Experts, networks and inscriptions in the fabrication of accounting images: A story of the representation of three public hospitals

Abstract

This ethnography of three Australian hospitals seeks to understand how and why new accounting systems are “experimented” with in organizations. Latour's sociology of translation is adapted to argue that accounting change emerged not because there was certain knowledge of positive economic outcomes but because an uncertain faith, fostered by expert-generated inscriptions and rhetorical strategies, was able to tie together shifting interests in an actor network. The paper also highlights how accounting may ironically be both real and a simulation.