Inscribing the organization: Representations in dispute between accounting and production

Critical Perspectives on Accounting 18 (2007) 952–974

Inscribing the organization: Representations in dispute between accounting and production Alan Lowe a,b,∗ , Bryan Koh b a

Aston Business School, United Kingdom b University of Waikato, New Zealand

Received 1 August 2005; received in revised form 3 May 2006; accepted 3 May 2006

Abstract This paper assumes that a primary function of management accounting is the representation of “accounting facts” for purposes such as organizational control. Accountants are able to offer conventional techniques of control, such as standard costing, as a consequence of their ability to deploy accounting representations within managerial and economic models of organizational processes. Accounting competes, at times, with other ‘professional’ groups, such as production planning or quality management people, in this role of representing the organization to management. The paper develops its arguments around a case illustration of cost accounting set in a low technology manufacturing environment. The research relates to a case organization in which accountants are attempting to establish the reliability of accounting inscriptions of a simple manufacturing process. The case research focuses on the documents, the inscriptions that vie for managements’ attention. It is these sometimes messy and inaccurate representations which enable control of complex and heterogeneous activities at a distance. At the end of our site visits we observe quality management systems in the ascendancy over the accountants’ standard costing systems. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Inscription; Standard costing; Actor networks; Production; Representation; Case research

∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Accounting, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand. Tel.: +64 7 856 2889; fax: +64 7 838 4332. E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Lowe).

1045-2354/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2006.05.001

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1. Introduction The accounting literature has considered the inter-relationships between accounting and other areas of functional expertise. This paper considers aspects of such interdependencies between accounting and production (Ahrens, 1997; Armstrong, 1987, 1989; Miller and O’Leary, 1993; Mouritsen, 1999; Preston, 1986). Our concern is to present evidence of the competing claims between accounting and production for the legitimacy of their representations of the organization. If the notion of accounting inscription is given credence it follows that a major function of management accounting is the representation of accounting “facts” for the purpose of organizational control. In order to apply conventional techniques of control we require accounting representations or models of organizational processes. A number of writers have stressed the centrality of representation and inscription to the craft of accounting (Bloomfield et al., 1992; Robson, 1991, 1992, 1994; see also Preston, 1986). Accounting representations provide the means by which we are able to represent the workings of the organization in simplified form and bring the “outside in” (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Briers and Chua, 2001; Law, 1996). The principles of remote control, or control at a distance are based upon representation which is made possible by substituting symbols, paper inscriptions and other devices, such as tools and computer controls, for direct involvement of the human body and its senses (Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Latour, 1994; Law, 1996, 1997, 1999; Lee and Hassard, 1999; Star, 1996). Bureaucrats and managers do not work directly on the environment but on models, maps, numbers and formulae which represent that environment and their organizations. Accountants among others such as production planners, human resources people and information specialists are key providers of this “objective” information. A number of service functions provide inscriptions of the organization, sometimes in cooperation . . . at other times . . . competing for management attention. This paper will present case data which illustrates the way simple paper inscriptions may play a part in the competition for management attention. The paper will develop its arguments around a case illustration of conventional cost accounting set in a low technology manufacturing environment. We describe some of the aspects [and objects] which came to play a part in the way the case organization worked upon its management information systems. The case relates to the efforts of an organization’s accountants to modify its management accounting system to incorporate standard costing. The case material presents evidence and discussion on the reliance of the organizations accounting system on information collected in the course of the manufacturing operations of the organization. The central construct of the theoretic frame for the paper is the role of inscriptions in producing “ordered” organization (Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998). Joerges and Czarniawska argue that the concept of inscription is central to our understanding of contemporary organization. They argue that what Latour and Woolgar (1986) note of the scientist: that they spend “the greatest part of their day coding, marking, altering, correcting, reading and writing” (p. 49), is equally applicable to the organization.

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[O]ur surroundings are completely inscribed . . . Our starting points are therefore that the worlds around us are carefully and completely inscribed, much like the worlds of science, and that the majority of these inscriptions are author/iz/ed by organizations, not persons. (Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998: 363) The next section considers some of the literature which examines the nature of representation and inscription and how such constructs might apply to the study of accounting and other practices in organizations. The paper proceeds in the following section to describe the organization and outline the research methods deployed in the site. Then two sections are used to present the case material. In the first of these, aspects of the production process and costing system are described. The second of these sections provides additional material which is theorised to indicate the role of inscriptions within the organization. In addition this section presents material, which indicates the persistent problems of data recording and capture within the organization’s information systems. This is followed by a discussion section which reconsiders aspects of the case data and analysis and emphasises the main theme that emerged during the research. The paper ends with brief concluding comments.

2. Actor networks and the construction of representations Accounting may be seen as an artefactual device implicated in the structuring of social relations and society. The role of this artefactual device is played out within organizations and within society in the form of influential representations of masses of heterogeneous data. The case section of the paper seeks to provide evidence as to the nature of representation and inscription in accounting. The case reported in this paper provides a description of accounting as a representational device in the sense used by writers in the sociology of science literature (Callon, 1986; Knorr Cetina, 1999; Latour, 1987, 1999; Latour and Woolgar, 1986). This paper takes a strongly ANT line which needs to be differentiated from the literature which provides a view of technology as just a prop in a socially construction world. ANT holds out the possibility that we can bring in something of “technology as a physical reality” (Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998: 366; see also Latour, 1999), which is missing from conventional studies of organization. The actor-network view of science is as “a process of ‘heterogeneous engineering’ in which bits and pieces from the social, the technical, the conceptual, and the textual are fitted together, and so converted (or ‘translated’) into a set of equally heterogeneous scientific products” (Law, 1992). Latour (1987) writes of the ‘fabrication’ of scientific facts and technical artifacts (see also Bloomfield et al., 1992; Knorr Cetina, 1981). Latour (1987) argues that we ought to ’follow the actors’ in order to identify the ways in which they associate the various elements that make up technoscience (Callon, 1986; Hughes, 1971). The idea of following the actors is based on a need to establish how the networks of which they are a part operate. Such programmes of research suggest that scientific knowledge should be treated as a culture like any other form of knowledge (Knorr Cetina, 1999). The practices of knowledge production in the laboratory may be seen as a key to understanding the practical knowledge of the scientist. The thesis of this paper is that we can apply a similar logic to understanding what

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constitutes knowledge in organizations. Accountants, amongst others, produce knowledge of the organization through their day-to-day practice and the inscriptions they fabricate (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Robson, 1992). We need to be able to focus our research on the interactions that lead to these fabrications in order to provide an more adequate understanding of accounting. Representation is a central part of contemporary society. Latour and Woolgar’s, Laboratory Life (1979), translated the notion of inscription and representation from literary to social theory. Joerges and Czarniawska have described this view of the practice of scientists and their reliance upon inscriptions and technology as the “making-up” of scientific facts: Instead of producing mirror-like images of nature, they were discovered busily, almost compulsively, inscribing the world around them. Literary inscription, performed with the aid of inscription devices, turned out to be the core activity of life in the laboratory. (Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998: 363) The thesis of this paper concerns the way in which we can see analogous situations and contexts applying in accounting practice (Lowe, 2001b; Robson, 1992). Accountants spend much of their daily lives constructing or reconstructing inscriptions and providing representations of their organization or of other organizations. Other groups are similarly, intimately linked in their practice to material worlds (Knorr Cetina and Bruegger, 2002, apply these ideas to foreign exchange dealers). The logic of representation is fundamental to the understanding and analysis of accounting in organizations. Techniques of representation are based on a principle of economy, or abbreviation. This is an economy of convenience in which the affairs of the world are made pliable, wieldable and therefore amenable to human use through technologies of representation (Cooper, 1992: 257). Zuboff (1988) identifies three specific features of representation and its technologies in organizations: (1) Remote control—symbols and electronic devices substitute for direct human involvement with the raw material and thus abstract thought from action “. . . immediacy, and organic responsiveness are superseded by distance, coolness, and remoteness” (1988: 75). (2) Displacement—organizational activity consists of a series of displacements or transformations along informational networks (1988: 180). (3) Abbreviation—techniques of representation including accounting and information technology, abbreviate complexity by simplifying and aggregating from more detailed data (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Robson, 1991, 1992; Zuboff, 1988). Though Zuboff associates these concepts—remote control, displacement and abbreviation with information technology they are also central features of accounting’s representational techniques (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Robson, 1991, 1992). The concepts characterise all techniques of representation, however, ordinary and unobtrusive. These features of representation help us to understand organizations as organisers of information. These qualities of accounting because, perhaps, of their mundane ordinary nature have been neglected in organizational analysis.

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Representation enables economy through mobility. The mobility of representation helps us to understand why paperwork of all kinds is so essential to organizations. It is through mobility that remote control is made possible. These characteristics of representation and inscription are what Latour describes as “immutable mobiles”. . . . inscriptions are mobile, flat, reproducible, still and of varying scales, they can be reshuffled and recombined. (Latour, 1994; 45) By means of inscriptions events that are remote in space and time can be instantly collated in paper, or electronic, form. This is achieved through displacement. Displacement is effected by bringing remote events near while, at the same time, keeping them at a remove through the intervention of representations. The power of representation enables those at the centre to control an event at a distance “is a form of displacement in which, representation is always a substitution for or representation of the event and never the event itself” (Cooper, 1992: 257; see also Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Latour, 1994; Law, 1996). In placing such emphasis on the constitutive power of representation the concept of the boundary comes into its own. “No inside is conceivable . . . without the complicity of an outside on which it relies” (Starobinski, 1975: 342). There is no objective fact given inside and outside. The organization is mediated by and mediates its environment in the very act of negotiating its boundaries. In this way, inside and outside, organization and environment, continually displace each other. Similar ideas can be used to interpret the way within organizational boundaries among organizational units or areas of specialism manager their own relationships. Remote control and displacement are insufficient to pull off this creation of organizational “reality” alone. Abbreviation makes possible the economy of convenience that underlies representation (Cooper, 1992; see also Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Latour, 1994; Law, 1996). Abbreviation simplifies the complex, provides the instantaneous picture and makes the big into the small. The “real thing” is reduced or “condensed” into the model or representation as much as is needed is condensed into as little as is needed so as to enable ease of perception and “appropriate” action. Through abbreviation, inscriptions and representation are made compact, versatile and calculable. This is central to accounting practices (Lowe, 2001b; Robson, 1992, 1994). To study accounting we need to get as close as we are able to accounting practices in the field. From an ANT perspective the mobility and the immutability of the technology, the black boxes,1 and the inscriptions are paramount. The strength of the “facts” is related to the manner in which the actor network holds together and particularly the way in which it is constructed incorporating materiel. Materiel in the context of the research presented later 1 The term black box refers to a theoretic interpretation, associated with Latour, which forms one of the key assumptions of ANT. It is based on a view of the “fact production process” which asserts the tendency for facts to become more or less solid and relied upon. According to Latour (1987) the fact production process can be envisaged as a continuum with unsubstantiated claims at one extreme and technological objects at the other. According to Latour facts become more ‘solid’ as they are accepted unquestioningly, they are black boxed. Latour describes such issues within a technological setting by referring to the incorporation of facts and ideas into technological equipment. At this stage of the process the facts become opaque to the actors as unless and until the technology is questioned and the black boxes disassembled.

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in the paper includes manufacturing plant but also and most significantly paper inscriptions which are used to abbreviate and represent or translate the production process. For Latour (1996, 1999) it is the interconnectedness of the actor network among human and non-human actors which increases the facticity of the construct or inscription. In this context knowledge production processes rely on the technologies of representation and inscription and also as a consequence, on the material of the production settings themselves—the laboratory and all its equipment (Knorr Cetina, 1999). The power of any inscriptions derives from, and contributes to the strength of the networks within which they are fabricated. Seemingly trivial elements within a network may be critical to maintaining its credibility. Latour (1996, 1999) suggests that many weak connections may produce a strong network in aggregate. Inscriptions which have the backing of such a network may be seen as very convincing (see also Lowe, 2001a; Law, 1997). Yet individual elements of the actor network if examined closely may appear rather weak, easily disrupted or problematised. Most of the time, networks produce representations we take for granted and routinely take action on the basis of. Only when a crisis occurs, or some breakdown in the network becomes apparent do we experience previously accepted representations being problematised as the ‘black boxes’ which produce them become more transparent and open to scrutiny. Later in the paper we use this concept of actor networks to structure our discussion of two competing organizational groupings (networks) which are vying for managerial attention and backing. Non-human actants are things—commonly called “natural” or “technical,” but usually not considered ‘social’ in their own right by social scientists. Indeed it is the incorporation of these non-human actors into social theorising which is a central concern of writers who use approaches-based ANT. Conventional social scientists, including researchers of organizations, have demonstrated a persistent unwillingness to account conceptually for the peculiar agency of material technical artefacts (Knorr Cetina, 1997; Latour, 1993, 1994). This paper seeks to incorporate the “technical” by investigate the use of some very simple, routine production records. These inscriptions are typical of the primary recording of the production processes upon which many businesses rely for their accounting reports. The case section of the paper examines the effect of these production records on the reporting systems that they feed information into. In the case organization this concerns primarily the accounting reports but also the production and quality management systems of the company. The contribution of the paper is to provide a rich, but necessarily limited illustration of the role of these mundane, repetitive reporting systems on ways of organising and representing the firm. The paper proceeds in the next section to describe the organization and outline the research methods deployed in the site.

3. The organization and research methods This part of the paper consists of two sections which introduce the case organization. The first section describes the organization. The second section briefly outlines the research methods.

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3.1. The organization SKA is a joint venture between Wayhad Holdings a diversified conglomerate in Malaysia, and Keramo N.V., a Belgian company. The company was established in 1990 and commenced operations in 1993 with an initial investment of approximately RM40 million.2 Keramo supplied the technical expertise of clay pipe manufacturing technology. Since 1993 SKA has supplied fully glazed vitrified clay pipes (VCPs) to construction and development projects, mainly for sewerage and drainage purposes. Situated on a 4 ha piece of land, the factory is equipped with advanced VCP production technology and has an installed annual production capacity of 24,000 tonnes. SKA’s main products, accounting for 80% of turnover, consists of VCPs pipes of three different sizes of 150, 225 and 300 mm. The products are manufactured under stringent control and fully comply with international standards, including MS 1228:1991 Code of Practice for the Design and Installation of Sewerage Systems, BS EN 295:1991 (European standard) and Germany’s DIN 1230. In 1995 SKA achieved ISO 9002 certification for manufacturing quality. Today SKA is Malaysia’s only factory that manufactures fully glazed VCPs conforming to international standards. SKA is also one of the largest manufacturers of fully glazed VCPs in Southeast Asia with a workforce of about 100. The company’s competitive position is assisted by the transfer of technology from its European partner. SKA aims to offer a complete solution for waste water treatment for the growing Asian market. 3.2. Research methods The paper seeks in part to respond to the call for in-depth, interpretive case research (Ahrens and Dent, 1998). Ahrens and Dent identify the in-depth study of a single organization through an interpretive “organizational” style as likely to be the most successful approach to providing rich understandings of organizational practices (see also Gherardi, 2000; Gherardi and Nicolini, 2000). The research consisted primarily of participant observation within the accounting and production areas of the company. Relevant textual material was also examined including both formal records authorized by the organization and informal records compiled by individuals for their own purposes (Preston, 1986). The original purpose of the research project was to gather information on the company’s accounting and production systems. The site was chosen as a result of a chance meeting between one of the researchers and the financial manager. The finance manager had indicated that the company were considering implementing a standard costing system. One of the researchers carried out visits to all production departments within the organization. This process was exploratory and took place alongside an extensive series of semi-structured and un-structured interviews. In all site visits extended over 4 months. Twenty-six interviews were held and five meetings attended. These interviews covered a range of people within different parts of the organization. They included a number of people in managerial positions, such as production, accounting and engineering. Interviews were also carried out with production staff, internal transport and security people. 2 RM, or Ringgit Malaysia, is the official currency of Malaysia. Exchange rate is approximately five Ringit to one Euro.

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Fig. 1. The vitrified clay pipe manufacturing process.

Additional modes of data gathering were adopted during the course of the study. These included: observation of the manufacturing process and the examination of company accounting records and documents for a period of 3 years. The other documents studied included operation manuals (documented for ISO 9002 purposes). Comparisons were made between documented and actual practices. This involved obtaining access to the informal records of workers and supervisory staff at the plant in addition to observation of the manufacturing process.

