‘group’’, ‘‘social’’
and other ‘‘emotional’’ factors
7
(Mayo, 1945).
Therefore, Human Relations continues to treat
management as agents of capital who maximize
e?ciency by manipulating group dynamics. But
legitimizing managerial authority within a poli-
tical social system remained problematic. Barnard
(1968) assumes that the organization is a social sys-
tem, but depoliticizes managerial authority by rely-
ing on monetary incentive to secure worker
participation. He bases his formulation of authority
on the presumption of the ‘‘zone of indi?erence’’,
which refers to worker indi?erence when complying
with management’s orders and instructions. Inci-
dentally, Simon (1957) later converts Barnard’s
zone of indi?erence into acceptance because he
‘‘prefer(red) the term ‘acceptance’’’ (Granovetter,
1985, p. 495, footnote 5).
8
Ford’s $5 daily wage illustrates that workers’
resist management’s hierarchical authority, but
only within the con?nes of the competitive–inter-
dependent relationship between capital and labor.
Before the advent of the assembly line, skilled
workers controlled the construction of a vehicle
(Chinoy, 1964). Management resorted to ?nancial
incentives to increase labor productivity. The
invention of the conveyor system technology
allowed the Ford Motor Company to reorganize
work to its advantage. It allowed Ford to stan-
dardize the wage rate at a daily maximum of $2.34
and exercise ‘‘more strenuous supervision’’ over
labor (Sward, 1948, p. 32 cited in Braverman,
1974, p. 148). Initially, workers could resist this
exploitation because there were plenty of craft-
based jobs elsewhere. Ford’s sta? turnover in 1913
alone was reported to be 380%. But Ford’s sub-
sequent $5 wage strategy not only attracted work-
ers back, but it also allowed him to reduce costs by
increasing productivity. Workers’ capacity to
resist was curtailed by destruction of craft-based
jobs, which were unable to compete with the cost
of mass-produced vehicles (Braverman, 1974).
The Great Depression raised public awareness
of the high cost of Fordist mentality to pro?t
maximization. It led to a socially conscionable
recommendation in a study of the divergence of
interests between management and shareholders
(Berle & Means, 1967). It stated that (passive)
shareholders should voluntarily surrender their legal
claims to unshackle management from the pro?t
priorities of capital. However, this recommendation
has been all but forgotten in contemporary capital-
ism as ?exible manufacturing technology was
added to the cost reduction arsenal. They include
reduction in levels of bu?er stock of parts and
materials, production based on demand-pull as
opposed to supply-driven strategies, and reduction
of sta? numbers on the shop-?oor as well as
white-collar employees in service and adminis-
trative positions (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990).
These cost cutting measures make this mode of
production a ‘‘fragile’’ one compared with the
‘‘robust’’ Fordist approach. The fragile system has
few bu?ers of any sort. It is more vulnerable to
disruption by labor’s resistance to productivity
increases. Therefore, the fragile system requires a
7
For Taylor, a worker is rational if one’s behavior served to
maximise one’s earnings (under a piece rate system). Taylor,
however, admits that a rational worker will also resist increas-
ing output levels because it could lead to a decline in piece
rates. This means that by working harder, the worker has to
achieve a higher level of productivity for the same wages. Lei-
serson (1965 in Braverman, 1974) argues that Mayo’s conclu-
sions are invalidated by the observation that the most
unproductive workers in the study also had the highest levels of
intelligence, vice versa. It shows that worker rationality is no
di?erent to business logic—that is, wages are reduced when
productivity rises. Leiseron’s rebuttal is strengthened by the
fact that the Hawthorne study was itself terminated by the
onset of the Great Depression. (Braverman, 1974).
8
This notion persists in March and Simon’s (1993) conver-
sion of the con?ict prone workplace into consensual one:
Organizations theories describe the delicate conversion of
con?ict into cooperation, the mobilization or resources,
and the coordination of e?ort that facilitate the joint
survival of an organization and its members. (p. 2).
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 43
‘‘supportive, non-adversarial’’ atmosphere in the
workplace (Krafcik, 1988, p. 17).
The non-adversarial atmosphere is concocted by
obscuring the existence of the contradictions
between capital and labor. It involves linking the
shop-?oor worker to the ultimate customer through
the ideology of ‘‘Economic Citizenship’’ (Miller &
O’Leary, 1994). It professes to subsume any con?ict
in the workplace through its emphasis on maintain-
ing jobs by keeping the customer satis?ed.
9
However, its underlying purpose is two-fold:
?rstly, it is a means of subsuming management.
Earlier transformations of capitalism formally
subsumed labor by systematizing worker knowl-
edge into management rules and standards. The
economic citizenship oriented transformation
represents the real subsumption of labor as man-
agement become the target of cost cutting. (Tinker
& Yuthas, 1995a,b).
The whittling down of the middle stratum of
management shatters management’s traditional
(legal) identity as agents of shareholders. Top man-
agement justify ‘‘major surgery upon its own lower
limbs’’ (Braverman, 1974, p. 343) on grounds that
subordinate management add unnecessary costs,
slow down decision making, create barriers between
the organization and the customer, disempower
workers and impede information ?ow
10
(Dunkerely
& Thomas, 1998). Consequently, managers’ loyalty
to shareholders cannot be taken for granted at a
time when moves to routinize their work leaves
them feeling increasingly insecure. Most managers
felt that they had become ‘‘just another pair of
hands’’ with con?icting responsibilities.
They had, in many cases, lost the opportunity
of being involved in strategy; in some cases
they felt that they were not ‘managing’ but
‘working’.’’ (Dunkerely & Thomas 1998, p. 16).
Routinization of managers’ varied responsi-
bilities not only deskills them, but also undermines
the legitimacy of their position in a social organi-
zation (Anthony, 1977).
Secondly, emulating market conditions within
the organizational structure reinforces the rhetoric
linking job security and satis?ed customers.
11
By
allowing market terminology to permeate into
managerial accountability, the age-old link between
generation of higher surplus value and worsening
work conditions is obscured. Accountability to the
ruthless market regime ‘‘distances’’ the traditional
capital-labor struggle from work intensi?cation and
deskilling practices (Munro, 1995).
Thirdly, as ?rms grew larger, the personal—
reciprocal aspect of accountability—was initially
replaced by hierarchical systems that depended on
accounting controls. Translating management
explanations into a numerical reporting process,
routinizes the fundamentally social nature of pro-
viding accounts (Edwards, 1979). Productivity
assumptions embedded in accounting numbers pro-
vide a reference point for what is generally accepted
as normal behavior. Control processes require
explanations to justify deviations from these norms.
Therefore, accounting’s partisan construction cre-
ates a culture of productivity-oriented priorities
and performance (MacIntyre, 1988). However,
contemporary capitalism requires lateral and per-
sonal networks to engender a culture of economic
citizenship. Ironically, strong lateral networks are
9
This theme is central in Miller and O’ Leary’s (1993,1994)
theorization of how Caterpillar introduced the market ration-
ality into its Decatur plant to help it survive increased global
competition. The authors acknowledge that there is bound to
be con?ict in needs, but dismiss it as a temporary adjustment.
Consequently, the authors do not anticipate the closure of the
plant in favor of a cheaper overseas location despite labor’s
participation in its economic citizenship program.
10
Hecksher (1995) shows that, although middle management
in the US make up only 8% of the workforce, they account for
19% of job losses between 1988 and 1993.
11
However, a study carried out in the automotive and other
industries by Arthur Anderson (1994, cited by Ittner in his pre-
sentation of the paper, Ittner & Lacker, 1998), questions the pre-
sumption of a correlation between company pro?tability and
customer satisfaction levels(in the form of claims on warranty).
Unfortunately, the Arthur Anderson report was out of print, and
was not available to us. Taylor (1995), argues that it is more likely
to be a question of achieving a su?ciently large margin between
cost and price to absorb the cost of poor quality product, without
jeopardizing pro?t levels. It is estimated that US auto makers
spend close to US$9 billion on ?xing quality problems on vehi-
cles. Quality of vehicles produced had improved, but not su?cient
to cause a dent in warranties, resulting in the increased cost of a
vehicle to the customer.
