IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/acctfi/v64y2024i2p1439-1470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Affect and reason in uncertain accounting settings: The case of capital investment appraisal

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Andon
  • Jane Baxter
  • Wai Fong Chua

Abstract

Affect is generally characterised as distinct from, and detrimental to, reason in investment appraisal. This paper, in contrast, illustrates that affect is integral to reasoning, particularly when uncertainty disturbs investment appraisal. Investment appraisals produce uncertain projections about the future, which generate discomfort. This causes actors to undertake adaptive activities to craft calculations they can become comfortable with, which we characterise as epistemic participation and shaping the politics of expectations. These activities constitute a dualistic fusion of comfort and reason: discomfort initiates and informs reasoning to regain comfort. We further show the effects of the laborious efforts accompanying this accretion of both knowledge and comfort. Our arguments are supported by an analysis of investment appraisal for a 30‐year capital project.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Andon & Jane Baxter & Wai Fong Chua, 2024. "Affect and reason in uncertain accounting settings: The case of capital investment appraisal," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 64(2), pages 1439-1470, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:64:y:2024:i:2:p:1439-1470
    DOI: 10.1111/acfi.13185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/acfi.13185
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/acfi.13185?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:acctfi:v:64:y:2024:i:2:p:1439-1470. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaanzea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.