Contrasting Involvements

Drawing on interviews and observations in matched pairs of firms, Contrasting Involvements explores the differences between management accounting practices in Britain and Germany. The author deals with contrasting Anglo-German approaches, particularly regarding how organizational members verbally mobilize accounting, how management accountants relate their craft to processes of strategy-making, and how accounting becomes implicated in organizational processes of accountability. These three themes point towards specific appreciations of the reality of accounting and management by organizational members in the two countries. Ahrens gives readers a sense of the immediacy with which accounting practitioners in both countries appreciate their craft, while emphasizing that they have different kinds of knowledge. Detailed examples illustrate how different enactments of organizational structures can be related to management accountants' contrasting involvements in organizational action.