Accounting and order: The relevance of the medium and the roles of accounting

The paper examines the relevance of accounting media and the roles played by accounting in performing the form of order that characterizes hierarchical and lateral organizations, namely collectivistic and voluntaristic order, respectively. The paper draws on Actor-Network Theory and the performativity thesis in order to develop a framework on the relation between accounting and order. An examination is fulfilled to support the arguments developed earlier. Drawing on previous published papers, we discuss risk management practice within bank-business relationships, where computer and telecommunication network constitutes the prevailing accounting medium (Kalthoff, 2005; 2011). The paper shows the relevance of the medium in affecting the accounting inscriptions it mobilizes, in defining the actors it engages, and thereby in conceiving the level of order it contributes to constructing. This is explained, drawing on Miller and Power (2013), through the roles of accounting (territorializing, mediating, adjudicating and subjectivizing) examined as ordering roles. This paper improves our understanding of how accounting is "performative" with respect to the hierarchical or lateral way of organizing. This also deals with how ‘socie-ties' are negotiated and mediated by means of accounting