Accounting for Managers: Interpreting accounting information for decision-making

Accounting and Organizational

Cultures: A Field Study of the

Emergence of a New Organizational

Reality

∗

JEREMY F. DENT

London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract

Organizations have long been known to have cultural properties. A more recent

innovation is the study of organizationsascultures: systems of knowledge, beliefs

and values in which action and artifact are vested with expressive qualities. We know

little about the way in which accounting is implicated in organizations’ cultures. This

paper reports a longitudinal field study of organizational change, tracing out the way

in which new accounting practices were implicated in an emergent reconstruction of

the organization’s culture.

The train arrived at Capital City Terminus at 12.10. It was on time despite a delay on the
line. Walking up the platform, I saw the train driver leaning out of his cab. He must have
driven the train fast to recover the time: the windscreens were spattered with dead insects.
He exchanged some words with men dressed in smart overalls. Muttering a few words
into ‘‘walkie-talkies’’, they jumped down onto the track to check the engine. Men driving
small electric trucks towing streams of trailers with logos on the side collected parcels and
mail bags from the guard’s van. Others set about replenishing water and food supplies in
the train. At the barrier, a man wearing a smile and a dark uniform with red piping on the
seams checked my ticket.
Moving on, the concourse was bright and airy, concealed lighting illuminating the
white tiled floor. People were milling about. Soft music was playing on the tannoy. Large
electronic screens indicated arrival and departure times. There were colourful boutiques

∗This research was generously supported by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the AAA Annual Convention, New York, 1986,
the EAA Annual Congress, London, 1987, and the EIASM Workshop on Strategy, Accounting &
Control, Venice, 1990. Ken Euske, Anthony Hopwood, Keith Hoskins, Kenneth Merchant, Peter
Miller and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments.