Accounting, Organizations and Society｜2016年第12期目录摘要

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注：1、本文是平台常设的特色栏目—“文献速递”，推出的系列分享。会计学术联盟微信公众号（KJXSLM）致力于做自己的原创品牌，做接地气的事儿，为海内外华人会计学者的成长服务。

Accounting, Organizations and Society

Volume 55,   (November 2016)

1. How the timing of performancefeedback impacts individual performance 

Todd A. Thornock

2. Performance measurement inglobal governance: Ranking and the politics of variability

Afshin Mehrpouya, Rita Samiolo

3. Accounting institutions astruce: The emergence of accounting in the governance of transnational mailflows

Alan J. Richardson, Eksa Kilfoyle

4. Organizational and epistemicchange: The growth of the art investment field

Erica Coslor, Christophe Spaenjers

5. Social impact bonds: Thesecuritization of the homeless

Christine Cooper, Cameron Graham, DarleneHimick

6. Investor reactions tomanagement earnings guidance attributions: The effects of news valence,attribution locus, and outcome controllability

Wei Chen, Jun Han, Hun-Tong Tan

7. The impact of task interruptionon tax accountants' professional judgment

James H. Long, K. Asli Basoglu

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1. How the timing of performance feedback impactsindividual performance 

Todd A. Thornock

Accounting,Organizations and Society,2016(55):1-11.

Abstract：Using a multi-step task setting wherelearning can help improve individual task performance, I experimentally examinethe effect of the timing of performance feedback in an initial period on futuretask performance when this feedback is absent. I find an inverted-U relationbetween the timing of feedback and future performance. When feedback isprovided before implementation of an initial decision, high learning costsdiscourage individuals from learning in the initial period to the detriment offuture performance. Further, when feedback is provided after extended delaysbeyond implementation of a decision, learning costs increase relative to thosepresent when feedback is provided after a short delay, resulting in lowerlearning and future performance. As such, I find that providing feedbackimmediately following implementation of a decision most effectively promoteslearning and future performance as this is the point at which learning costsare lowest. My study extends prior research on feedback timing by incorporatingthe notion that learning costs fluctuate throughout the phases of a multi-steptask and offers practical implications for designing performance evaluation andfeedback systems.

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2. Performance measurement in global governance:Ranking and the politics of variability

Afshin Mehrpouya, Rita Samiolo

Accounting,Organizations and Society,2016(55):12-31.

Abstract：The past thirty years have witnessed thespread of rankings, ratings and league tables as governance technologies whichaim to regulate the provision of public goods by means of market pressures.This paper examines the process of company analysis underlying the productionof a ranking known as the Access to Medicine Index. We conceptualize the Indexas a “regulatory ranking” with the explicit mission of addressing a perceivedregulatory gap and market failure: the lack of access to medicine in the GlobalSouth. The Index, which ranks the world's largest pharmaceutical companies withregards to their access to medicine policies and practices, aspires to helpaddress the problem of access to medicine through stakeholder consultation,transparency and competition. This study unbundles the epistemic workunderlying the performance measurement process leading to the creation of theIndex. We trace how the goal of stakeholder consensus, the need to projectobjectivity and the aspiration to govern through competition shape analysts'epistemic work. We discuss how through notions such as “the good distribution”and “aspirational indicators”, performance measurement and ranking becomeentangled in a “politics of variability” whereby company data need to bevariably interpreted in order to optimise the possibilities of intervening incompanies through competitive pressures, while at the same time complying withthe imperatives to remain in the space of perceived stakeholder consensus andto provide a faithful representation of companies performance to inform publicdebates. We reflect on the challenges posed by these analysis processes for theregulatory aspirations of the ranking.

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3. Accounting institutions as truce: The emergence ofaccounting in the governance of transnational mail flows

Alan J. Richardson, Eksa Kilfoyle

Accounting,Organizations and Society, 2016(55): 32-47

Abstract：The Universal Postal Union (UPU) is theUnited Nations special agency that coordinates the international mail system.At its inception in 1875 the UPU eliminated the use of accounting for mailflows between member countries as a means of reducing mundane transaction costs(Richardson & Kilfoyle, 2009). This situation continued until 1969 whentransfer pricing (terminal dues) for the delivery of mail exchanged andservices provided between countries was introduced. This article explains theuse of accounting by the UPU to coordinate the international postal systemdrawing on a neglected aspect of evolutionary economics (“routines-as-truce”).Specifically, we show that the original accounting rules had distributionalconsequences within the organization, that knowledge to reform the rules wasavailable but not fully incorporated into revised rules, and that the evolutionof the rule provided a “quasi-resolution” of the conflict that motivated therule change. The case explores the institutional work used to maintain theoriginal “no accounting” rule and to bring about institutional change to allowthe use of accounting in the management of international postal flows.

