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Understanding accounting through conceptual metaphor: ACCOUNTING IS AN INSTRUMENT?

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  • Amernic, Joel
  • Craig, Russell

Abstract

This paper extends the conversation about metaphors in accounting that were presented in this journal by McGoun et al. [McGoun EG, Bettner MS, Coyne MP. Pedagogic metaphors and the nature of accounting signification. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 2007a;18:213–30; McGoun EG, Bettner MS, Coyne MP. Money n’ motion—born to be wild. Critical Perspectives on Accounting;2007b;18:343–61.]. Our aim is to promote further critical conversations about how metaphor is implicated in accounting. We assemble and review some of the empirical evidence we have gathered from close readings of discourse about accounting over the past decade. Based on this empirical grounding, we propose that the fundamental conceptual metaphor, ACCOUNTING IS AN INSTRUMENT, has been deployed commonly to describe the essence of accounting. We contend that such deployment has insidious, distortive and confounding outcomes because it encourages belief that accounting is incapable of reporting other than with representational faithfulness; and that it confounds the (alleged) primary qualitative characteristics of accounting information (relevance and reliability) outlined in the Financial Accounting Standards Board's SFAC 2 Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting.

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  • Amernic, Joel & Craig, Russell, 2009. "Understanding accounting through conceptual metaphor: ACCOUNTING IS AN INSTRUMENT?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 875-883.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:20:y:2009:i:8:p:875-883
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2009.06.004
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Olivier Vidal, 2013. "Comptabilité Sans Frontières : Intérêt D'Une Cartographie," Post-Print hal-00997956, HAL.
    2. Edgley, Carla, 2014. "A genealogy of accounting materiality," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 255-271.
    3. Amernic, Joel & Craig, Russell, 2017. "CEO speeches and safety culture: British Petroleum before the Deepwater Horizon disaster," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 61-80.
    4. Gårseth-Nesbakk, Levi, 2011. "Accrual accounting representations in the public sector—A case of autopoiesis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 247-258.
    5. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Olivier Vidal, 2013. "Comptabilité sans frontières: intérêt d'une cartographie," Post-Print halshs-00829410, HAL.
    6. Imoleayo F. Obigbemi & Eddy O. Omolehinwa & Dick Oluku Mukoro & Egbide Ben-Caleb & Olamide Adeola Olusanmi, 2016. "Earnings Management and Board Structure," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(3), pages 21582440166, September.
    7. Gibbon, Jane, 2012. "Understandings of accountability: an autoethnographic account using metaphor," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 201-212.
    8. Stéphanie Chatelain-Ponroy & Olivier Vidal, 2013. "Comptabilité sans frontières : intérêt d'une cartographie," Post-Print hal-00991943, HAL.

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