Roles and Social Construction of Accounting in Industrial Relations

This paper aims to enhance understanding of accounting concepts and practices in the industrial relations community by contrasting the alleged technical and nontechnical roles of accounting. By non-technical roles, we mean the ideological, social and perception-fashioning roles of accounting procedures and processes. Our principal contention is that the industrial relations community would benefit from improved awareness of the non-technical character of accounting—especially through alertness to the rhetorical features and social construction of accounting. Four often-unapparent nontechnical roles of accounting in industrial relations are discussed and their significance is highlighted.