44 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
also a prerequisite for hierarchical–ideological
control (Munro, 1995; Munro & Hatherly, 1993;
Roberts, 1996). Because lateral controls require
increased levels of employee participation, they
could be used to inject an ethical dimension into
the previously impersonal nature of hierarchical
controls—thereby facilitating greater the humani-
zation of work. Unfortunately, the overt devolution
of control to lateral networks and the shop?oor
has been accompanied by an increased reliance on
the culture of ‘‘market-driven’’ e?ciency. Employ-
ees are ‘‘empowered’’ but their performance is
more closely scrutinized through technologically
sophisticated methods of performance evaluation
(Armstrong, 1999; Arnold, 1998, 1999; cf. Miller
& O’Leary, 1993, 1994).
1.3. Management accountability
The question that arises is whether accounting
has reduced management accountability to an
‘‘obligatory passage’’ of narrow, e?ciency-oriented
interpretations of the meaning of work. If man-
agement were passive and compliant agents, they
would be trapped in accounting’s ‘‘mesmeric grip’’
(Roberts, 1991, p. 367), ensuring that management
performance adheres to a predetermined standard.
It would mean that management always make
optimal decisions to reinforce the existing power
structure (Macintosh & Scapens, 1990). In a trade
union, the signi?cation of ‘‘politico-social events’’ in
economic terms carries more legitimacy than events
valued on political grounds (Panozzo, 1996). How-
ever, management do not always adhere to
bureaucratic rules. Laughlin (1996) shows that in
the case of the clergy, the narrow prescriptive view
of accounting measures is diluted at subordinate
levels by strong commitment to social and spiri-
tual values. March and Simon (1993; Simon, 1957,
1976) attribute management’s non-optimizing
decisions to ‘‘bounded rationality’’. It refers to
management’s limited access to information, lim-
ited knowledge, foresight, skill and time pressure
to decide before thoroughly evaluating all options.
The authors remain silent on the politico-eco-
nomic in?uence of con?icting goals. Pettigrew
(1973) argues that management’s political alle-
giances and hunches play a greater role in shaping
the decisions outcomes than their limited access
to, and capacity to process, information.
Admittedly, management responses are also
in?uenced by di?erences in their cognitive and emo-
tional orientation caused by variations in education,
training and nature of tasks performed (Lawrence &
Lorsch, 1967). We acknowledge the in?uence of
personal subjectivity, but argue that social actions
are primarily shaped by production relations (fol-
lowing Marx, 1970). This means that managers
cannot unproblematically privilege shareholder
needs over all other organizational participants
(following Bittner, 1965; Kunda, 1992; Czar-
niawska-Joerges, 1996; Roberts & Scapens, 1985).
Therefore, accounting’s dominant place in man-
agerial accountability processes does not always
mean that management will surrender to account-
ing’s e?ciency orientation to arrive at ‘‘imitative-
coercive’’ decisions (Cooper et al., 1981). Imitative–
coercive responses manifest in Hopwood’s (1973)
Budget Constrained (BC) supervisory evaluation
style, where subordinates are held accountable to
(technically imperfect)
12
budgetary information.
Management also make innovative decisions to
suit the needs of di?erent circumstances such as
Hopwood’s Pro?t Conscious (PC) behavior. It
occurs when supervisors exercise discretion in the
degree of reliance they place on accounting feedback
by supplementing it with information from other
sources. Hopwood regards the BC and PC as dis-
crete styles. However, Otley (1978) shows that a
continuum of styles exist between BC and PC. In
moving away from the BC orientation, there is a
slight reduction in emphasis on meeting the budget,
and an increase in emphasis on operational e?ec-
tiveness. The mixed styles place the onus on sub-
ordinate management to ‘‘weigh the advantages and
disadvantages of actions that would produce di?er-
ent combinations of short- and long-term bene-
?ts’’ (p. 131). The motivation for the BC–PC
transition could be due to re?exive decision-mak-
ing that occurs when the reality depicted by
12
Hopwood (1973) states that accounting information is
imperfect for several reasons: it cannot capture complexities of
managerial performance; it does not completely represent an
organization’s cost function; it encompasses aspects of perfor-
mance which are not necessarily controllable; and it is essen-
tially short-term in nature.
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 45
accounting is at odds with management’s shared
experiences (Giddens, 1991). Their experiences in
managing labor is linked to workers’ capacity to
disrupt the production process through acts of
resistance (Friedman, 1977), as well as their own
vulnerability to cost reduction exercises.
In the 1980s, contingency studies tried to
account for di?erences in Hopwood’s and Otley’s
conclusions. They studied the e?ect of task uncer-
tainty, budget participation, and budgetary slack on
management behavior (Brownell, 1982, 1985; Brow-
nell & Hirst, 1986; Govindarajan, 1984; Govindar-
ajan & Gupta, 1985; Hirst, 1981, 1983, 1987).
Unfortunately, the inductive nature of the moti-
vating studies
13
was not maintained. These
method-oriented studies do not question their own
assumptions and privilege rationalism as the only
‘‘correct’’ view. Agency is deemed to be a non-
ideological and value neutral occupation in which
economic rationalism should prevail.
14
Economic
rationalism is imposed on agency research without
any real debate over what the goals of the organi-
zation should be. Consequently, they fail to
acknowledge the political dimension of manage-
ment behavior that arises from the competitive–
interdependent nature of workplace relations.
Furthermore, these studies adopt di?erent mea-
surements and concepts. These shortcomings raise
doubts about the validity and comparability of
these studies. Space constraint does not allow us
to embark on a full critique of this literature here.
A comprehensive critique is found in the following
papers: Briers and Hirst, (1990), Otley and Fakio-
las (2000), Vagneur and Peiperl, (2000).
In summary, management’s contradictory
position as agent and victim of control motivates
them to mobilize numbers in ways in that allow
alternative rankings of priorities to emerge (Kirk &
Mouritsen, 1996). They apply accounting dialectic-
ally to accommodate and resist the ‘‘logic of
capitalism’’, thereby safeguarding employment
opportunities and better working conditions
(Knights & Collinson, 1987). The question that
has to be theorized is the circumstances under
which managers make imitative–coercive, or
innovative decisions.
2. Organizational study
2.1. Research method
A study of management decision-making styles
was carried out between 1992 and 1994 in a ?rm,
Organization V. It was a player in the Australian
automotive and parts manufacturing industry.
The study of managerial behavior focused on
three interdependent cost centers. Empirical evi-
dence on management behavior was gathered and
analyzed using a qualitative–interpretive approach
(Berry, Capps, Cooper, Ferguson, Hopper, &
Lowe, 1985; Holstein & Gubrium, 1998; Miller &
Glassner, 1998; Rosen, 1991). It ensures continued
openness of the study to environmental variables
which had not been codi?ed in a semi-structured
questionnaire that was used in conducting inter-
views (McCracken, 1988). The method also
enables a re?exive reiterative process of relating
theory to practice to be adopted in reconstructing
a social ‘‘reality’’ from the following sources:
management interviews; analysis of operations
data over 5 months in 1994; review of internal
records and memoranda; and observation of
social interaction on the shop?oor. Therefore, the
interpretation of events portrayed here is a partial
one. Its value depends upon the plausibility of our
theorization.
In-depth interviews were conducted with man-
agers and deputy managers of the three sub-units
(A, B and C), and other factory service support
sta?. Henceforth, the sub-unit managers will be
referred to as Alan, Ben and Colin, respectively. In
these interviews, management’s views on the
following were ascertained:
sub-unit goals vis-a` -vis organization goals;
the nature of operations in the sub-unit;
13
The Hopwood (1973) and Otley (1978) conducted exten-
sive interviews with management before drawing up their
respective survey instruments.
14
Hopwood (1973) acknowledges that management’s di?er-
ential use of information did not arise from ignorance alone (p.
197). For instance, budgeting procedures in governments, are
shaped by information usage, organizational as well as political
considerations (p. 198 following Wildavsky, 1964).
46 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
the constraints to discharging agency
responsibilities;
the information needs of managers;
the in?uence of existing accounting mon-
itoring systems;
the basis on which a manager chose one
accounting measure over another; and,
the signi?cance of chosen measures for
each manager (Appendix A).
To gain an in-depth appreciation of the organi-
zational pressures on factory managers, repre-
sentatives of the larger organization were
interviewed, including top management, and the
Finance Department (Fig. 1).
As a condition of entry to the organization, the
?eldwork researcher was denied interview access
to shop?oor workers because management were
involved in tenuous Enterprise Bargaining nego-
tiations to modify working conditions. As the
scope of the study was on subordinate manage-
ment interaction with shop?oor labor and top
management, the restriction on interviewing
workers was partly compensated for by relying on
second-hand reports of worker resistance strate-
gies.
15
Detailed analyses of operations data per-
taining to machine downtime, stock levels, types
of defects, absenteeism, budgetary performance,
Fig. 1. Organization V—structure (simplifed).
15
The workers’ resistance enabled them to control the pro-
duction process. The strategies that were actually e?ected, or
were a potential threat, were ascertained by interrelating infor-
mation from the following sources:
second-hand reports in interviews with middle man-
agers;
the history of the respective sub-units in terms of
industrial disruptions, as found in analyses of perfor-
mance measures correlating absenteeism, productivity
levels, stock losses, etc.;
the dependence of production ?ow on workers’ skills,
machine technology, and production lead-times;
the sub-unit’s future in terms of threat of work being
sub-contracted out to external suppliers; and
observation of daily interaction between management
and workers.
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 47
productivity levels, etc. were compiled over a period
of 5 months. The analyses were used in the holistic
Systems Thinking presentation (Senge, 1995) of sub-
unit performance (See Appendices B–E). This
empirical evidence either complemented or con-
tradicted the narrative versions of reality conveyed
during ?eld interviews. When contradictory ver-
sions of reality emerged, further ?eldwork and
operations data analyses were undertaken, and the
discrepancy incorporated into our theorization.
As will be explained later, this occurred in the case
of sub-unit A. The ?eldwork researcher had
indepth interviews or discussions
16
with 20 per-
sons. The minimum length of interview time per
person was 5 hours. Interviews were conducted
over 2 days. In the case of Alan (sub-unit A),
interviews stretched for 9 hours because of the
post-Systems Thinking discrepancy ?eldwork.
2.2. Organizational background—market culture
The industry was regarded as one of the fore-
runners in globalizing production and assembly of
parts. Consequently, performance at the Australian
plant was linked to international benchmarks of
e?ciency, primarily those computed under the
International Motor Vehicle Program by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The most
frequently quoted international benchmark was a
highly aggregate ?gure representing labor hours
required to assemble a ‘‘standard’’ vehicle. This
narrow signi?cation of industry productivity was
vehemently opposed because it could not be bro-
ken down into meaningful, comparable perfor-
mance standards for individual vehicle assemblers,
let alone component part manufacturers.
Operations of the factory units A, B, and C were
inter-related. A and B supplied component parts to
C for further processing. Sub-units C and B also
supplied manufactured component parts to the rest
of the factory and external customers, although C
had more external work than B (Fig. 2).
Like other players in the automotive and parts
manufacturing industry, Organization V had long
embraced TQM, Just-in-Time (JIT), and Lean
Production techniques (Womack et al., 1990). The
expressed goals of the organization included pro-
ducing quality products, keeping the customer
satis?ed, delivering products on time and at the
lowest cost possible, having a multi-skilled work-
force, increasing its share of the export market, and
being a good corporate citizen. In Organization V,
certain goals dominated the culture because of their
perceived connection with employment security.
For instance, factory banners reiterated the Eco-
nomic Citizenship chant that satis?ed customers
ensured job security (Miller & O’Leary, 1994).
Fig. 2. Flow of parts produced by sub-units A, B, and C.
16
Informal discussions were a way of partially overcoming
the restrictions concerning who could be interviewed. It was
also a way of gaining a better understanding of how the orga-
nization functioned through casual conversation with employ-
ees in the course of collecting data, or observing people at work
without subjecting employees to a formal interview process.
48 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
Top management vocally advocated the maxim,
‘‘Look after the process, pro?ts will follow’’. How-
ever, the ethos of ‘‘quality—customer satisfaction—
pro?ts’’ was not re?ected in management’s budget-
ary performance criteria. This is because short-term
cash ?ow was central for survival in this industry,
which was characterized by narrow pro?t margins.
Cash ?ow was increased through labor productiv-
ity
17
(Williams et al., 1994).
Sub-unit management used on non-?nancial
information in their daily and weekly meetings to
assess the day-to-day state of operations. However,
managerial performance in Organization V was
ascertained mainly through monthly variances from
budget allowances. Budget estimates were loosely
linked to international labor productivity bench-
marks. Because labor productivity was controlled
through budgeted variable costs, its cost classi?ca-
tion was biased towards variable costs. Conse-
quently, its ?xed and variable cost classi?cations did
not represent the contemporary composition of
operating costs. Costs that were variable in the 1970s
had become ?xed in the 1990s because of changes to
production technology and quality requirements.
By deliberately maintaining the variable classi?cation
of these (?xed) costs, subordinate management
could be pressured to raise productivity levels so
as to improve their budgetary performance.
O?cially, subordinate management were respon-
sible for productivity. However, through budgetary
control, top management could encroach on sub-
ordinate management’s discretion over choice of
strategies. Cost classi?cation was an emotive issue as
sub-unit management believed that ?xed costs
should be funded by lump-sum allocations from
central resources instead of being linked to pro-
ductivity. They were aware of the consequences of
the budget’s short-term rationality.
[Bracketed words in italics have been added for
explanatory purposes.]
Alan: ‘‘I believe that rather than chase that
sort of e?ciency, we would be better o? in
looking to see how we utilize individual
equipment.. . .A lot of this [existing] ?nancial
reporting is based on the, ‘‘All right, what is
our budget in the ?rst place?. . .What sort of
time we allow for these parts?’’
Some parts you get a better time than others.
Producing a part for x number of years, the
budget allowance for it won’t be as good as
on a new part because every year they say,
‘‘You gonna improve by 5% this year, Alan.
Good on you.’’ The time goes down by such
and such. So the part you have been produ-
cing for yonks, you’ve sucked it fairly dry—it
is not like a nice new one where you can put
that in and go thump, thump, thump, and on
paper make a good dollar. But you are not
giving that as many whacks as you are on the
part that you don’t get a good time allow-
ance. And the guys on the shop-?oor, they
are not dills. They know that they are going
to make better time on one part than they are
on the other. . .
. . .So that’s why it burns deep in my nether
region. . .when we look at our overheads and
overhead calculations by our Finance people. It
doesn’t really take into e?ect what our real
overheads are here. . .I see very clearly. . .my
main responsibility is to assess what our true
costs are. . .Because only then can I stand up
and do some of these other things to ensure
that in ten years time that this is all going to be
happening, that we are not sitting on the
beach.’’
Finance sta? admitted that managers rejected the
‘‘reality’’ portrayed by accounting information:
Finance sta?: ‘‘I know people don’t [accept
accounting numbers]. Half of their reason for
that is not liking the ?gures. . .people didn’t
always trust ?gures. That came down to
trusting the people that prepared the ?gures
and their ?exibility’’.
Organization V’s budgeted allowances aimed
to ‘‘encourage’’ management to ‘‘continually
17
Williams, Haslam, Cutler, Johal, and Willis (1994) explain
that in the automotive industry, incremental improvements in
labor productivity had a signi?cant impact on international
competitiveness—because (internal) labor account for 70% of
manufacturing value-added.
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 49
improve’’ cost performance by increasing unpaid
labor. As labor cost in Australia was compara-
tively cheap (Industry Commission, 1996, Minor-
ity Opinion, p. 241), it was generally perceived
there were more economic gains to be made
through more ‘‘e?cient’’ labor management than by
replacing labor with equipment. Advances in labor-
saving equipment technology presented additional
threats to employment security. It served to pressure
labor to perform at ever higher productivity levels.
Organization V tightened its productivity standards
in a mechanical fashion every year by arguing that
failure to continually improve performance could
jeopardize viability of plant operations, and threa-
ten employment security. Consequently, manage-
ment strategies that squeezed out as much unpaid
labor as possible were encouraged, tempered only
by the risk of loss of sales:
Researcher: ‘‘I’m told that these sub-units [A,
B, and C] are undermanned. As a result there
is a lot of reliance on overtime, weekend
work. . .there seems to be a tendency to use
overtime for more di?cult jobs, and rework.
Isn’t it an expensive strategy?’’