4. Description of the existing production system This section describes some basic features of the VCP production process (see Fig. 1). The manufacture of vitrified clay pipes has changed very little over time. The basic elements of the process are little changed from Victorian times. The process has been automated to increase the volume of manufacture—but other than this increased use of mechanisation the manufacturing process and the recipes of material inputs are little changed. The manufacture of VCPs involves mainly the use of natural clays.3 In the Box Feeders, mixed clays are crushed again before being conveyed into the Wet Pan Mill, where the mixture is shattered once more and water is dosed via a gate valve. The discharge is then fed into the Fine Roller Mill, in which the already heavily crushed clays are rolled into thin slices measuring less than 2 mm in thickness, thereby also grinding down any stones present. All rejected pipes (fired) and firing-scraps to be used for grog are broken down and then enter the Grog Vibrator Feeder to grind down the crushed grog to the required particle sizes. The output is then fed into the Jaw Crusher and Hammer Mill for yet

3

All clays used for production are sourced from Batang Berjuntai in the state of Selangor.

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another round of grinding process. In the Mogensen Screen, the crushed grog is sieved into fine, dry powder before being stored in the silos, waiting to be dosed with crushed clays.4 The clay mixture then goes into the Double Shaft Mixer, where water is added again to obtain the right plasticity for the extrusion and moulding process. The clay body is then fed into the Circular Screen Feeder which further homogenises the clay body by the movement of its paddles.5 Final clay body discharged from the Circular Screen Feeder is then transferred into one of three storage “boxes” where they are kept for ageing purposes for at least 36 h before being used in production. Following the ageing process clay is moulded into the required pipe shapes and lengths through three vertical extruders. All extruded pipes are then transferred to the dryer chambers, where they are dried for approximately 40 h at a maximum temperature of 110 ◦ C. Once the pipes are dried, they are checked for bending, blisters and cracks. If defects exceed 50%, the whole batch is rejected. Otherwise, the pipes are sent for paraffin and glaze dipping. Pre-heating and firing6 complete the production process. Rejected pipes will either be sent for cutting (to be sold as short pipes) or transferred to the grog stockyard. This section has given a brief description of the key physical steps in the production process. As with any manufacturing system it is ‘controlled’ and tracked through a simplified arrangement of representations. In the next section we will examine a few important elements of the accounting and production networks. This will take the form of a limited illustration of the paper inscriptions on which production planners, manufacturing supervisors and accountants relied in making their contribution to management perceptions of company activities.

5. Production records: inaccurate representations become immutable objects The discussion in this section seeks to relate what we observed in the organization to the some of the key elements of the theory we described earlier. In particular we will focus on a limited aspect of the production records. It is these routinised paper inscriptions of the manufacturing process which underlay the accounting reporting system. We will describe some of the paper records which feed data into the production and accounting systems of the case organization to illustrate the role of inscriptions. These paper inscriptions abbreviate (Cooper, 1992) the production process and enable the displacement (Cooper, 1992; see also Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Latour, 1994; Law, 1996) of information which is used to represent aspects of the performance of the firm at the centre in the accounting reports that are produced. Our discussion will highlight the rather uninspiring, inaccurate and unreliable nature of these paper inscriptions. Nevertheless the inscriptions are effective within the organization and prove to be acceptable to management. This demonstrates the idea that individually weak inscriptions and connections may produce a strong network in aggregate (Latour, 1996, 1999; see also Law, 1996, 1997; Lowe, 2001a). 4

Grog is an important stabilising agent for the subsequent sintering process. The action of these paddles squeezes the clay body out of a perforated side screen by force. 6 This is carried out in the fully computerised shuttle kiln, which is equipped with high velocity burners and automatic exhaust dampers that control the internal pressure to obtain the optimum firing conditions. 5

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The section will describe in some detail a single area of data collection from the organization’s production control and quality reporting systems. Other areas that were examined will be discussed very briefly to indicate broadly the environment within the production data collection system. The illustration chosen for exposition is an important indicator of the role of a specific document. The document we focus on is the glaze preparation usage record (see Fig. 2) which although it is hand written and rather unimposing provides a critical part of the manufacturing records of the case company. There is no attempt to cover the entire information system or to trace the network linkages throughout the organization. The example given in this part of the paper is illustrative of the production records upon which the accounting representations rely. These paper objects that we focus on are central to the network of relations within the organization that we will briefly sketch in the discussion section of the paper. The example in this section involves inscriptions that play a role simultaneously in both the accounting and production networks. It is the effectiveness of the incorporation of these objects within each of the networks that is the object of our research. It is these objects which provide the glue which produces, more or less believable facts, and support the acceptance of one network’s interpretations over another (Law, 1997). The networks exist in large part to provide representations of the organization. The inscriptions and representations that we describe convey to people in the organization significant images of how the organization is performing, but also contribute to how it is perceived much more generally, by outside stakeholders (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997b; Lowe, 2001b). 5.1. Clay delivery, inventory and preparation recording The primary raw material in VCP production consists of a mixture of natural clays. The stockyard is listed along with other clay preparation equipment in Fig. 1 at the start of the production process. Very large quantities of clay are required for the production process. Examination of inventory and production records produced a number of areas of concern in relation to the gross inaccuracies in many of the company reports. The means of recording stock usage were rather haphazard producing significant discrepancies which required frequent inventory checks. Other concerns included: the incomplete recording of daily production data; failure to update production data within the computerised system; absence of a clear cut-off point in accounting for monthly production volume and inadequate scrap and spoilage reporting. In the grog preparation area it was revealed that no attempt was made to measure the quantity of grog transferred into production. Consumption was estimated based on a historic average ratio of clay–grog mixture used. Essentially a long established ‘rule of thumb’. Records of raw clay delivery, clay and grog usage were unreliable. In the case of delivery the three departments involved, quality assurance, production and security, could not agree that any one set of records would be treated as authentic. As a consequence there was no agreement on which data should be given primacy. Stock counts were conducted7 to determine the amount of clay available at the end of each month. This was to permit the 7

Using the formula: weight (in tonnes) = height of stock pile × width × length × density factor of 1.4.

