TALKING ACCOUNTING - AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE IN BRITISH AND GERMAN BREWERS

The organisational functionings of accounting hinge on its combination with other forms of organisational knowledge in talk. This paper anal yses some of the talk observed in paired situations in British and Ger man brewers, to contrast the intertwining of accounting and other expe rtise and relate it to the enactment of different organisational order s. Through accounting talk, organisational members air their shifting conceptions of order and, thereby, point to its precariousness and amb ivalence. The focus on accounting talk emerges as an approach to the s tudy of the organisational practice of accounting which promises insig ht into the complex processes of enacting the orders which accounting engenders, their flexibility and fragility. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.