62 ACCOUNTING FOR MANAGERS
capitalism’s unequal and antagonistic social relations. (Neimark and Tinker,
1986, p. 378)Neimark and Tinker emphasized the ‘on-going conflict among and between social
classes over the disposition and division of the social surplus’ (p. 379) and how
‘[s]ocial and organizational control systems are not neutral mechanisms in these
struggles but are attached to and legitimate concrete power interests’ (p. 380).
The third Marxist perspective,critical theory, emphasizes a critique of thestatus
quoand emancipation towards a better life. Hopper and Powell (1985) argued that
critical studies show how ‘accounting measures alienate through subordinating
behaviour to perceived imperatives which are in fact socially created’ (p. 454).
Laughlin (1999) definedcritical accountingas providing:
a critical understanding of the role of accounting processes and practices and
the accounting profession in the functioning of society and organizations
with an intention to use that understanding to engage (where appropriate)
in changing these processes, practices and the profession. (p. 73)An example of the application of critical theory is provided by Perrow (1991), who
argued:
If one raised profits by externalizing many costs to the community, exploiting
the workforce, evading government controls by corrupting officials, manip-
ulating stock values, and controlling the market by forming quasi-cartels
or other predatory practices – all common practices in the nineteenth and
twentieth century – then profits will not reflect the efficient use of labor,
capital, and natural resources. (p. 746)Much of critical theory is concerned with opening up the discourse from a narrow
economic-rational application of accounting to question its underlying assump-
tions and its (often dysfunctional) consequences.Discourseis a conversation, albeit
an informed one, through which arguments and counter-arguments are consid-
ered. Accounting is implicated in discourse because in its written form, it presents
‘facts’ that contain implicit assumptions. An accounting discourse of profit and
return on investment is dominated by an economic-rational logic. Thus, account-
ing ‘serves to construct a particular field of visibility’ (Miller and O’Leary, 1987,
p. 239).
In promoting critical theory, Broadbent and Laughlin (1997) emphasized ‘a
recognition of the choice between seeking to develop change through meaningful
debate [rather than] through the application of power or coercion’ (p. 645).
Power and accounting
We have seen how control systems and management accounting in particular are
aimed at influencing behaviour. This is inextricably bound up with consideration of
power. Pfeffer (1992) defined power as ‘the potential ability to influence behavior,