Finance sta?: ‘‘Oh, it is. . .There are two
issues here. The major one is. . .remoteness
from the [external] customer, your ultimate
customer. . .Sub-unit Z [which was located at
the end of the production line] is the ?rst
exposure. . . .If you miss production there,
anything you miss is costly. The further down
the track you get, the less costly it beco-
mes. . .And I think traditionally sub-units [A
and B] are undermanned. . .that goes back to
the days when [a certain top manager]
squeezed the ine?ciency out of the place. I
think it was his belief that historically they
manned it to whatever they felt was adequate
manning. And he felt that they were not
making su?cient improvements because there
wasn’t enough pressure being applied on the
area.. . .He scheduled overtime and created
pressure. And he was successful in that. . .
When they found that even with overtime
they were really under pressure. And there
were looming disasters, and it just galvanized
people, into, I suppose, working harder and
being more e?cient. Ultimately cut overtime.
It was a way of bringing some sort of realism
into making improvements.’’
Researcher: ‘‘How long has this been going
on? It seems like a short term ?x.’’
Finance sta?: ‘‘I don’t know to what extent
there was a big swab of ine?ciency that could
be collected by creating that pressure. I don’t
know to what extent it was very short term,
or whether it is a medium term thing. But
certainly, it is a legacy.’’
Organization V’s budgetary–productivity con-
trol was e?ected under the guise of a market cul-
ture. Subordinate managers had to meet the
demands of (internal) customers, without being
duly compensated for these activities in their bud-
get allowances. This served to increase pressure on
them to meet budget targets by increasing labor
productivity. For instance, whenever sub-unit B
supplied a large volume of parts to internal custo-
mers, Ben maintained a record of re-order stock
levels to minimize the amount of stock held in sub-
unit B. However, sub-units that acquired only
small quantities of parts from B also expected the
same stock control arrangement. Sub-unit B was
not able to provide this service without incurring
additional costs: either the cost of keeping records
for small quantities of parts, or, in the event that B
did not provide the service, the cost of disrupting
its scheduled production runs. Ben explained how
he tried to introduce a Kanban system for his low-
volume internal customers but they refused to
cooperate, as the organizational policy required
suppliers to satisfy customer demands:
Ben: ‘‘Yeah, and it doesn’t hurt them. It
doesn’t hurt them at all for not doing that
[reorder via Kanban] because all they do is
say, ’’We want the. . .[parts]. . .or we can’t ?t
them to. . .[the ?nal product]. And if I don’t ?t
them to. . .[the ?nal product], then the product
is incomplete. . .and has to go into E status.’’
Researcher: E status ?
50 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
Ben: ‘‘Not complete—quality assurance. Then
what I have to do, I have to pull a couple of
my. . .[product lines], set up for that job, then
run it for them. So I’m the one that su?ers’’
The market ethos was so powerful that it was
generally perceived that managers who do not
satisfy customer demands were not acting in the
collective interest of the organization. As satisfac-
tion of market needs assumed higher priority over
accommodation of labor’s humanistic demands, the
customer focus became a means of using lateral
networks to police the hierarchical–ideological e?-
ciency agenda (Munro, 1995; Munro & Hatherly,
1993; Roberts, 1996)—thus, encroaching on sub-unit
management discretion.
However, accounting’s in?uence on management
decisions was not absolute because of the underlying
contradiction between capital and labor. Manage-
ment either resisted the e?ciency ethos embedded in
accounting controls, or they mobilized it in their
labor strategies. Their choice was in?uenced by
circumstances that a?ected the amount of (coun-
ter) control workers could exert over the pace of
work—workers’ leverage of dissent. Here, the cir-
cumstances refer to worker skill, type of machine
technology, and degree of competition in product
market. Fig. 3 shows a summary of these condi-
tions in the three sub-units, and the resulting e?ect
on management rationality. Accommodative
management rationality refers to decisions that
dilute the e?ciency agenda to prioritize labor’s
needs by making innovative decisions. Techno-
cratic rationality, on the other hand, results in
imitative–coercive strategies which are justi?ed as
complying with the accountability criteria. In the
following sections, we recount conditions under
which these rationalities emerged.
2.3. Management rationality
2.3.1. Sub-unit C
Colin, the manager of sub-unit C, relied on
highly skilled workers to operate the equipment,
and maintain quality-delivery standards for parts
manufactured. Sub-unit C was operated on JIT
inventory levels—which meant that any disrup-
tions in supply would cause the rest of the factory
to shudder to a halt. Sub-unit C also faced sti?
competition in the global parts market. Although,
Colin was painfully aware of the employment
implications of not adhering to the stringent
international labor productivity benchmark, he
realized that his workers wanted more than repeti-
tive, mundane work that was prescribed as a means
of increasing e?ciency through specialization
(Braverman, 1974):
Researcher: ‘‘[Sub-unit C] employs highly
skilled operators, unlike the rest of the plant.
The work here seems comparatively less
mundane, and repetitive than else where.
Fig. 3. Summary of socio-structural in?uences on political rationality of sub-unit managers in Organization V.
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 51
There also seems to be a clearer career path
for workers here.’’
Colin: ‘‘Yes, they have got something to work
for, and they work hard for the ?rst 8 or 9
months to achieve that goal. It is brand new,
and they are being trained, and they are being
moved around and they move up. As the
months go by, it ?attens out when they
become skilled operators. And that’s when
the mundane starts to come in. Because they
are then just loading, they are not learning a
new skill, or a new practice. . .Now we are
into a new model [of product], and we are into
it for 2 years now. Now the operators, when
we are in, you are using most people. You are
asking them for their ideas: ‘‘What do you
think about this? What do you think about
that? Does this suit you? Do you want it
higher or lower?’’ There is involvement. And
they enjoy that. And it breaks away from the
mundane. And then it build up, builds up,
and now we are in production mode. We will
just go on—repetition all the time’’
Appendix B illustrates how budgetary control
was used to reinforce the production maximization
ethos (see the ‘‘reinforcing’’ behavior loop). As
explained earlier, budget allowances were con-
structed to encourage maximization of production
levels. The partisan construction sent a clear signal
to subordinate management that they should mini-
mize production downtime. In sub-unit C, this
meant keeping machine downtime to a minimum—
even for repairs.
Colin opted for quick ?x, ‘‘band-aid’’ repairs
instead of spending more time repairing equipment
properly (see ?rst ‘‘balancing’’ behavior loop). This
resulted in machines breaking down during every
shift. The scale of the problem has been analyzed
for critical product lines
18
. Appendix C illustrates
one such line—the y-axis shows the (percentage)
ratio of downtime to total time. It would be
desirable to have all points on the graph as close
to the x-axis as possible. However, this is clearly
not the case. The normal level of downtime toler-
ated was 0.5%—and actual downtime (for every
shift on the x-axis) is well-above the tolerable
level. This graph is representative of a number of
critical product lines that were analyzed over a 5-
month period. (Because of the space constraint, all
graphs have not been included here. They are
available in Saravanamuthu, 2000).
Band-aid repairs made product lines so unreli-
able that Colin had to hold bu?er stocks of parts
to cover any shortfall in the future. Appendix D
shows a comparison of actual stock levels and
actual consumption for a critical part. It shows a
substantial amount of stock being carried in what
should be a JIT environment. The horizontal line
represents the budgeted quantity that was used to
determine production schedules. It shows that
overproduction was not due to prediction errors.
This histogram is representative of a number of
critical parts that were analyzed over a 5-month
period. (The quantity scale on the y-axis has
been suppressed to maintain con?dentiality.
Because of the space constraint, all histograms
have not been included here. They are available in
Saravanamuthu, 2000).
In manufacturing parts for consumption and
building up stock, Colin scheduled larger batch
sizes and longer production runs. This set o?
another ‘‘balancing’’ behavior loop because pro-
duction was not halted when defective parts were
detected. The defects were reworked on weekends
at overtime labor rates.
The unintended consequences (that is, the bal-
ancing behaviors) result from the contested
notions of productivity built into budgetary feed-
back (in the reinforcing behavior loop). A techno-
cratic response would be to relieve the pressure at
the intersection between the reinforcing and ?rst
balancing behavior loops—that is, machine
downtime due to short-term repairs. However,
Colin did not do so. He used his resources to train
sta? because resistance by his skilled workers
could disrupt a substantial part of production in
sub-unit C. Workers resisted by calling in sick
without notice (absenteeism), or making crucial
component parts ‘‘disappear’’. As a result, Colin
believed he could not a?ord to disregard
absenteeism:
18
A product line is deemed as critical if the line is vital for
ensuring a smooth supply of parts to the rest of the factory.
52 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
Colin: ‘‘It [absenteeism] is a complete disruption
of the area’’
Colin accommodated workers’ needs to exercise
both their mental and physical abilities. Conse-
quently, Colin used the productivity reports to
rationalize, rather than to formulate management
decisions:
Researcher: ‘‘So how do you use the pro-
ductivity data. . .?’’
Colin: ‘‘I use it as an explanation. So there’s
always a reason why it has gone up or what-
ever. And to me, if you forecast, and you have
done your job to the best of your ability as you
can do it, and if somebody started saying,
‘‘You are not going to do it but you still got
to achieve it. ’’Well, something has got to
give. And that’s why we operate- some people
don’t like that. Whether X [top management]
likes it or not, it is the facts of life. You can
only squeeze down a side so much. . .’’
Therefore, in circumstances where workers have
a high leverage of dissent, management cannot be
single-minded in prioritizing capital’s interest over
social ones. Management have to accommodate
the social needs of workers. Furthermore, because
management are also labor, they would be sowing
the seeds of their own exploitation if they sacri-
?ced their re?exivity for technocratic adherence to
the e?ciency ideology.
2.3.2. Sub-unit B
Sub-unit B was heavily automated. Firstly, this
meant that many of its workers were skilled tech-
nicians, who were responsible for overseeing
operations and ensuring that the machines were
operating properly. They were, however, not as
indispensable as workers in sub-unit C, whose
hands-on skills and experience were vital for
operating the machines. Therefore, management
could use casual workers to replace those who
were absent—but bore the cost of the learning
curve involved in using inexperienced sta?. Sec-
ondly, automation meant that most of B’s costs
were ?xed costs and could not be controlled (or
reduced) in the short-term:
Ben: ‘‘. . .overhead. . .is about 130% of labor
cost. . .Labor cost will be one-sixth of the cost
of material used.’’
Ben, the manager, was required by a blanket
company policy to demonstrate continual cost
improvements. The only other variable costs he
could reduce were minor items like gloves and
earplugs that workers used in the noisy and dan-
gerous environment. Ben resorted to increase
unpaid labor:
Ben: ‘‘It is di?cult to control overheads as the
[automated equipment] is hard to move
around. The only overheads that you can
improve on are gloves, safety equipment.’’
Researcher: ‘‘Do you lower the overhead rate
by increasing output, or increasing productiv-
ity?’’
Ben: ‘‘In the heavily automated sections, we
look at working time. . .we work three shifts
here. We roughly have a 50 minutes overlap
in which two shifts overlap. And if you can
reduce tea breaks or reduce overlaps in any
way or reduce downtime, then you can mini-
mize that loss to the company without any
further expenditure to the company. In fact
you can keep the equipment running longer.
There is no extra cost to the company in
doing that- it is all productivity. So especially
on automated lines, if you can organize labor
to relieve themselves and keep the lines going,
then there is a big saving there. This is done
in a number of ways, for example, by the
operator on the second shift comes in and
waits behind the operator on the ?rst shift, or
roster tea breaks instead of everyone taking
tea break at the same time’’
Ben’s workers resisted the e?ciency drive by
calling in sick. Absenteeism in sub-unit B was
higher than in sub-unit C. However, budgetary
feedback was the means of signifying performance
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 53
of sub-units. Ben faced an impasse because his
workers could resist his cost cutting strategies
without jeopardizing employment, and he could
not demonstrate productivity improvement by
reducing his (?xed) costs of automation.
As in sub-unit C, budgetary control in the
‘‘reinforcing behavior loop’’ (see Appendix E) sig-
naled to Ben that he should prioritize reducing
production downtime. Situational factors con-
tributed to workers in sub-unit B having a lower
leverage of dissent than labor in sub-unit C. They
were: substitutability of worker skills; high level of
?xed costs of automated machinery; and a pro-
tected product market. Because parts produced in B
were unique to the ?rm, they were sheltered from
direct competition in the parts market. Ben respon-
ded to labor’s lower leverage of dissent by reducing
unpaid labor and increasing line reliability. That is,
he reduced operator change-over times between
shifts, and directed his funds towards pro-active
machine maintenance (see the ?rst balancing
behavior loop). His workers used their leverage to
call in sick at short notice. He unsuccessfully tried
to reduce absenteeism in his sub-unit by declaring
that anyone who was absent during the week
would not be entitled to the lucrative weekend
overtime work. Consequently, as shown in the
second balancing behavior loop, Ben had to carry
higher stock levels than prescribed in the JIT
manual. It resulted in larger batch sizes and longer
production runs. Subsequently, when defects parts
were manufactured, production was not halted
(see second balancing behavior loop). Workers
were paid overtime rates to rework the stock of
defects on weekends.
Therefore, prima facie, Ben’s strategy to squeeze
labor appeared to be in line with organizational
priorities. But downgrading workers’ needs resul-
ted in higher levels of worker resistance compared
with C. He relied on the relatively protected pro-
duct market to absorb the higher (real) cost of
production that was incurred in using casual
workers, holding higher levels of stock, and pro-
ducing large batch sizes (with the attendant
increase in defect rates). The costs of these unin-
tended consequences are captured in Appendix E.
Therefore, in circumstances where there is an
impasse between workers’ leverage of dissent and
capital’s e?ciency requirement, management
adopt a technocratic stance. They mobilize the
e?ciency assumptions in accounting measures in
their labor strategies, thereby shifting responsi-
bility for their short-term behavior onto corporate
norms.
2.3.3. Sub-unit A
The equipment technology in sub-unit A was
outdated. Top management had no intention of
upgrading the equipment. Over the years, more
and more of its work had been taken over by sub-
unit B as the newly designed tools in B allowed it to
produce parts more e?ciently. Sub-unit A would
be closed if Alan, the manager, was not able to
demonstrate that it measured up to international
e?ciency standards.
Alan’s response was to publicly question the
validity of the productivity measures. He played
down the signi?cance of the productivity reports
and let it be known (to his sta?) that he was also
not overly concerned with record-keeping. This
meant that operations data captured at source
were distorted,
Alan: ‘‘[The monthly comparison against bud-
get allowances]. . .If you are constantly in the
red, there is a ritualistic ?ogging or two
around the place. I know what my budget is, I
know what I am spending each day, I know
how I am performing against that budget-
. . .That report [monthly deviations from bud-
get] and the various derivatives from it, in the
past has been used to what we call a screw
and review. You have a weekly or monthly
meeting and we all get together. And they
used to bash you over the bloody head. Now
if it is going to be used to bash me over the
head, I’m going to make sure that it is going
to be as ine?ective as possible. If you want me
to, I’ll make that report to read the way you
bloody want to read it.’’
(In the case of sub-units B and C, the ?eldwork
researcher used 5 months operations data to pro-
duce the analysis in Appendices B and E. It was
not possible to carry out Senge’s (1995) Systems
Thinking analysis for A, as reliability of the
54 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
operations data was suspect.) Workers had little
leverage over their work (and future) because their
manual labor could be replaced by casual workers
and automated equipment. In the face of outdated
technology, low worker leverage of dissent, and a
fast disappearing parts market, Alan’s actions
were motivated by the need to continue to provide
employment and humanize working conditions:
Alan: ‘‘I don’t spend a great deal of time on
those reports. . .the bulk of my time is spent
with people either counseling or directing or
motivating people. This part of the job to see
how things are going [in reference to perfor-
mance reports], but the bulk of my time is
spent in people interaction and also the plan-
ning. . .I’ve got to spend some time with them
[sta?] everyday and there are things that I
want to do to direct them and motivate
them. . .I got to talk to them about it, and also
I spend a lot of my time with them telling me
their problems and I have got to try and
resolve them. The control of the operations of
this place is, I really have to do that through
the people. I just can’t sit here in isolation
and look at some report.’’
Therefore, accommodative behavior was also
evident where management and workers have very
low level of control over the labor process. As there
was little left to lose, management go for broke,
manipulating and distorting the partisan measure-
ment system used to evaluate unit viability—
thereby, catering to labor’s most basic economic
need, employment.
3. Discussion
In this paper, we have noted two modi?cations
in capitalist production relations, which do not
remove the fundamental contradiction between
capital and labor. Firstly, the form of production
has transformed over time—from Taylorist engi-
neered work practices to the ideologically
manipulated culture of Economic Citizenship. The
emphasis on ideological instead of coercive con-
trols perpetuate the privileged position of property
rights in the face of rising labor consciousness, and
increasing public disenchantment with the pro?t
objectives (Braverman, 1974; Thompson, 1990).
Secondly, accounting as a primary means of man-
agerial accountability has been similarly contested
and modi?ed over time to acknowledge the exis-
tence of competing, yet interdependent needs.
Therefore, it is possible to politicize Otley’s
(1978) BC–PC transition by incorporating man-
agement’s discriminate accommodation of worker
autonomy in labor strategies (Friedman, 1977)
against the backdrop of budgetary accountability.
BC decisions are imitative-coercive (Cooper et al.,
1981) in nature because they adhere to the e?-
ciency assumptions used in the construction of
budgetary controls, while PC actions are innova-
tive attempts to compensate for accounting’s par-
tisan construction by applying it judiciously.
Friedman’s argues that Direct Control and
Responsible Autonomy strategies re?ect manage-
ment’s acknowledgment of workers’ capacity to
resist and control the competitive–interdependent
relationship between capital and labor. But even
the Responsible Autonomy merely camou?ages
the inherent contradictions in capitalist relations
in order to secure worker consent.
In order to provide a political insight into the
BC–PC transition, we consider subordinate man-
agement accountability in the context of the
worker leverage of dissent in controlling the labor
process. Worker dissent leverage is a?ected by the
circumstances surrounding production relations:
the degree of indispensability of worker skill
(Friedman, 1977), the type of machine technology
employed, as well as the level of competition faced
by products. Worker leverage, in turn, a?ects man-
agement’s level of accommodation of labor’s needs
because management’s performance is contingent
on other people’s actions (Fox, 1974). Manage-
ment strategies are also shaped by their heightened
sense of insecurity in being next in the exploitation
line as capital continues to search for higher surplus
from the labor process (Braverman, 1974). Man-
agement, as mental and wage labor, are increasingly
insecure as their jobs are systematized, and dele-
gated down the line to the shop-?oor (Anthony,
1977; Dunkerely & Thomas, 1998; Hecksher,
1995). Therefore, management’s strategies cannot
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 55
be isolated from their multiple identities as agents
and victims of e?ciency controls. Although man-
agement increasingly identify with oppressed
labor, they are expected to develop strategies to
prioritize the e?ciency agenda over worker needs.
March and Simon (1993; Simon, 1957, 1976)
recognize that managers cannot be treated as vac-
uous objects, who mechanically arrive at optimal
decisions, that are in the best interest of capital.
Although their concept of bounded rationality
recognizes that management do not always make
the best possible decision, the political dimensions
of decision making need to be developed.
Burawoy (1979, 1985) argues that labor actively
exploits itself by consenting to participate in pro-
duction games that obscure the continued exis-
tence of contradictions between capital and labor.
This phenomena has to be weighed against the
inconsistency management experience because of
di?erences between versions of reality depicted by
accounting, and managers’ knowledge of the labor
process (Giddens, 1991). Fig. 4 depicts how varying
levels of worker leverage of dissent in Organisation V
contributed to management’s accommodative and
technocratic (that is, imitative–coercive) strategies.
When worker leverage of dissent is high (as in
sub-unit C) management cannot a?ord to ignore
their call to humanize work practices because of
the potential disruption to the production process.
Their labor strategies recognize workers as com-
plete and intelligent human beings, who need to be
mentally stimulated by the task at hand (following
Friedman, 1977). In Organization V, management
accommodated workers’ needs by spending avail-
able budget resources on training instead of
relieving pressure on the production line by prop-
erly repairing machines. Management’s accom-
modative behavior also occurs at the other
extreme end of the continuum, where the leverage
of dissent is very low. Workers in sub-unit A had
little leverage over their work because their
unskilled labor could easily be replaced by casual
workers. Worker resistance would play into top
management’s hands, providing an excuse to close
down operations. In a desperate attempt to keep
operations open, the manager was politically
motivated in selecting operations data to be fed
into the accounting system. It was a desperate
strategy because it was only a matter of time
before the cost of production in sub-unit A would
fall behind technologically advanced competitors.
When there is an impasse between worker
leverage of dissent and the e?ciency ethos, man-
agement resort to a technocratic, imitative–coer-
cive decision-making. In Organization V, Ben
faced an impasse in demonstrating continual
improvement in his budgetary performance—that
is, he was caught between ?xed machine costs that
could not be reduced in the short-term and dis-
senting workers. Labor was skilled, but not as
indispensable as in sub-unit C. The cost of repla-
cing dissenting workers with less experienced
workers was not made visible by the accounting
system. Therefore, Ben allowed the e?ciency tar-
gets embedded in accounting information to direct
his strategy of increasing aspects of productivity
Fig. 4. Continuum of subordinate management behavior under budgetary control, based on labor’s leverage of dissent.
56 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
made visible by accounting. He ensured machine
reliability instead of humanizing work practices.
In all three cases, regardless of the whether
management displayed a technocratic or accom-
modative rationality, there were unintended
repercussions that increased the real cost of pro-
duction. These repercussions were not made visi-
ble by the budgetary control system. It granted
visibility to the ?nancial variances only in the
reinforcing loop (see appendices B and E). Any
attempt to reduce the unintended consequences of
the partisan accountability has to address the fun-
damental contradiction between the goals of capi-
tal and labor. The solution must lie in recognizing
that the single-minded pursuit of labor productiv-
ity cannot be politically sustained. Further, we
argue that Otley’s (1978) BC–PC transition is not a
uni-directional movement. Management responses
are politically motivated by the circumstances
surrounding worker capacity to control and shape
the transformation of work. Hopwood’s PC cate-
gories would be located at both (accommodative)
ends of the continuum in Fig. 4, with the BC
category in the (technocratic) center.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we theorized management’s enig-
matic behavior as accommodative and technocratic
decision-making styles that re?ect how situational
factors a?ect worker leverage of dissent. There are
a couple of limitations in our organizational
study. The restriction that workers could not be
directly interviewed was partially overcome by
seeking evidence of worker reaction from second-
ary sources of information (outlined in footnote
15). Whilst these sources provide evidence of
worker resistance, they are not substitutes for rich
narratives about worker consciousness that could
be drawn from interviews. Secondly, this study
contextualizes management accountability in the
political richness of three sub-units. The political
dynamics is drawn from the interaction between
lateral and hierarchical social networks, acts of
worker resistance (which are moderated by situa-
tional factors such as machine technology, and
competition), and management accountability
processes. An analysis of the frequency of occur-
rence of accommodative and technocratic beha-
viors, based on a contextualized survey instrument,
would add credibility to our theorization.
Research that recognizes the politics of man-
agement behavior will become increasingly rele-
vant as corporations are compelled to exhibit
socially and environmentally friendly behaviors
despite the perpetuation of workplace contra-
dictions. The highly visible World Business Coun-
cil for Sustainable Development warns that
companies, which persist in pursuing economic
growth at the expense of socio-environmental
needs, may not survive:
. . .on the subject of sustainability. . .there is
indeed a connection- a strong one- among the
triple bottom lines of economic, social and
environmental performance. . .market forces
apply not only to pro?t and loss and the
creation of wealth, but to other factors that
profoundly a?ect the quality of our lives. I
think it’s fair to state the case in rather stark
terms. . .that in the future, companies that are
not sustainable- in the fullest sense of that
term- will not be operationally or ?nancially
successful. It’s doubtful they will even sur-
vive. That’s why this topic has a special
urgency for all of us.(Stavropoulos, W., Pre-
sident & CEO of Dow Chemical, 2000, p. 1).
However, accounting’s partisan framework is
incapable of providing triple bottom line guidance
to management (Previts & Merino, 1979).
Consequently, it is imperative that agency
research acknowledges the politics of managing if
it is to assist in formulating sustainable practices.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Alan Lowe, David Otley,
Jesse Dillard, and William Carper and two
anonymous reviewers for their guiding comments.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the
Asia Paci?c Interdisciplinary Research in Account-
ing, Osaka 1998, Adelaide, 2001; Management
Accounting Research Conference, Sydney 1998;
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 57
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, New York
1999; and Critical Management Studies Conference,
Manchester 1999, American Accounting Associa-
tion, 2001. We thank the discussants and partici-
pants for their constructive comments.
