Journal ArticleDOI
Accounting for Rationality: Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Rhetoric of Economic Rationality
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In this paper, the significance of double-entry bookkeeping can be understood as an attempt to convince some audience of the legitimacy of business ventures, and Goody's analysis of writing and literacy is applied to the development of accounting as a technique.Abstract:
This article addresses claims made by Weber, Schumpeter, and Sombart concerning the importance of double-entry bookkeeping. They argue that accounting played a key technical role in enhancing rationality and furthering the development of capitalism methods of production. The history of accounting methods and practices from the Middle Ages to the 19th century is surveyed in order to evaluate these arguments. Two important dimensions of accounting are discussed: the rhetorical and the technical. The argument is that, as rethoric, accounting must be understood as an attempt to convince some audience of the legitimacy of business ventures. Goody's analysis of writing and literacy is applied to the development of accounting as a technique. As a practical method, double-entry bookkeeping appears to have increased "rationality," but the rhetorical side of double entry is also critical. The conclusion is that the significance of double-entry bookkeeping can be appreciated only if its rhetorical and technical aspe...read more
Citations
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Handbook of Economic Sociology
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The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)
Paul DiMaggio,Walter W. Powell +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Handbook of economic sociology
Neil J. Smelser,Richard Swedberg +1 more
TL;DR: The Handbook of Economic Sociology as mentioned in this paper provides a comprehensive view of this vital and growing field, including sociologists, economists, and political scientists, as well as a survey of economic sociology.
Journal ArticleDOI
Commensuration as a social process
TL;DR: This paper defined commensuration as the comparison of different entities according to a common metric, and discussed the cognitive and political stakes inherent in calling something incommensurable, and provided a framework for future empirical study of commensure and demonstrate how this analytic focus can inform established fields of sociological inquiry.
Journal ArticleDOI
Peripheral Vision Economic Markets as Calculative Collective Devices
Michel Callon,Fabian Muniesa +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without suspending their calculative properties, and apply this definition to three constitutive elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields
Paul DiMaggio,Walter W. Powell +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Journal ArticleDOI
Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony
John W. Meyer,Brian Rowan +1 more
TL;DR: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules as discussed by the authors, and the elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...
Book
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a history of the first half of the 20th century, from 1875 to 1914, of the First World War and the Second World War.
Journal ArticleDOI
Culture in action: symbols and strategies*
TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action."
Journal ArticleDOI
Capitalism, socialism and democracy
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the conflict between capitalism and socialism is not necessarily in competition or conflict with each other, at least not conceptually (whether they could in practice coexist with one another is a different and empirical question).
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