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The strategic competence of accountants and middle managers in budget making

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  • Fauré, Bertrand
  • Rouleau, Linda

Abstract

This paper aims to advance the notion of the "situated functionality of numbers" (Ahrens & Chapman, 2007) by investigating the practical knowledge of strategy which shapes the calculations performed by accountants and middle managers when they are making a budget. It proposes an in-depth investigation of the budgeting conversations collected during an extensive field study in a large construction firm that had undertaken a new partnership strategy. Drawing on a conversation analytical approach, it identifies three micro-practices of calculation constitutive of the accountants' and middle managers' strategic competence: invoking the usefulness of numbers to activate local projects; constructing the acceptability of numbers to report them to external partners; authorising the plausibility of numbers to reconcile local contingencies and global coherence. The paper then explores how accountants and middle managers come to a mutual understanding of their respective accountabilities when they perform their strategic competence. It ends by discussing the unintended consequences of these transformations in their professional roles.

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  • Fauré, Bertrand & Rouleau, Linda, 2011. "The strategic competence of accountants and middle managers in budget making," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 167-182, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:36:y:2011:i:3:p:167-182
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    References listed on IDEAS

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