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4. Organizational and epistemic change: The growth ofthe art investment field

Erica Coslor, Christophe Spaenjers

Accounting,Organizations and Society, 2016(55):48-62

Abstract：What can studying the creation of knowledgetell us about how new technical fields emerge and develop? This paper shows howa knowledge community may be necessary to support the legitimacy of newproducts that undergo performance evaluation before purchase. Using historicaland ethnographic data covering half a century, we review the growth of the artinvestment field through an epistemic cultures lens. Technical knowledge aboutthe financial characteristics of art has been developed alongside practical knowledgeabout how best to structure investment ventures. Investment venture success hasbeen determined by legitimacy as much as by profitability, given durableexpectations about the evaluation and monitoring of investments. The growth ofknowledge, practices and tools was thus a necessary condition for therecognition of artwork as an asset class. Crucially, the epistemic culturesapproach highlights deepening knowledge, resources and professional expertise,and their development through experimentation, failures and negative knowledge.This shows accounting issues contributing to technical field legitimacy andemergence, such as the role of knowledge production, valuation practices andreceptive environments, and the distinction between legitimate investments thatcan be valued and investment venture profitability.

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5. Social impact bonds: The securitization of thehomeless

Christine Cooper, Cameron Graham, DarleneHimick

Accounting,Organizations and Society, 2016(55):63-82

Abstract：This paper examines the recent phenomenon ofsocial impact bonds (SIBs). Social impact bonds are an attempt tomarketize/financialize certain contemporary, intractable “social problems”,such as homelessness and criminal recidivism. SIBs rely on a vast array ofaccounting technologies including budgets, future cash flows, discounting,performance measurement and auditing. As such, they represent a potentiallypowerful and problematic use of accounting to enact government policy. Thispaper contains a case study of the most recent in a series of SIBs, the LondonHomelessness SIB, focusing on St Mungo's, a London-based charitable foundationthat was one of two service providers (charities) funded by the SIB. The casestudy is intended to enable a critical reflection on the rationalities thatunderpin the SIB. For this purpose, the paper draws upon Michel Foucault's workon biopolitics and neoliberalism. The SIB is thoroughly neoliberal in that itis constructed upon an assumption that there is no such thing as a socialproblem, only individuals who fail. The SIB transforms all participants in thebond, except perhaps the homeless themselves, into entrepreneurs. The homelessare instead “failed entrepreneurs” who become securitized into the potentialfuture cash flows of investors.

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6. Investor reactions to management earnings guidanceattributions: The effects of news valence, attribution locus, and outcomecontrollability

Wei Chen, Jun Han, Hun-Tong Tan

Accounting,Organizations and Society, 2016(55): 83-95

Abstract：We conduct two experiments to investigate howinvestors react to attributions accompanying management guidance. In our firstexperiment, we find that investors provide lower earnings estimates whenmanagement attributes negative guidance news to external factors than internalfactors. When the guidance news is positive, the locus (internal versusexternal) of the attributions has no effect on investors' earnings estimates.In our second experiment, we separate out the effect of the attribution'soutcome controllability (controllable versus uncontrollable) from that ofattribution locus in a negative guidance news setting. We find that investorsprovide higher earnings estimates for internal and outcome controllableattributions than for internal and outcome uncontrollable attributionsattributions. Outcome controllability does not matter when attributions areexternal. Our study extends prior research by showing how the valence ofmanagement guidance and the characteristics of guidance attributions jointly influenceinvestors' earnings judgments.

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7. The impact of task interruption on tax accountants'professional judgment

James H. Long, K. Asli Basoglu

Accounting,Organizations and Society, 2016(55): 96-113

Abstract：Accounting professionals are frequently interrupted,and prior research suggests that task interruption could compromise the qualityof their professional judgments. This paper adopts the Goal-Based Choice Modelto predict conditions under which task interruption will: (1) exacerbateaccountants' motivated reasoning, introducing bias into their professionaljudgments, and (2) reduce performance on the interrupting task.We validate the model by conducting an experiment using experienced taxprofessionals as participants. Consistent with the expanded model'spredictions, we find that when tax professionals are highly committed to adirectional goal (minimize the client's tax liability), task interruptionexacerbates their motivated reasoning, increases their perceptions of the levelof support for an aggressive tax compliance position, bolsters their confidencein its defensibility, and compromises their ability to objectively evaluate therisks associated with the position. These factors cascade to increase thelikelihood that they will recommend an aggressive tax compliance position.Furthermore, we find that the impact of task interruption cascades toinhibit interrupting task performance. Our results suggestthat task interruption can create costly inefficiencies when these issues mustbe addressed during the review process, and that severe consequences for firmsand their clients can arise when the review process fails to identify thesedeficiencies. In addition, our results suggest that task interruption's costsmay outweigh its benefits in the context of professional judgment.

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本期小编：河北工业大学 马焕超

本期审核：北京物资学院  陈前前博士