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The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of the performativity theory for understanding how the calculative instruments of accounting provoke innovation and participate in the generation of values by activating processes that pervade everything rather than being limited to categorical spaces.

The paper draws on Judith Butler’s work and her notion of excitability to explain how multiple values may arise when accounting interacts with innovation. Through this lens, accounting, as a language based on signs, can be theorised as an ex-citable force involved in provoking and transforming innovation and its associated values, notably beyond innovators’ initial intentions. Thus, innovation is not a stable object but a pervasive movement diffusing multiple values.

By introducing the notion of pervasiveness, the paper argues that even if values can be imagined ab origine, they may not be contractible to a plan. The calculative instruments of accounting provoke innovation and participate in the generation of value(s) by activating processes that pervade everything rather than being limited to categorical spaces. In the course of this pervasive process, innovations, which are born to develop private interests, can possibly generate public goods.

The notion of pervasiveness the paper advances is used to challenge the division between business and social innovation. It well expresses the effects that ex-citable calculative practices put in place when interacting with innovation. It suggests that it is only possible to create productions – to assemble things – in ongoing processes, and the value(s) produced in such movements are always evolving and multiple. However, in this sense, they are social.

Knowledge is supposedly a good ally of the future. Postproject reviews aim to create knowledge and improvements based on the past, but what happens when those observations are ambiguous? Based on intriguing observations on developing structured postproject reviews, implications of the ambiguities of the past are analyzed and discussed.

The present research departed from an interactive clinical action research approach (Schein, 1987), employing several rounds of interaction over 11 months. The studied company had a clear objective to improve its project evaluations and learn from three past projects to improve future ones by developing a framework to facilitate project evaluation.

Despite top management support and a benevolent organizational climate, the development process encountered problems. The list of issues to consider grew ever more extensive, and the expected data refinement and accompanying insights did not happen. Participants debated what to observe, and there was uncertainty about how to link the elements and confusion and disagreement about what was learned.

Learning from past projects was more problematic and difficult than predicted based on the postproject review literature. The past did purvey multiple interpretations.

Learning from the past is not effective if the goal is generating causal knowledge, scoring forms and checklists for future use. Postproject reviews provide an opportunity to decide what the past should be about rather than identifying what it was about.

The past might appear stable, but, when examined, ambiguity emerges. Research on knowledge generation from postproject reviews assumes that a project’s past is more or less stable and agreed upon. However, this study addresses the critical role of ambiguity about the past and the challenges when organizations try to learn from history through project reviews and evaluation processes.

The purpose of this study is to characterise types of practices – or “routings” as they are denoted in this paper – that have been developed to incorporate non-financial inscriptions, representing value-in-kind (VIK) sponsorship resources, into accounting systems.

This study adopts field-based research, utilising Latour's (1999) concept of “circulating reference”, to illustrate how VIK (non-cash) resources were managed in an Australian sporting organization.

This paper contributes to our understanding of: first, how accounting infrastructure is constituted and stabilised by a network of multiple and overlapping accounting practices; second, how VIK resources are allocated and managed via local practices; and third, the importance of “budget relief” as a method of valuation in accounting practice.

Our paper has implications for understanding how financial and non-financial accounting inscriptions are related in practice, requiring both integration and separation within networks of multiple and overlapping routings of accounting practices.

Our work highlights previously unexplored accounting practices, which assist in the process of utilizing VIK resources in the context of a sporting organization.

The purpose of this paper is to distinguish two roles of theories, domain theory and method theory, and examine their relationships in management accounting research. Are these two roles explicitly distinguished in management accounting studies? Can this be achieved in an unambiguous manner? Where do ambitions for theoretical contribution lie in management accounting studies that employ method theories?

The authors develop a conceptual framework for analysing possible relationships between domain theories and method theories in studies and illustrate the theoretical arguments with examples from management accounting studies employing Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as their method theory.

There can be various types of relationships between domain theories and method theories, and the theoretical ambition of the analysed studies typically focused on domain theories. However, ambiguity can exist with regard to the location of a study's theoretical ambition. Both domain theories and method theories tend to be moving fields, and their interaction can add to this feature.

The suggested conceptual clarification assists in the reconciliation of extreme perspectives that relate to management accounting and theory. It will also help researchers to systematically design their own work and evaluate that of others. An increased understanding of how a field develops as a result of interaction with method theories might perhaps alleviate concerns regarding the value of mobilizing the latter.

