The purpose of this paper is to question the standards of scholarship now current in the discipline of organization studies. It does so through a close-reading of a paper which has a fair claim to seminal status, since it is widely cited within the literature and is described as seminal in a...

This is the authors final draft of the paper published as Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2006, 17 (5), pp. 529-548. The published version is available at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622813/description

Already commonplace in the private sector, the securitization of future income streams is now being promoted in the public sector as a means of accessing investment capital. This article reports on a British university's securitization of 30 years' future rents on its student accommodation....