Explaining the Concept of Inscription in Accounting and its Effect in Performing Organizational, Business and Social Innovations

The aim of this paper is to explain the concept of inscription in accounting and its effect in performing organizational, business and social innovations. This article tries to provide space for reflecting on whether there is a positive role that accounting inscriptions play beyond a positivist belief in its representational powers and a constructivist approach that leads to the creation of powerful and dominating institutions, be this ‘science’ or ‘accounting’. The method of this paper is scientific-philosophical and based on the method of historical recognition that has examined the term inscription and its relationship with accounting. In this regard, both accounting critical and intellectually studies have been used, and has been used by the Latour’s actor-network theory. The consequence of accounting inscriptions is that the performative role that accounting inscriptions warrant within organizational discourses and their assembled concepts, as accounting and reporting engage with the promises that these discourses and concepts entail for stakeholders and society. Although these promises are often ambiguous, they foster hopes and beliefs for dealing and coping with the complex and uncertain world in which organizational discourses unfold. This is in line with the inscriptions feature, which is to reduce the complexities of the world and produce standardized measures that make it manageable and remove of chaos and create of stable.