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Fig. 2. Glaze preparation “informal” usage record.

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computation of monthly clay consumption using the periodic inventory system. Action was regularly required to adjust the book values of each of these materials to reflect their actual quantities as revealed by physical inventory checks. Differences would not unusually be 50% of book value. The manufacturing process we are concerned with here does uses relatively low value raw materials but this is true of the final product also so failure to track production and stock values would still be of concern from and accounting and audit perspective. 5.2. Glazing and firing: glaze preparation and milling One of the critical stages in the manufacturing process, depicted earlier see Fig. 1 (and discussion in earlier section), is toward the end of the production process where the extruded raw clay pipes are glazed and fired. This is a key stage in the process of turning largely natural ingredients into the finished product, various styles and sizes of VCPs. It is at this point that important quality issues arise and questions of production efficiencies and capacity utilisation are critical. We describe some of the key data collection documents associated with this stage of production next. Two documents were kept to record the daily quantities of glaze materials consumed; one being glaze preparation which was filled out whenever glaze milling took place, while the other was the monthly summary report (MSR) produced at the end of each month (see Fig. 3). These are the basic documents which are used to provide abbreviated data, material consumption, of the manufacturing process and provide it, or displace it, from the ‘shop floor’ to the laboratory, production planning and the accounting office (Cooper, 1992). Both these documents were inscribed by the production worker in charge of the milling process. However, since the glaze preparation usage sheets had to be sent daily to the laboratory to accompany glaze sample examinations, the operator had to maintain his own “informal” (see Fig. 2) record based on the daily sheets to allow him to generate the MSR at the month end. Prior to August 1997, total glaze consumption figures were derived from the MSR. However, a new assistant foreman was transferred to the Setting Department in mid-1997. From that time glaze usage was determined by way of a formula determined by the laboratory. This was achieved by multiplying the standard pre-determined total weight of glaze materials consumed per milling by the number of days the milling process took place during that month. This meant that the MSR was still used to provide the data on number of process cycles. When analysed both the total usage recorded in the MSR and the quantities calculated by the assistant foreman differed significantly. It was the latter that was used for costing purposes. The accuracy of these calculated figures as reported by the assistant foreman were highly questionable. Further analysis of the glaze preparation usage reports revealed that some reports never reached the laboratory. This had resulted in an understatement of the use of materials. It was possible to establish that these missing reports accounted for the understatement of actual consumption of glaze material by between 5 and 10% during the previous 4 months. Further underreporting was also apparent since up to two cycles of milling process took place during a typical day, but sometimes only one cycle was recorded in the glaze

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Fig. 3. Glaze preparation monthly summary report (MSR) for August 1997.

preparation report. The manner in which this information could so easily be missed can be seen in Fig. 2. For each date recorded in the handwriting in the document shown in Fig. 2 it can be seen that there are at least two and sometimes more entries. The slash drawn across the final number on each entry is used by the operator to indicate that a production cycle has been completed. On each of these days at least one production cycle is shown as having been completed. This information was not always recorded correctly on the glaze preparation report.

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The glaze preparation reported production was usually less than that recorded in the MSR. Unfortunately it transpires that using the MSR would not give any greater reliability over this period. A thorough check on these reports revealed an overstatement of more than 1200 kg of total glaze materials used in August due to an arithmetical error, while in November paraffin wax usage was overstated by 100 kg because of a similar mistake. The significance of the record depicted in Fig. 2 is comprehensively understated by the appearance of the document itself. The document is in all ways quite informal and unelaborate. A series of simple pen marks on the pages of a note book. Fig. 2 serves quite beautifully to illustrate the frailty of the underlying data collection documents from which the accounting system drew its product costing input. In the circumstances described the inscriptions are seen to be fundamentally rather weak and unreliable (Latour, 1996, 1999; see also Law, 1996, 1997; Lowe, 2001a). These authors commonly conclude that inscriptions may be inherently weak but nevertheless support a robust network of relations. The inaccuracy and weakness of an inscription does not necessarily affect its durability, mobility, combinability or immutability. Numerical inscription inherently provide ideal subjects for aggregation—resulting in the ability to abbreviate information and depict easily in report or graphical form large amounts of information. It is only when the inscription is examined carefully entailing its abstraction from its network of relations that it may be seen in the light of its individual frailty. Only at such times does the inscription become visible. The analysis presented above illustrates some severe weaknesses in the basic processes of data collection and inscription at SKA. Such problems of the reliability of data may call into question the ability of the inscriptions to provide a convincing representation of the organization and its processes. As indicated earlier inscriptions can when established be treated for long periods as unproblematic, achieving the status of closed black boxes (Bloomfield, 1991, 1995; Latour, 1994, 1996; Lowe, 1997, 2001b). Inaccuracies in the production data do not automatically undermine either the accounting or production networks and open the black box for scrutiny. The solidity of the representation, its power to convince and its resistance to problematisation is subject to what may be a very gradual process of challenges or uncertainties which may arise in rather unpredictable ways. Each of these events or changes may seem insignificant in themselves. The influence of the network of relations is dependant on a complex interplay of interrelationships (Latour, 1994, 1996; Law, 1996, 1997; Star, 1996). These are constituted, in-part, by the intricate network connections and the strength of the network nodes. It is just this sort of complexity that makes it difficult to challenge the position of the networks without considerable effort. It is this issue of the strength of the ‘opposing’ networks which will be taken up in the next section of the paper. In the case company the somewhat unreliable and inaccurate inscriptions nevertheless provided a solid base which held the networks together. The next section seeks to illustrate some aspects of the network of relations on which the accounting recording and reporting system relies. The intention of the discussion is to indicate the essentially fragile nature of these relations and the associated inscriptions which make up the network on which the accounting reports depend. The discussion in this section will open up the ‘black boxes’ (Latour, 1987) of the accounting system and illustrate the mutability of its source data and inscriptions.