The analysis contributes to the on-going debate on the value and effects of employing method theories, or theoretical lenses, in management accounting research.

This paper discusses how organisational transformation is situated between design and mobilisation of management control systems. Change occurs even after implementation and design can transform organisational action to the point where organisations may run wild. The procedures developed by the design are actors that over time can transform organisations radically, and this calls for others to intervene into the effects of the design. This is mobilisation where managers intervene and supplement the design with processes and procedures that take the edge in terms of unintended effects away from the designs. Therefore, the mobilisation of the design is oriented towards its rectification so that it is possible to live with it. It is suggested that design can create effects that are highly nonintuitive and that ongoing mobilisation is added all the time. Economic value Added and balanced scorecard are used as examples in this discussion, and a small empirical illustration is provided.

Intellectual capital is an important value driver in today’s organizations. Traditional financial statements do not provide the relevant information for managers or investors to understand how their resources – many of which are intangible – create value in the future. Intellectual capital statements are designed to bridge this gap by providing information about how intellectual resources create future value. Intellectual capital statements can be used as tools to communicate the knowledge‐based strategy externally but it can also be used as an internal management tool. In this article we outline the reasons for reporting intellectual capital, introduce the elements of such statements, and present a case example from a Danish mobile phone design company.

The paper discusses the role of measurement and classification in intellectual capital research. Its purpose is to develop an alternative role for measure. The aim is to explore how measurement may be important even if it does not pretend to accurately represent and underlying reality.

The paper is an essay on the difficulties of measuring intellectual capital. It is a conceptual, analytical paper which proposes a new approach to analyzing the roles and effects of measurement in the area of intellectual capital.

The analysis suggests that measurement of intellectual capital is difficult because it is not possible to copy its properties in a number; yet it is necessary because it allows intervention to happen since it develops a wholly new set of dimensions to manage. This dual conclusion both problematic because the search for a definitive measure of the size, value and effects of intellectual capital is impossible, yet it is also comforting because measurement helps develop the actions that can be made in the name of intellectual capital.

The central implication is that research should be explicit about the status of measurement in intellectual capital research since measurement does not primarily represent an underlying reality to be reported by intellectual capital. This directs attention to different purposes of measurement.

This paper explores alternative roles for measurement and suggests that it is necessary to study how measurement is input to management decision making more than a representation of an underlying reality.

This paper aims to discuss how Bruno Latour's version of actor‐network theory has influenced accounting research. It also seeks to show that Latour's writings contain unexplored potential that may inspire future accounting research.

The paper takes the form of a critical literature review and discussion.

Since the early 1990s, actor‐network theory, particularly the work of Bruno Latour, has inspired accounting researchers and led to a number of innovative studies of accounting phenomena. In particular, Latour's book, Science in Action, has been the primary source of inspiration for accounting research. This means that there is unexplored potential in Latour's more recent writings which may lead to further inspiration and research in the field of accounting.

The paper reviews only a few of the relatively large number of accounting papers that apply actor‐network theory. A different sample might have given a somewhat different picture. Furthermore, it focuses on the influence of Latour's work and refrains from discussing how the writings of Michel Callon, John Law or other thinkers within the actor‐network tradition are used in accounting research.

This is the first extensive review discussing the influence of Latour on accounting research that engages in a critical discussion of under‐explored potential in Latour's recent work.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose and illustrate the use of a set of rules to make an analytical reading of the indicators of an intellectual capital statement possible. Design/methodology/approach – The paper proposes a model to analyze intellectual capital statements and applies this model to an intellectual capital statement and an IPO prospectus, as these two reporting forms are suggested to be similar. Thus, they are analyzed using the same methodology. Findings – The paper demonstrates that it is possible to analyze prospectuses and intellectual capital statements systematically and even to compare companies on that basis. Since IPOs are often already part of the capital market's information, the similarities between reading IPOs and intellectual capital statement suggest that intellectual capital statements convey company‐specific information relevant for financial analysts. Practical implications – The paper presents an analytical model which can be used generally in the analysis of the intellectual capital statement and IPO prospectuses. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates the similarities between an intellectual capital report and an IPO prospectus. Further, the paper demonstrates the use of a theoretically anchored and practical, useful model for analysing disclosure in the narrative part of a financial report.