In this paper the authors explore performance measurement practices in pharmaceutical companies with particular reference to the inscribing (or ‘tracing’) of pharmaceutical representatives (‘drug reps’) responsible for the promotion of prescription medications to general practitioners...

This paper proposes a critical stance on research into the rarity of women at the highest levels of accountancy. The authors aim to unravel the discourses produced on this topic in the accounting literature and question their own experience and perception as scholars building on Bourdieu’s...

This paper studies the process by which a change in the institutional logic of an organisational field diffuses through the management control system of a firm.

The investment procedure prescribes the stages and tests through which all investment projects must pass before being accepted or not. It governs the conditions of acceptability and constitutes a powerful device of a priori control. In this paper, we intend to understand how investment...

Care of the self, a technique for governing the individual in society, proves to be equally a control technique for the individual in the firm. In a firm dedicated to the cult of beauty, there is a blurring of the lines between employee and consumer individual. This blurring makes care of the...

Gender issues are examined in the French and the Anglo-Saxon accounting literatures. The authors propose an overview of the theoretical frameworks and the methodologies used in the selected articles. An analysis of the glass ceiling in the accounting profession is provided. This article...

In this paper, the authors draw from theories of cognition, in particular Piaget (1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1949, 1966, 1968) and provide some content analysis of Simons’ writings (1987, 1990, 1991, 1994, 1995, 2000), based on four categories, which stem from our interpretation of Piaget’s...

Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas the recruitement at a junior level tends to be more and more gender balanced. The aim of this paper is to propose ana analysis of the mechanisms that explain the barriers...

This paper draws on socio-institutional research on accounting technology. It underlines the ability of one type of accounting technology (performance measurement technology) to be a base for control at a distance since this technology links together discourse and calculation.