Appendix A. Interviews questionnaire
Areas covered
1. Responsibilities and types of decisions
made:
Interviewee’s perception of goals of
organisation.
Goals for area of responsibility.
Perception of what customers expect
from interviewee’s sub-unit.
Routine and ad-hoc decisions made.
Constraints and advantages of existing
internal structure to sub-unit perfor-
mance.
2. Existing performance information or
reports: received or reported.
Adequacy
Any modi?cation, or additional infor-
mation needed to discharge duties:
Fixed versus variable classi?cation
Non-?nancial operating data
Fair re?ection of operations.
3. Other performance areas:
Capital budgeting
Product line management
Human resource management
4. Financial feedback versus operating needs:
Budgets versus non-?nancial data
Complement each other, or con?icting
signals.
5. Possible link between performance measure-
ment and corporate Mission Statement:
Who is my customer?
Measures that best re?ect my custo-
mer’s (perceived) needs?
Measures that best re?ect my needs that
my supplier should be aware of?
6. Trend over last ?ve years: how have per-
formance measures evolved?
Appendices B–E on following pages
58 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
Appendix B. Systems thinking (Senge, 1995) of sub-unit C
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 59
Appendix C. Analysis of ratio of machine downtime to total productive time for a critical product line
Appendix D. Analysis of stock production versus consumption levels. Sub-unit C-Part 391: stock levels
vs. actual and anticipated daily requirement
60 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
References
Abernethy, M., & Lillis, A. (1995). The impact of manu-
facturing ?exibility on management control system
design. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 20, 241–
258.
Ahrens, T. (1996). Financial and operational modes of
accountability: di?ering accounts of British and German
managers. In R. Munro, & J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Account-
ability: power, ethos and the technologies of managing. Lon-
don: International Thomson Business Press.
Allen, V. L. (1975). Social analysis: a Marxist critique and
alternative. London: Longman.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (1996). Making sense of man-
agement—a critical introduction. London: Sage.
Anthony, P. (1977). The ideology of work. London: Tavistock.
Armstrong, P. (1989). Management, labor process and agency.
Work, Employment and Society, 3(3), 307–322.
Armstrong, P. (1991). Contradiction and social dynamics in the
capitalist agency relationship. Accounting, Organizations and
Society, 16(1), 1–25.
Armstrong, P. (1999). The costs of activity-based management.
Critical perspectives on accounting conference, Baruch
College, City University of New York, NY, April.
Arnold, P. (1999). From the Union Hall: a labour critique of
the new manufacturing and accounting regimes. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 10, 399–423.
Arnold, P. J. (1998). The limits of postmodernism in account-
ing history: the Decatur experience. Accounting, Organiza-
tions and Society, 23(7), 665–684.
Arthur Anderson & Co. (1994). Customer satisfaction strategies
and tactics.
Appendix E. Systems thinking (Senge, 1995) of sub-unit B
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 61
Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. (1962). Two faces of power. Amer-
ican Political Science Review, 56, 947–952.
Barnard, C. (1968). The functions of the executive. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press (?rst ed 1938).
Berle, A., & Means, G. (1967). The modern corporation and
private property. Harcourt, NY: Brace & World Inc. (First
edition: 1932).
Berry, A. J., Capps, T., Cooper, D., Ferguson, P., Hopper, T.,
& Lowe, E. (1985). Management control in an area of the
NCB: rationales of accounting practices in public enterprise.
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 10(1), 3–28.
Bittner, E. (1965). The concept of organization. Social
Research, 31, 240–255.
Braverman, H. (1974). Labour and monopoly capital: the
degradation of work in the twentieth century. NY: Monthly
Review Press.
Briers, M., & Hirst, M. (1990). The role of budgetary informa-
tion in performance evaluation. Accounting, Organizations
and Society, 15(4), 373–398.
Brownell, P. (1982). The role of accounting data in perfor-
mance evaluation, budgetary participation, and organisa-
tional e?ectiveness. Journal of Accounting Research, Spring,
20(1), 12–27.
Brownell, P. (1985). Budgetary systems and the control of
functionally di?erentiated organisational activities. Journal
of Accounting Research, Autumn, 23(2), 502–512.
Brownell, P., & Hirst, M. K. (1986). Reliance on accounting
information, budgetary participation, and task uncertainty:
tests of a three way interaction. Journal of Accounting
Research, Autumn, 24(2), 241–249.
Burawoy, M. (1979). Manufacturing consent: changes in the
labour process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.
Burawoy, M. (1985). The politics of production. London:
Verso.
Carter, B. (1995). A growing divide: Marxist class analysis and
the labour process. Capital and Class, 55, 33–72.
Chinoy, E. (1964). Manning the machine—the assembly line
worker. In P. Berger (Ed.), The human shape of work: studies
in the sociology of occupations. NY: Macmillan.
Cooper, D. J., Hayes, D., & Wolf, F. (1981). Accounting in
organized anarchies: Understanding and designing account-
ing systems in ambiguous situations. Accounting, Organiza-
tions and Society, 6(3), 175–191.
Czarniawska-Joerges, B. (1996). Changing times and accounts:
tales from an organization ?eld. In R. Munro, &
J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Accountability: power, ethos and the
technologies of managing. London: International Thomson
Business Press.
Dunkerely, D. & Thomas, R. (1998). ‘‘It’s Life Jim But Not as
We Know it !’’ Middle management in delayered organisa-
tions. Conference paper, 16th annual International Labour
Process Conference, UMIST, April.
Edwards, R. (1979). Contested terrain: the transformation of the
workplace in the twentieth century. NY: Basic Books.
Everard, S. (1949). The history of the Gas, Light and Coke
Company, 1812–1949 London: Benn.
Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract: work, power and trust rela-
tions. London: Faber.
French, H. (2000). Vanishing borders: protecting the planet in
the age of globalization. NY: Norton.
Friedman, A. (1977). Industry and labour: class struggle at work
and monopoly capitalism. London: Macmillan.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: outline of the
theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity. California:
Standford University Press.
Govindarajan, V. (1984). Appropriateness of accounting data
in performance evaluation: an empirical examination of
environmental uncertainty as an intervening variable.
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 9(2), 125–135.
Govindarajan, V., & Gupta, A. K. (1985). Linking budgetary
control systems to business unit strategy: impact on perfor-
mance. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 10(1), 51–66.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from prison notebooks. London:
Lawrence & Wishart.
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure:
the problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociol-
ogy, 91(3), 481–510.
Hall, S. (1982). The rediscovery of ‘‘deology’’ return of the
repressed in media studies. In M. Gurvitch, T. Bennett,
J. Curran, & J. Woollacott (Eds.), Culture, society, and the
media (pp. 56–90). London: Methuen & Co.
Hall, S. (1988). The toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the
theorists. In C. Nelson, & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and
the interpretation of culture (pp. 35–57). Houndmills: Mac-
millan.
Hecksher, C. (1995). White collar blues: management loyalties in
an age of corporate restructuring. NY: Basic Books.
Hirst, M. K. (1981). Accounting information and the evalua-
tion of subordinate performance: a situational approach. The
Accounting Review, LV(4), 771–784.
Hirst, M. K. (1993). Reliance on accounting performance
measures, task uncertainty, and dysfunctional behaviour:
some extension. Journal of Accounting Research, Autumn,
21(2), 596–605.
Hirst, M. K. (1987). Some further evidence on the e?ects of
budget use and budget participation on managerial perfor-
mance. Australian Journal of Management, 12(1), 49–56.
Holstein, J., & Gubrium, J. (1998). Active Interviewing. In
D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research: theory, method and
practice. London: Sage.
Hopwood, A. (1973). An accounting system and managerial
behaviour. Hampshire: Saxon House.
Hunt, E. K. (1990). Property and prophets: The evolution of
economic institutions and ideologies. NY: Harper & Row
Publishers.
Industry Commission. (1996). The Automotive Industry. Draft
report, Melbourne: AGPS, December 20.
Ittner, C., and Larcker, D. (1998). Innovations in performance
measurement: trends and research implications. 6
th
Biennial
management accounting research conference, University of
New South Wales, Sydney, Sept.
62 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64
Jensen, M., & Meckling, W. (1976). Theory of the ?rm: man-
agerial behaviour, agency costs and ownership structure.
Journal of Financial Economics, 3, 305–360.
Knights, D., Willmott, H., Collinson, D. (Eds.). (1985). Intro-
duction. In Job redesign: critical perspectives on the labour
process. Aldershot: Gower Publishing House, pp. 1–9.
Kirk, K., & Mouritsen, X. (1996). Spaces of accountability. In
R. Munro, & J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Accountability: power,
ethos and the technologies of managing. London: Interna-
tional Thomson Business Press.
Knights, D., & Collinson, D. (1987). Disciplining the shop-
?oor: a comparison of the disciplinary e?ect of managerial
psychology and ?nancial accounting. Accounting, Organiza-
tions and Society, 12(5), 457–478.
Krafcik, J., (1988). A methodology for assembly plant perfor-
mance determination. Draft number 2 for International Motor
Vehicle Programme Research A?liates Meeting. Cambridge,
Massachusetts, held on Oct, 17.
Kunda, G. (1992). Engineering culture: control and commitment
in a high-tech corporation. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press.
Laughlin, R. (1996). Principals and higher principals: account-
ing for accountability in the caring professions. In R. Munro,
& J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Accountability: power, ethos and the
technologies of managing. London: International Thomson
Business Press.
Lawrence, P., & Lorsch, J. (1967). Organization and environ-
ment. Irwin: Homewood.
Lehman, C., & Tinker, T. (1987). The ‘‘real’’ cultural sig-
ni?cance of accounts. Accounting, Organizations and Society,
12(5), 503–522.
Leiserson, W.M. The economics of restriction of output as
quoted in Baritz (1965) The servants of power. NY: Wiley.
March, J., & Simon, H. (1993). Organizations. MA: Blackwell.
Marx, K. (1961). Capital (Vol. III). Moscow: Foreign Lan-
guages Publishing House.
Marx, K. (1970). Critique of political economy. NY: New World
Paperbacks.
Marx, K. (1971). Capital. Critique of political economy (Vol
III). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Mayo, E. (1945). The social problems of industrial civilisation.
Boston: Harvard University.
Macintosh, N. B., & Scapens, R. W. (1990). Structuration the-
ory in management accounting. Accounting, Organizations
and Society, 15(5), 455–477.
MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose justice? Which rationality. Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
McCraken, G. (1988). The long interview. California: Sage.
McKendrick, N. (1961). Josiah Wedgwood and factory dis-
cipline. Historical Journal, IV, 39.
Miller, J., & Glassner, B. (1998). The ‘‘inside’’ and the ‘‘outside’’:
?nding realities in interviews. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative
research: theory, method and practice. London: Sage.
Miller, P., & O’Leary, T. (1993). Accounting expertise and the
politics of the product: economic citizenship and modes of
corporate governance. Accounting, Organizations and
Society, 18(2/3), 187–206.
Miller, P., & O’Leary, T. (1994). Accounting, ‘‘economic citi-
zenship’’ and the spatial reordering of manufacture.
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 19(1), 15–43.
Munro, R. (1995). Governing the new province of quality. In
A. Wilkinson, & H. Willmott (Eds.), Making quality critical.
London: Routledge.
Munro, R. (1996). Alignment and identity work: the study of
accounts and accountability. In R. Munro, & J. Mouritsen
(Eds.), Accountability: power, ethos and the technologies of
managing (pp. 1–20). London: International Thomson Busi-
ness Press.
Munro, R., & Hatherly, D. (1993). Accountability and the new
commercial agenda. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 4,
369–395.
Musson, A. E., & Robinson, E. (1959). The early growth of
steam power. Ec.H.R., 2nd Ser., XI, 434.
Otley, D. T. (1978). Budget use and managerial performance.
Journal of Accounting Research, Spring, 122–149.
Otley, D., & Fakiolas, A. (2000). Reliance on accounting per-
formance measures: dead end or new beginning. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 25, 497–510.
Panozzo, F. (1996). Accountability and identity: accounting
and the democratic organization. In R. Munro, &
J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Accountability: power, ethos and the
technologies of managing. London: International Thomson
Business Press.
Perera, S., Harrison, G., & Poole, M. (1997). Customer-focused
manufacturing strategy and the use of operations-based non-
?nancial performance measures: a research note. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 6, 557–572.
Pettigrew, A. (1973). The politics of organizational decision-
making. London: Tavistock.
Pollard, S. (1968). The genesis of modern management: THE
study of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. England:
Penguin Books.
Previts, G., & Merino, B. (1979). A history of accounting in
America: An historical interpretation of the cultural sig-
ni?cance of accounting. NY: A Ronald Press Publication.
Roberts, J. (1991). The possibilities of accountability. Account-
ing, Organizations and Society, 16(4), 355–368.
Roberts, J. (1996). From discipline to dialogue; individualizing
and socializing forms of accountability. In R. Munro, &
J. Mouritsen (Eds.), Accountability: power, ethos and the
technologies of managing. London: International Thomson
Business Press.
Roberts, J., & Scapens, R. (1985). Accounting systems and
systems of accountability—understanding accounting prac-
tices in their organizational contexts. Accounting, Organiza-
tions and Society, 10(4), 443–456.
Rosen, M. (1991). Coming to terms with the ?eld: under-
standing and doing organizational ethnography. Journal of
Management Studies, 28(1), 1–24.
Saravanamuthu, K. (2000). Agency and the politics of account-
ing signi?cation. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of
South Australia.
Senge, P. (1995). The ?fth discipline: the art and practice of
learning organisation. Australia: Random House.
K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64 63
Sewell, G., & Wilkinson, B. (1992). Someone to watch over me:
surveillance, discipline and the Just-in-Time labour process.
Sociology, 26(2), 271–289.
Simon, H. (1957). Models of man: social and rational. NY: John
Wiley & Sons.
Simon, H. (1976). Administrative behavior: a study of decision-
making processes in administrative organization. NY: Free
Press.
Stavropoulos, W. (2000). Building a sustainable enterprise:
doing business in a ‘‘world with nowhere to hide’’. Speech
delivered at the Sustainable Business Forum, San Mateo,
California, March 28. Available in the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development Speech Library: http://
www.wbcsd.ch/Speech/s82.htm.
Sward, K. (1948). The legend of Henry Ford. NY: Rinehart.
Taylor, A. III. (1995). The hidden costs that drive up the price of
your car. Fortune, Chicago, Sept. 4. (Internet document).
Thompson, E. P. (1975). The making of the English working
class. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Thompson, P. (1990). Crawling from the wreckage: the Labour
Process and the politics of production. In D. Knights, &
H. Willmott (Eds.), Labour process theory. Houndmills:
Macmillan Press.
Tinker, A. M., Merino, B. D., & Neimark, M. D. (1982). The
normative origins of positive accounting theories: ideology
and accounting thought. Accounting, Organizations and
Society, 7(2), 167–200.
Tinker, T. (1991). The Accountant as partisan. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 16(3), 297–310.
Tinker, T. (1998). Was Mickey Mouse a Marxist? 2nd Asia
Paci?c Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting conference,
Osaka, August.
Tinker, T., & Yuthas, K. (1995a). There’s nothing like success:
Cartesian dualisms in Information Systems research. Advan-
ces in Accounting Information Systems, 3, 31–62.
Tinker, T., & Yuthas, K. (1995b). Unsettled frameworks:
Voluntarism and the dialectics of MIS research. Advances in
Accounting Information Systems, 3, 181–200.
Vagneur, K., & Peiperl, M. (2000). Reconsidering performance
evaluative style. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 25,
511–525.
Weber, M., (1947). The theory of social and economic organizations.
Trans. Henderson, A.M. & Parsons, T., NY: The Free Press.
Wildavsky, A. (1964). The politics of the budgetary process.
Boston: Little, Brawn.
Williams, K., Haslam, C., Cutler, T., Johal, S., & Willis, R.
(1994). Johnson 2: knowledge goes to Hollywood. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 5, 281–293.
Womack, J., Jones, D., & Roos, D. (1990). The machine that
changed the world. NY: Rawson Associates.
64 K. Saravanamuthu, T. Tinker / Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 37–64

doc_293428614.pdf