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The Sacred And The Secular: The Variable Significance Of Accounting In A Religious Organization, P. Booth

Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers

There is a growing body of accounting literature that argues for the need to understand accounting as embedded in the social contexts within which it was developed and is used (for example, Berry et al, 1985; Burchell et al, 1980; Chua, 1988; Hopwood, 1978, 1983; Nahapiet, 1988; Preston, 1986). Instead of seeing accounting practices as functionally or dysfunctionally fitted to the organization, this literature tends to view them as reflexive constructions of the everyday activities of the members within their organizational and social context; as the result of specific organizational and social historical patterns. This focus replaces a concern with …