The 43 papers in this collection, originally published from 1972 to 1987 delve into accounting, observing and exploring its functioning. They construct a basis for interrogating it in use and indeed they attempt to account for accounting. The author seeks to understand accounting, to appreciate what it is, what it does and how it does it, examining it from without rather than from within.

Table of Contents:
Part 1: Getting Started: Exploring Accounting in Use 1. An Empirical Study of the Role of Accounting Data in Performance Evaluation 2. Leadership Climate and the Use of Accounting Data in Performance Evaluation 3. Problems with Using Accounting Information in Performance Evaluation Part 2: Accounting in its Organizational Context 4. Towards an Organizational Perspective for the Study of Accounting and Information Systems 5. The Organisational and Behavioural Aspects of Budgeting and Control 6. The Design of Information Systems for Matrix Organisations 7. Criteria of Corporate Effectiveness 8. Discussion of ‘Some Inner Contradictions in Management Information Systems and ‘Behavioral Implications of Planning and Control Systems’ 9. From management Information to Information Management. 10. Evaluating the Real Benefits. 11. On Trying to Study Accounting in the Context in which it operates 12. The Growth of ‘Worrying About Management Accounting’ 13. Management Accounting and Organizational Action: An Introduction 14. Accoutning and Organisational Action Part 3: Accounting and the Transformation of the Public Sector 15. Value for Money: Practice in Other Countries 16. Accounting and the pursuit of Efficiency 17. Accoutning and the Domain of the Public: Some Observations on Current Developments Part 4: Social Accounting and the Social Significance of Accounts 18. Social Accounting – The Way Ahead 19. Social Accounting 20. A Message from Mars 21. Economic Costs and Benefits of New Forms of Work Organisation 22. Economics and the Regime of the Calculative 23. The Tale of a Committee that Never Reported: Disagreements on Intertwining Accounting with the Social Part 5: Differing Rationalities and the Dynamics of Accounting Change 24. The Roles of Accounting in Organizations and Society 25. On Trying to Account for Accounting 26. The Development of Accounting in its International Context: Past Concerns and Emergent Issues 27. Accounting in its Social Context: Towards A History of Value Added in the United Kingdom 28. The Archaeology of Accounting Systems Part 6: Reflections on the Research Endeavour 29. Accounting Research in the United Kingdom 30. Issues Facing Auditing Research in the UK 31. Some Issues in Accounting Standard Setting: An Introductory Essay 32. European Accounting Research: An Introduction 33. Accounting Research and Accounting Practice: The Ambiguous Relationship Between the Two Part 7: Selected Editorial Pontifications 34. Editorial: The Path Ahead 35. Editorial: Human Resource Accounting 36, 37, 38: Editorial Accounting, Organizations and Society 39. Editorial: Accounting Research and the World of Action 40, 41, 42 Editorial, Accounting, Organizations and Society. 43. Accounting and Gender: An Introduction.