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6. Accounting numbers become mutable artifacts This section provides some illustrative material from the case which indicates why this “black boxing” could not be maintained by the accountants at SKA. At SKA the politicisation of the fact production process played out against management concerns about conformance with international quality management requirements. As indicated earlier quality certification was achieved in 1995 . . . the company having commenced the process in 1993. Later in this section we will speculate that it was, at least in part, this management interest in quality certification that seemed to provide the production department with the means to maintain its boundary and resist attempts by the accountants to challenge their inscription of the production process. The concerns initially expressed by the companies auditors unsettled the accounting representations and led to the ‘accounting’ network being seen as inaccurate and ineffective. The association among the heterogeneous objects of which the accounting network was composed became weakened and the black boxing of accounting reporting was opened (Latour, 1996; Law, 1997, 1999; Lee and Hassard, 1999) as the deficiencies in the production records was made apparent by the accountants. The initial concerns about inaccuracies within the accounting reports which were based on the production records we described earlier had been raised by the company auditors at a meeting in February, 1994. Subsequent reports prepared by the auditors for management in 1995 and 1996 had recommended that the company introduce standard costing as a solution to the production accounting and costing problems they identified. Company accountants had taken the auditors concerns seriously and began to try to persuade the management team in late 1994. Company management started to show interest in the accountants and auditors concerns following the successful ISO certification in mid1995. A management decision was taken in March, 1996 to investigate more fully the problems with data recording in the manufacturing process. Earlier sections of the paper describe some of the results of within company investigations carried out by management accounting staff during 1997. The discussion in the previous section of the paper indicates the degree of inaccuracies which became apparent within one of the critical production stages that of waxing, glazing and setting (see also Fig. 1). In spite of the apparent deficiencies in these records of production the project lost momentum during late 1997/1998. In interviewees held with production people, during this period. A number of managers indicated a level of disinterest or resistance to the standard costing project: . . . it was felt that we ought to move on the points which . . . [the auditors] had made. They seemed very positive about the benefits to us. They were almost indignant that we were not already running a standard costing system. In hindsight perhaps it was also making their [the auditors] work more difficult. (Factory Manager) What they [the accountants] never seemed to really appreciate was the commitment of production people to a quality philosophy. We are not a large firm. . . we have only so many resources. Why should we place so much reliance on the accounting numbers? (Production Manager)

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Other interactions involving concerns about the value of the accounting reports were observed at monthly production team meetings and informal conversations with the researcher. Many of the production people were reluctant to change what they saw as their own systems to provide ‘better’ information to the accounting department. The “real” and perceived problems with the reliability of production data, which we described in the previous section, were reflected in the lack of co-operation between the production and the accounting departments. In some instances duplicate data were recorded. Each department kept records for its own use. The lack of co-operation between the departments extended to routine operational matters. Accounting often undertook periodic stock-takes to generate production figures in place of the production reports. When these stock-takes were conducted personnel from both departments had to be present to verify the quantity of materials observed. This is an indication of a lack of trust and cooperation between the two departments. Some in accounting were disparaging about the production records. We can’t possibly base our profit report on their [production] figures. Whenever we do stock checks we have large quantity discrepancies. Their usage figures are way out. Our profit numbers would be all over the place if we relied on their numbers (Management Accountant). These disputes were rehearsed during monthly meetings of the departmental managers. At these meetings it was invariably the case that little time was spent on the quality reports. These documents were often presented without any significant questioning. In contrast during the initial phases of the site visits, in mid-1997, the researchers noted two occasions on which the finance manager made a point of stating that the accounting reports could not be relied upon because of the faulty reporting of production data. Toward the end of the site visits, in early 1998, it was clear that the other functional managers and particularly the production manager had turned this argument to their advantage to further reduce the credibility of the accounting reports. These disputes, while superficially cover the accuracy and significance of management reports, are examples of the material which is used in the process of producing and reproducing boundaries within the organization (Llewellyn, 1994, 1998). Such disputes are the means by which departments establish themselves, gain credibility and demarcate one area from another within the organization. The acceptance of inscriptions such as those that underlie accounting reports is a function of the strength of the network which may be associated with them (Latour and Woolgar, 1986; Lowe, 2001a). The power of the inscriptions and representations of the organization are closely aligned to the strength of the network which produces them and the extent of acceptance across the organization. At SKA the production inspired quality representations of the organization came to hold pervasive influence within the organization. The importance of these images of quality products and processes to a broad representation of the management team was crucial and perhaps underestimated by the accounting function. The company had achieved recognition, in mid-1995, of its quality systems in the form of registration in conformance to ISO 9002. Conforming to ISO was felt to be a major objective by a number of staff.

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There are documents for everything . . . At times it seems more important to achieve ISO than to produce the pipes. (Wheel-loader Operator) I do my best to keep on top of production reports . . . but at times it’s a matter of making sure the reports are complete. Production comes first. Sometimes I have to write up the Glaze report after the shift ends. It’s a matter of priorities. (Milling Operator) It was important that production records appeared to be complete in order to conform to ISO. It became apparent that problems arising in the company’s costing system were very much a secondary concern to the production people. We must maintain our ISO status. There is no other way to succeed in this business. Much of our business is with government, or local government. We can’t afford to take risks with our ISO accreditation. (Setting Department Foreman) Most production staff recognised the need to keep complete records of production data for the sake of conforming to ISO 9002 procedures. The need to keep complete records was seen as much more important than accurate recording. The company managers and the production managers in particular had come to the conclusion during the ISO certification process that complete and apparently thorough production, work-in-progress and finished goods recording was a top priority. The ability to track batches through the production process and demonstrate clear quality conformance documentation was much more important than accurate material usage tracking. ISO accreditation was seen as critical to a range of key members of the management team and this was increasingly the subject of communication across production workers and staff. The company produced a monthly newsletter which regularly featured quality improvement efforts. ISO was crucial to keeping the public sector contracts which were vital to the turnover and profitability of SKA. Consequently marketing management and upwards to the CEO were keenly aware of the importance of the quality imagery which the company acquired through their ISO related processes and paper work. Conformance to ISO procedures was a priority of management over this time. This view was confirmed by several of the SKA managers and supervisors. Production people saw accounting requirements as of much lesser importance than meeting ISO quality procedures. Often concerns were channelled into direct criticism of the accounting department. Some of the operational managers were not convinced of the ability of the accounting staff to provide accurate and effective financial values from the existing production records. I can’t see the point myself. We really don’t have any use for financials in the plant. The process is just far too messy . . . and in any event by the time the financials become available it’s much too late to make the required process changes. I spend most of my time out in the plant and we just don’t need detailed variances. To manage the production process just requires a close eye on a few key areas. (Production Manager) The question of the importance of one set of inscriptions against another becomes a simple decision, at least in retrospect. The company had to have quality records to maintain ISO accreditation and its existing contracts. They needed financials to meet reporting requirements but not to a very high degree of accuracy and particularly so for their monthly

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management reporting. The bottom line was that the bottom line mattered less than ISO accreditation.

7. Discussion: the trial of strength between accounting and production We described in the previous section the way in which concerns expressed initially by the company auditors problematised the reliability of accounting reports. The auditor’s recommendation to consider the implementation of a standard costing system as a solution was taken up by the company accountants. This resulted in a management authorized investigation, some of the results of which we describe in section five of the paper. The case material has been argued to indicate developments within the organization which produced a change of emphasis within the company. This resulted in a move away from a situation where some degree of reliance was placed on accounting information and towards a focus on production and quality documentation. We theorised these changes at SKA as being a consequence of the growing influence of the production based ‘quality network’. In simple terms we might describe the competing networks which are the focus of our research in the following way. According to an ANT view the strength, or what might be described as the power, of any inscription is determined by the networks it is part of (Latour, 1996; Law, 1997, 1999; Lee and Hassard, 1999; Lowe, 2001b). In this context the accounting network can be pictured as consisting of the accounting department and all the individuals within it; the accounting software and computer systems; but also the accounting reports and their respective users both within and outside the organization. The network also would include the external auditors, since they play a role in providing authority and legitimation of the accounting reports. The accounting network can also be shown to rely on network nodes within the production system, where data collection and inscription provide information jointly to both ‘networks’. In an equivalent manner the quality network has similar characteristics. Here the network may be seen to include stores, purchasing, security, elements of accounting such as accounts payable, along with all the people and associated reporting systems. Other linkages include those with members of the management team across the organization and in turn other groups of external stakeholders, including suppliers and the quality accreditation institutions. Our explanation of developments in the previous section placed particular emphasis on the nature of relationships with customers. Our interpretation of the commercial reality of SKA was that the organization was extraordinarily dependent on extensive relationships and contracts with the Malaysian public sector. As indicated earlier a very significant proportion of turnover involved public sector contracts. These contracts all specified that all main contractors meet ISO accreditation standards. Most importantly as indicated in the previous section ISO certification and quality requirements placed much less emphasis on the accurate recording of raw material movements and production volumes than accurate accounting and costing might require. We speculate that the relative significance given to production versus accounting within the organization is related to the strength of their respective networks. These relations between production and accounting entail certain outcomes in terms of the primacy given

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to information from one source or the other by the management team. Such relatively, powerful or powerless situations then affect the ability of one group or the other to influence the representation of the organization through the data collection process. It is critical to remember that both networks are dependent on often common data. If accounting holds sway them the production people are under pressure to meet accounting ‘standards’ of data fitness but in the reverse situation accounting is unable to influence data collection and must just make do with production configured and oriented data records. Even with the redundancies that are built into the SKA system [both formally or informally] systemic errors in parallel sets of records cast doubt on the production information and especially the accounting system. Nevertheless the power of even such doubtful inscriptions of the “facts” can be surprising. The combinability of numeric inscriptions into the accounting system with other financial and non-financial data is perhaps ordinarily what provides their apparent strength (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Ezzamel, 1994; Robson, 1992). The immutability of inscriptions is gained as they are combined and represented within accounting or other information systems. They become incorporated into action nets and soon lose much of their individual essence and frailty. They start to become “black boxed” (Bloomfield, 1991, 1995; Latour, 1987, 1999; Lowe, 1997). An external criticism of the accounting system came from the company’s auditors who were unhappy with the valuation of inventory and consequent profitability numbers recorded by the company’s accountants. The external auditors recommended the company look at the implementation of a standard costing system. As a result of the auditors intervention the accounting staff found themselves engaged in a struggle to extend the boundary of their expertise into the production area (Cooper, 1992; Llewellyn, 1994, 1998). Description of the case organization in the previous sections of the paper has indicated, at least in part, the problems the accountants encountered in their efforts to establish the reliability of accounting inscriptions of the manufacturing process. Effectively the actions of the accountants in trying to respond to audit concerns revealed the deficiencies in the accounting representations. The accountants in criticising the inscriptions of the production people undermined their own representations. In the environment that ensued the accountants found themselves lacking support from top management. They were unable to convince top management of what they saw as the imperative—which was to change the record keeping processes in production to ensure greater accuracy. Having committed to a position which emphasised the problem with the company’s data collection and reporting procedures they had effectively opened their own black boxes to scrutiny. In their efforts to improve reporting the accountants unsettled their own network. This part of SKA’s accounting that was previously taken for granted was effectively problematised—in this process a part of the accounting black box was opened up and made visible to its critics. In the situation we describe the inaccuracies and errors in the information systems turn out to be damaging for the accountants but it is important to be clear that this is not a direct cause and effect relationship. The same erroneous records were also part of the production departments information set and their quality reports. These reports and the standing of the production people was enhanced, relative to that of the accountants, during this period. We might conclude that the accounting people and the users of their reports had less tolerance for ambiguity than the production people.

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In discussing the close ties between human and material elements in the processes which define workflow, Sorge argues that: “Work” may be done by machines or by humans or by a combination of the two. In the course of technical change, boundaries between human and machine work are changed, and combinations of the two also change. (Sorge, 1989: 27). For this paper such a conception applies strongly to the inscriptions, which are produced during the processes of work. The representational constructs of the production process that are described in section five of the paper, the glaze preparation reports and the MSR (see Figs. 2 and 3) inscribe aspects of the organization. These inscriptions, as we have seen, are dependent on human scribes. The inscriptions that they are comprised of seek to represent aspects of the production technologies, machines and work routines. The importance of the inscriptions then depends on the use that is made of them within the organization. In the case organization we contend that the relative value, or importance, of these inscriptions affected and was affected by the role the documents played in the networks that vied to represent the company to the managers.

8. Concluding comments This paper adds to the literature which examines intra-organizational linkages, in particular the interdependencies between accounting and production (Ahrens, 1997; Armstrong, 1987, 1989; Miller and O’Leary, 1993; Mouritsen, 1999; Preston, 1986). The case provides evidence of the competition between accountants and production people to establish the legitimacy of their representations of the organization. The theorization of the paper places the role of mundane inscriptions (Bloomfield, 1995; Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Latour, 1994; Law, 1996, 1997) of the production process centre stage. The story we are trying to present emphasises the role of inscription and the processes by which inscriptions are produced, including abbreviation and displacement (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Cooper, 1992; Robson, 1991, 1992). It is the inscriptions that sustain the organizational networks and produce ‘ordered’ organizations (Joerges and Czarniawska, 1998). The contention of the paper is that inscriptions that get ‘used’ tend to be what are available and have credibility. Such credibility, we argue, may under normal circumstances, not be much affected by disputes over things like ‘accuracy’ and ‘reliability’. Accounting and other information systems routinely construct organizational ‘facts’ and managers continue to act on them without looking behind the veil or opening the black box (Bloomfield, 1991, 1995; Lowe, 1997, 2001b) of the accountant. The organizational practices described earlier in the paper serve to explain the negotiated and constructed nature of mundane organizational representations. We believe that our case research reveals weaknesses which are not untypical of organizational accounting reporting systems. In the earlier discussion we focus attention on some very unsophisticated means of data capture. While we have given considerable space to considering the unreliable nature of the inscriptions of the production processes we describe, we have also tried to emphasise the imbued strength these inscriptions acquire through their associations within a network of relations (Latour, 1996, 1999; see also Law, 1997, 1999; Lee and Hassard, 1999; Lowe,

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2001a). The evidence from the case company indicates that only when attention is directed to the underlying nature of the inscriptions do they become problematised and their position within the network may be threatened. In the situation we describe at SKA the accountants fail to get the change in production practices that they feel is necessary to produce accurate accounting information. In the process of trying to achieve their desired outcome the accountants actions place their own network of influence over management in jeopardy. The result in the case company is the undermining of the authority and influence of accounting staff and a reduction in the reliance placed on accounting reports. Meanwhile the unreliable inscriptions continue to form the basis of the accounting reports produced. The case evidence does not suggest that the production records gained primacy because of their greater accuracy. In many instances experienced at the research site, including the discussions of the glaze preparation reports and the MSR (see Figs. 2 and 3), the recording of production data was rather haphazard. Our understanding of the case organization suggests that accounting lost ground to production because of a reluctance to give up the pretence of accuracy in the accounting reports. In the attempts made to institute standard costing this position was challenged and unsettled in regard to the reliance on the material usage, stock figures and profit numbers on the production records gleaned from the reports we referred to above. Production and quality records were, it seemed rather less infected and affected by the need to claim “accuracy”. The accountants found the production people shifting the boundaries of their work spaces in such a manner as to exclude accounting. Accounting was reduced to a peripheral activity in which it was forced to accept inscriptions from the production people rather than impose its own understandings. Accounting sought to bring the outside in (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 1997a; Briers and Chua, 2001; Law, 1996; see also Starobinski, 1975). The accountants tried unsuccessfully to colonise the production space and prepare this space for their representations of production costs and efficiencies, through a proposed standard costing system. The pragmatic attempts to apply accounting logics in a rigid manner, which we might expect of trained accountants, failed to convince the production managers. The accountants had held themselves out as being able to faithfully represent the profitability of the production process to management. Ultimately the power of non-financial inscriptions appeared to be more appealing than accounting numbers. SKA managers recognised the importance of ISO accreditation to the fortunes of the organization. The imperative of maintaining ISO and the consequent credibility with large customers was translated within the organizational networks and provided the production managers with a position of superiority which undermined the efforts of the accountants to reform aspects of the production process.

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