A Post-ANT Study of the Translation of a Performance Management System

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dc.contributor.advisorNeu, Dean
dc.contributor.authorDeng, Claire
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-06T12:49:30Z
dc.date.available2021-07-06T12:49:30Z
dc.date.copyright2021
dc.date.issued2021-07-06
dc.date.updated2021-07-06T12:49:30Z
dc.degree.disciplineAdministration
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation consists of three individual research papers that push the boundaries on the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of the actor-network-theory (ANT) pertaining to its mobilization in sociological and organizational accounting research. All three papers anchor on an ethnographic field study wherein a team of two consultants developed a new performance management system (PMS) in a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise (SOE) in China. Chapter 1 introduces the overarching theses in this dissertation, which are characterized by the ontological boundaries of ANT that the three papers push and the new dimensions of accounting research it opens by pushing such boundaries. Paper 1 (Chapter 2) explores the ways in which accounting enacts multiple reality in the organization by mobilizing the notion of multiple reality contributed by Actor-Network Theorists Annemarie Mol (1999, 2002) and others (Dugdale, 1999; Law, 2002; Law & Singleton, 2005), and seek to extend our understanding of the roles of accounting by explicating how accounting practices enact, circulate, sustain, and erode multiple reality; how the multiple reality coexisted, relied on, opposed to, and were outside and inside one another; as well as how accounting translation is executed when the reality is multiple. Paper 2 (Chapter 3) probes the theoretical and methodological dilemma posed by ANTs flat ontology: how to approach institutionalized contexts with the vocabulary of ANT. Through examining the roles that SOE context plays in the translation processes of accounting technology, I identify context roles in the actor-network as black boxes, discursive resources, devices of interessement, and performative actants. Drawing on the Bakhtinian notions of genre and intertextuality, the third paper (Chapter 4) examines the role that linguistic gaps can play during the introduction and formation of management accounting practices. These linguistic gaps involve the cross-language gap between different languages, the generic gap between speech genres suitable for particular purposes or communicative situations, and the performative gap between text and verbal performance. These gaps, on the one hand, contribute to the incompleteness of performance measures by enabling interpretive and performative spaces; and on the other hand, can be mustered as a rhetorical strategy by actors to persuade and recruit others during the formation of accounting objects. Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by bringing a critical spirit into ANT-inspired accounting research.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/38471
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectSociology
dc.subject.keywordsActor-Network Theory
dc.subject.keywordsANT
dc.subject.keywordsSociology of Translation
dc.subject.keywordsmaterial semiotics
dc.subject.keywordsPerformance Management System
dc.subject.keywordsPMS
dc.subject.keywordsperformance measurement
dc.subject.keywordsbenchmarking
dc.subject.keywordskey performance indicator
dc.subject.keywordsKPI
dc.subject.keywordsInternational Position Evaluation
dc.subject.keywordsIPE
dc.subject.keywordsChina
dc.subject.keywordsstate-owned enterprise
dc.subject.keywordsSOE
dc.subject.keywordsReality Multiple
dc.subject.keywordsontological politics
dc.subject.keywordsRepresentation
dc.subject.keywordsStability
dc.subject.keywordsBlack Box
dc.subject.keywordsDiscursive Resource
dc.subject.keywordsContext
dc.subject.keywordsEmergentism
dc.subject.keywordsIncompleteness
dc.subject.keywordsBakhtin
dc.subject.keywordsGenre
dc.subject.keywordsIntertextuality
dc.subject.keywordsTranslation
dc.subject.keywordsUtterance
dc.titleA Post-ANT Study of the Translation of a Performance Management System
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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