Drawing on the concept of « trial », developed by French sociologists, this article analyzes the dynamics of employees’ performance evaluation systems, particularly those involving accounting performance measures. A case study is presented as an illustration of our proposal to consider these...

Subjective assessment of an activity perception through an ergonomic approach.

Decades of accumulated knowledge empowers our quest to de-bias human cognition. However, I propose that improvement methods aimed at certain biases may introduce new biases due to cognitive and situational limitations: Such limitations give rise to simplifying and protecting processes (SPPs),...

When will knowledge holders share their knowledge with peers? Several studies suggest that norms of knowledge disclosure encourage knowledge transfer. More recently, scholars have hypothesized that norms of knowledge use may indirectly promote it. In this article, we synthesize a theoretical...

From an inquiry about three fundamental modes of knowing, we propose an interpretation of rationality as "trilogical". We come out, from that point, to the hypothesis of a trilogy of value. This hypothesis, as articulating objectal values, relational values, and political values, offers new...

While it is generally maintained that earnings management can occur to inform as well as to mislead, evidence that earnings management informs has been scarce, and evidence that credibility increases with signal costliness inexistent. We provide evidence that firms use discretion over financial...

Planning and management control in France in 1998, the major changes in the management control systems.

This article aims at bridging two dimensions that have been often addressed separately by the sociology of professional groups: intra-professional divisions and the governance of professionals. Taking professional accountants as an example, the attempt by the Institute of Chartered Accountants...

The paper reports the results of a survey of the content and learning materials used in courses in financial statement analysis in Europe and the United States. Courses in Europe and undergraduate courses in the US exhibit similar characteristics with respect to course content (heavy emphasis on...

This paper analyses and compares the basic concepts founding ABC in the French literature. It shows that the main converging and diverging points are related to the definition of basic notions (task, activity, process) and to cost calculation. The authors diverge mainly on the definition of...