China Science

This paper explores the role of accounting calculations in constructing shareholder value within the context of organizational transformation in work organization. Using an intensive longitudinal case study (Conglom, a pseudonym), the paper relates innovation and experimentation in new forms of work organization to a drive for shareholder value creation. The priority given to shareholder value creation was articulated through a proliferation of accounting metrics and calculations that intermediated between the strategic preoccupation with securing financial profitability, as demonstrated by the share price, and the operational challenge of squeezing costs and improving margins to boost short-term performance through outsourcing, programme management and divestment. We interpret the discourse of shareholder value creation and the development of related accounting metrics as a hegemonic move which is central to the reassertion of capital – a development that, we contend, is symptomatic of a shift towards a more ‘despotic’ mode of capitalist reproduction [Burawoy, M., (1985). The politics of production. London: Verso], where the whip of the market, allied to notions of possessive individualism, free choice and self-determination, progressively replaces the velvet glove of the corporatist state. Earlier drafts of this paper have been presented at the Accounting, Organizations & Society Conference on “Accounting, Organizational Transformation and New Organizational Forms”, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 4–6 November 1999, Warwick University, January 2001, Keele University, March 2001, the European Accounting Association Congress, Copenhagen, April 2002, and Caledonia University, Glasgow, May 2002.

Mahmoud EzzamelaEmail:ezzamel@Cardiff.ac.uk?Hugh Willmotta?Frank Worthingtonb
[a]Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Aberconway Building, Cardiff CF10 3EU, United Kingdom;[b]University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom