In Search of Consensus: The Role of Accounting in the Definition
and Reproduction of Dominant Interests
Anne-Laure Farjaudon
Université Paris-Dauphine
Place du Mal de Lattre de Tassigny
75775 Paris Cedex 16 (France)
farjaudon@dauphine.fr
Jérémy Morales
ESCP Europe
79, avenue de la République
75543 Paris Cedex 11 (France)
jmorales@escpeurope.eu
Abstract
This article examines the role of accounting in the manufacture of consensus.
Consensus building is often considered a central value for rational decision making and
management. However, more than a democratic confrontation of vantage points, the quest for
consensus constitutes a way to discourage conflict and resistance. Our main argument is that
accounting and consensus play central roles in processes of definition and the reproduction of
dominant interests. Accounting acts to promote some stakes and strategies (and silence
others), as if they were collective and disinterested, which makes them more powerful in
debates that deny struggles and asymmetries in positions of power, as well as increases
legitimacy by creating an illusion of participation. Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of symbolic
domination helps clarify how powerful actors secure influence and consolidate positions
while avoiding contestation. A field study documents the intersection of two fields of
knowledge, marketing and accounting, that compete to monopolize the definition of value and
the ability to speak for the organisation. Accounting produces symbolic violence to legitimise
the reproduction of asymmetrical positions of power by shaping what is consensual and what
is not.
1. Introduction
The concept of consensus has gained considerable popularity in both organisations and
conceptualisations of managerial work, and the idea that consensus building should be a
central value for management is a powerful and appealing one. To assert that management is
about decision-making that results from the confrontation of different viewpoints, which leads
to a collegial choice, associates such management with all appearances of rationality. A
confrontation to build consensual positions also forms the basis for most theories of
democratic political systems (Brown, 2009). Conversely, presenting a position as the result of
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a consensus effort provides a powerful rhetoric when trying to convince that “there is no
alternative,” as illustrated by the notion of “Washington consensus.” Rational, democratic,
and irresistible, the concept of consensus offers a solid basis for a powerful discourse. How
could anyone be against consensus, or “general agreement,” about a set of ideas deemed to be
shared by everyone?
Critical studies challenge this view, because it denies asymmetries in power positions
(Cooper and Hopper, 1987, 2007). The positive value of consensus loses strength with the
recognition that compromises always favour one side over another. From this perspective,
“consensus” is the result of a compromise reached when certain groups impose their interests
on others. Dominant groups set the rules of the game, such that other groups participate in the
pursuit of dominant interests, possibly unknowingly or in the belief that they are pursuing
their own interests. The quest for consensus thus relates to processes of “symbolic violence”
(Bourdieu, 1976, 1980) and the manufacture of consent (Burawoy, 1979) within organisations
and society.
The discourse of consensus denies positional conflicts but also affects the power
struggles among organisational groups. By delegitimizing any decision perceived as too
obviously interested, consensus requires that to be legitimate, a choice must appear
disinterested and oriented toward organisational rather than individual goals. Dominant
groups can then exploit the vague notions of organisational goals to further their interests
while maintaining an illusion of consensus. Indeed, the notion that managers are rational
decision makers rests on the idea that everyone works toward shared objectives, not against
one another.
Studies examining the introduction of budgets in hospitals (Preston et al., 1992),
business planning in museums (Oakes et al., 1998), new funding mechanisms in education
(Neu, 2006) and comprehensive auditing in national parks (Everett, 2003) all highlight
accounting and control technologies as elements of ideological projects that favour the
interests of some at the expense of others but simultaneously create rhetorics of
disinterestedness and feelings of collegiality. Accounting devices can change organisational
and institutional logics by introducing new categories of appreciation and perception that
appear neutral and technical, even as they influence the processes for constructing legitimate
language and meaning and thus organisational members’ understanding of their work and
attributions. Accounting also presents financial matters as shared and collective, relegating
other languages to more specific and specialised usages. In this sense, accounting devices
change the distribution of power, even as their interested nature remains largely unseen. In
turn, actors who lose power are unlikely (or less likely) to engage in overt conflict and
resistance. Accounting thus manufactures consent within organisations (Ezzamel et al., 2008)
by concealing the interests of dominant actors behind a discourse of consensus.
Prior literature has increased understanding of how some actors use accounting to
change dominant logics and practices and exert their domination without triggering much
resistance. Yet accounting also can be implicated in the reproduction of previous practices
and power asymmetries. Although power, domination and interest are important themes, the
issue of power position reproduction has not received sufficient attention. Studying the links
between accounting and the manufacture of consensus might improve understanding of the
mechanisms that powerful actors use to secure their influence and consolidate their positions.
This reproduction relates to the notion that powerful actors use accounting to portray
their strategies as consensual and disqualify others’ as interested, which indicates the exertion
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of symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1980). With this study, we examine processes of social
reproduction in an empirical setting to document the symbolic violence of accounting and
critically assess the power-related effects of consensus. In particular, we describe the
mechanisms by which accounting produces consensus, reproduces positional asymmetries and
secures the domination of specific interests. To address these issues, we analyse a case in
which two populations appear powerful, but one uses accounting to undermine the symbolic
resources of the other. This does not trigger any conflict or resistance from the population
losing symbolic power though. By examining how one powerful actor can use accounting to
monopolise power positions in its organisation, we contribute to research into how accounting
influences the definition of what is valuable or not and designates the main stakes to be
pursued.
Empirically, we study the consequences of intersections between two fields of
knowledge by considering the introduction of a financial measure of value created through
marketing operations. Literature has documented how accounting can restructure work by
intersecting with operations management (Ezzamel et al., 2004, 2008; Miller and O’Leary,
1993, 1994) or professional expertise (Covaleski et al., 1998; Everett, 2003; Oakes et al.,
1998; Preston et al., 1992). However, we know little about the intersection between
accounting and marketing, despite marketing’s role as a discourse that managers use to
describe their organisation, as well as a defining feature of modern capitalism. Although
several studies analyse how accountants compete with other organisational groups, including
marketing, for managerial power (Armstrong, 1985; Ezzamel and Burns, 2005), they do not
address the consequences of intersections between fields of knowledge for the production of
symbolic domination patterns and the reproduction of power asymmetries.
Therefore, we illustrate how accounting and marketing compete to define the concept of
value. Marketing produces narratives about the company that assert a commercial definition
of value creation. Introducing a “financial value of brands” gives marketing the opportunity to
speak to shareholders about the value it creates. However, it also offers an opportunity for
accountants to translate marketing into accounting concepts and appropriate the ability to
speak for the company, in both marketing and financial terms. We thus question whether a
translation of marketing in accounting terms makes marketing stronger or weaker.
To contribute to previous literature, we analyse how accounting produces symbolic
violence, which enables powerful actors to consolidate their influence and secure dominant
positions. We also argue that discourses of consensus produce durable asymmetries in
positions of power by discouraging open conflict and resistance. Finally, we highlight the
processes by which powerful actors relate accounting devices to commonsense discourses to
define what organisational goals and interests are or should be, to legitimise the reproduction
of patterns of domination.
In the next section, we review literature on the symbolic power of accounting to
highlight how accounting might influence individual subjectivity and representations, as well
as create or change domination patterns within organisations and fields. We then present a
case study in which two fields of knowledge intersect and actors claim that their daily work
consists of making decisions through consensus, after having confronted different viewpoints.
The analysis aims to clarify the links among accounting, consensus and symbolic violence to
contribute to a better understanding of social reproduction mechanisms.
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2. Accounting, Symbolic Violence and the Reproduction of Dominant Interests
In highlighting the links among accounting, the discourse of consensus and symbolic
violence processes, we show that accounting articulates categories of perception and
appreciation to enable production of both a shared definition of reality (consensus) and a
system of classifications and judgments about what is valued or not. Often perceived as
neutral or collegial, this system of distinctions actually favours the interests of some at the
expense of others, often without triggering conflict or resistance. In line with prior research
(Everett, 2003; Neu, 2006; Neu et al., 2006; Oakes et al., 1998), we use Pierre Bourdieu’s
conceptualisation of symbolic violence to understand and theorise about this hidden power.
Literature on accounting and symbolic violence combine to suggest that accounting, as
a system of classification, exerts symbolic violence by establishing a language that favours
dominant representations, a set of distinctions that create power asymmetries and devices
perceived as objective. Several authors thus argue that accounting controls work subtly,
through language and the construction and use of knowledge. Oakes et al. (1998) show that
the introduction of business planning within museums in Alberta instilled a more commercial
vision of their mission and a shift to large-scale production. As the authors put it, business
planning “provides and sanctions legitimate forms of discourse and language and thus serves
as a mechanism of knowledge that produces new understandings of the organization” (Oakes
et al., 1998, p. 258). By promoting new vocabularies and assigning specific empirical content
to abstract concepts, museum managers monopolised the “legitimate right to name” things
and events. These struggles over definitions are not neutral; changing positions of power
relate to strategies to enforce “authoritative definitions” of contested concepts (Everett, 2003).
Significant concepts then become “sites of struggle” in the battle to monopolise the legitimate
right to name, and accounting vocabularies encourage changes in interpretive schemes,
discourses and practices (Hopwood, 1987; Neu, 2006; Oakes et al., 1998).
Language and symbolic systems are instruments of not only knowledge and
communication but also domination. They articulate taken-for-granted and immediate
categories of perception that contribute to the conservation and reproduction of social order
by building an arbitrary consensus, such as associating oriented definitions of reality with
appearances of objective necessity (Bourdieu, 1980; see also Everett, 2002, p. 58). Thus
powerful actors use accounting to create and specify meaningful categories and enforce their
own logic as consensual and universal, such that they monopolise the access to legitimate
instruments of expression.
Changing categories of perception and schemes of interpretation further means altering
the principles of appreciation (Bourdieu, 1972, 1979, 1980). By specifying what can be
documented and what can be ignored, accounting constructs “the seeable” and “the sayable”
(Oakes et al., 1998) and separates what is important from what is not. This distinction also
relates to constitutions of social groupings and processes of partitioning, through which
individual members are encouraged to identify with competing groups (Neu, 2006) and
experience a sense of “distinction” (Bourdieu, 1979). As a symbolic system, accounting is
thus a technology of distinction that defines the criteria for establishing value and judgement.
Changing these criteria means changing the valuations of the positions within a setting
(Oakes et al., 1998), because they frame the rules of the game by designating the objectives
that members must pursue to gain legitimacy, prestige or power (Bourdieu, 1980). In Neu’s
(2006) examination of educational reforms enforced by the provincial government of Alberta,
newly introduced funding mechanisms, tied to new accountability requirements, modified the
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processes for resource allocation decisions and thus altered the circuits of influence. Actors
who previously held central positions in the process were rendered peripheral and lost most of
their economic and symbolic resources. Symbolic power relates to the ability to define
legitimate classifications and enforce specific evaluation criteria (Everett, 2002; Oakes et al.,
1998), such that various actors support “competing hierarchies of classification, in which
power structures are defined by struggles over criteria of legitimacy” (Suddaby et al., 2007, p.
345).
Actors also seek to define the types of capital most valued by organisations or fields. In
each setting, specific criteria designate the resources necessary to reach prestigious positions.
The distinction of types of capital influences actors’ strategies and possibilities by focusing
their feel for the game (illusio) on specific stakes and interests (Bourdieu, 1977). One group
can dominate an organisation or field, not only by appropriating all its resources but also by
designating legitimate distinction criteria and defining stakes in such a way that all strategies
are consistent with the pursuit of specific interests. This dominance offers means to ensure
that one’s own resources are those that lead to prestige and power. In other words, dominant
groups specify the forms of legitimacy and prestige and thus monopolise the means of
symbolic capital creation and accumulation (Bourdieu, 1976, 1980, 1992). For example, by
setting specific distinction criteria and translating other forms of capital into monetary values,
accounting exerts symbolic power and redefines domination patterns, so dominant groups can
use accounting to “establish monopoly over the mechanisms of the field’s reproduction and
the type of power effective in it” (Everett, 2002, p. 60).
This conceptualisation of symbolic domination reveals what Bourdieu calls the
reproduction of elites (or more generally, of dominant interests) and thus the stability of
asymmetries in power positions (see also Malsch et al., 2011). By defining one “species” of
capital as the most valued type, a group can influence the structures of capital distribution and
enforce its own resources as the most important, rewarding or legitimate. Dominating groups
can define what may be converted into symbolic capital and designate the distinction criteria
that suit their own interests, which guarantees the reproduction of the status quo and a
consolidation of domination patterns. Cooper et al. (2005, p. 376) call it “the power to name
capital.” This symbolic domination ensures its own reproduction, regardless of individual
intentionality or reflexivity (Bourdieu, 1980), by transforming specific private interests (of
dominant groups) into “collective interests” that get perceived as “universal” (Bourdieu, 1977,
1980, 1994) and consensual. Principles claiming universal validity in turn serve as symbolic
weapons in the struggles to define legitimate interests (Bourdieu, 1977; Neu et al., 2001).
Whittle and Mueller (2011) show for example that stakes and accounts gain legitimacy
when perceived as “out-there” or beyond self-interest. Power and violence become symbolic
and legitimate when they appear disinterested (Bourdieu, 1972, 1976). In turn, it is possible to
defend a position by presenting others, not oneself, as interested, because then others’
assertions “can be discredited and discounted by referring to the other person’s personal stake
and agenda (e.g. as biased, with a vested interest, etc.)” (Whittle and Mueller, 2011, p. 420).
What appears to represent the consensus gains power and legitimacy; that which is deemed
outside the consensus becomes interested and more easily criticised. As Whittle and Mueller
(2011) note, Bourdieu does not regard interests as the driving power or an external force,
because they are neither stable nor predefined but rather get constructed and designated
through struggles for symbolic power. In turn, they argue that “interests and motives should
be viewed as a topic for analysis rather than resource for explanation” (Whittle and Mueller,
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2011, p. 416), and we should empirically observe the interests that various actors follow (and
deem consensual), without taking them for granted or assuming they are determined by the
actors’ position. As Mills (1959, p. 193) long ago stated, there is a “difference between what
men [sic] are interested in and what is to men’s interest.” Accounting participates in the
definition of what gets designated interested versus consensual. By introducing new
vocabularies and associating various notions with specific monetary definitions and measures,
it redefines the stakes to be valued and the interests to be pursued; accordingly, it designates
what can be turned into symbolic capital and how, such that it participates in the creation or
consolidation of elites and their reproduction. Accounting thereby constitutes both a stake and
an instrument in a constant struggle for symbolic domination.
The main consequence of symbolic domination is to produce an unequal distribution of
capital while legitimising this production (Everett, 2003). Violence, power and domination
are not recognised as such when they are enclosed and institutionalised within symbolic
systems (Bourdieu, 1977), so they contribute to a tacit reproduction of relations of domination
(Golsorkhi and Huault, 2006; Malsch et al., 2011). This violence works by masking power
issues (rapports de force) behind knowledge issues (rapports de sens), as if systems of
classification were purely scientific, apolitical or technical. The conversion of conflicting
relations into forms of symbolic violence transforms arbitrary asymmetries into legitimate
relations of authority and shifts de facto differences into officially recognised distinctions
(Bourdieu, 1976), while silencing alternative voices within consensus. Symbolic violence thus
is recognised (accepted) because it is misrecognised (not perceived as arbitrary).1 Powerful
actors can use symbolic violence to gain dominance but still claim neutrality (Everett, 2003).
This symbolic violence then produces asymmetrical consensus by supporting both positional
power and a feeling of collegiality.
Symbolic domination also works through the embodiment—by those who exert it as
well as by those subjected to it—of interpretive schemes enclosed in systems of classification
that promote dominant interests (Bourdieu, 1977, 1980, 1994). The most famous empirical
evidence of such violence came from Bourdieu and Passeron (1985), who show that though
academic achievement depends heavily on class membership, it is widely assumed to be
determined by natural gifts, a notion that makes social inequality seem more acceptable. The
educational system participates in a reproduction of class inequalities (Bourdieu and Passeron,
1985) that pedagogic work masks (makes méconnaissable) and legitimises, such that it
transforms arbitrary power into symbolic violence (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970). Jacobs
(2003) also shows that recruitment processes emphasising charismatic qualities and
transferable skills exert and legitimise class discrimination even when it should be illegal.
As Oakes et al. (1998, p. 272) put it, “The power of pedagogy lies in its ability to name
things in a way that diminishes the possibility of resisting because the process appears neutral
and normal—‘technical’.” Accounting similarly legitimises arbitrary relations and positions
by producing hidden power and censored and euphemised violence, denied by both those who
exert it and those subjected to it. Integrating abstract knowledge into objectified accounting
measurements has the potential to change organisational processes substantially without
triggering much resistance, because the mechanisms of change are hidden and misrecognised.
1
Bourdieu enjoys playing with words, which can make the translation of his ideas difficult. In French,
“reconnaître” means to recognise and to identify, but also to admit and to acknowledge. In turn, “méconnaître”
means to be unaware, to misread or to be mistaken. We choose to retain the usual translation of “misrecognise”
to mirror the notion of “recognise.”
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Even actors whose position gets devalued can participate in activities that undermine their
own capital, without realising that they have created the conditions for their loss of control
(Oakes et al., 1998).
Symbolic power thus is enacted with the complicity of those who cannot see that they
are exercising or being subjected to it (Bourdieu, 1976, 1977, 1980; Everett, 2002; Oakes et
al., 1998). That is, symbolic violence only works if those who exercise it and those subjected
to it accept its rationales and consider its rules legitimate, by choosing to play the game and
pursue the defined stakes (illusio).2 This choice implies they take seriously the distinction
criteria embedded in an organisation or field (Bourdieu, 1980). As Lahire (1999, p. 25) notes,
“Struggling against each other, the field agents have at least a common interest in the field’s
existence, and therefore cultivate an ‘objective complicity’ beyond the battles opposing
them.” Bourdieu explains misrecognition and illusio with the notion that people embody
social structures within dispositions that also are structuring, because they themselves are
structured. The structures narrow what people feel they can or should do or believe. After
being internalised through practice, this habitus produces practices. The notions of habitus
and practical knowledge explain why people do not always perceive distinction and
reproduction phenomena and why some practices and representations support dominant
interests without constituting any (conscious) obedience to rules (Bourdieu, 1980).
Accounting can influence the production of consensual habitus through two distinct,
reinforcing phenomena. First, habitus can be more or less adjusted to the logic of an
organisation or field. The better a person’s habitus is adjusted to the logic, the more his or her
actions occur non-reflexively, such that they are perceived as more natural and casual
(Bourdieu, 1980). According to Bourdieu, the accumulation of symbolic capital directly
relates to an ability to behave with both ease and skill in a given setting. Therefore, the
effectiveness of strategies depends on how well the habitus is adjusted to the symbolic
systems and domination patterns within which those strategies are embedded. Second, habitus
encourages the perception of practices that will be positively sanctioned by others as
reasonable and best adjusted to the logic of a setting. Bourdieu focused on the embodiment of
habitus as a strategy that acts to discourage dominated groups from following certain capital
accumulation strategies, but it also can explain why groups that lose influence do not resist
change: They regard conflict-oriented strategies as unreasonable. The discourse of consensus,
by disqualifying struggles as irrelevant and unreasonable, produces habitus that discourages
dominated groups from resisting the reproduction of dominant interests. By designating
consensual stakes and legitimate instruments for use in symbolic struggles, accounting shapes
the perceptions of what is reasonable, or not, so that the dominant groups’ habitus appears
better suited for capital accumulation than others’.
In summary, symbolic domination legitimises arbitrary relations and positions of power
by producing violence, which those who exert it and those subjected to it deny actually is
violence. Because the violence becomes invisible by being euphemised, it exerts influence
both at the macro level—on legitimated and valued strategies of capital accumulation within
an organisation or field—and at the micro level—on the way people embody specific
dispositions as habitus. Accounting then redefines legitimate forms of capital and shapes
habitus. Of course, even if accounting produces consensus, practices do not converge towards
a unique configuration following an inevitable process of universalisation. Therefore, we
2
It is not possible here to translate exactly Bordieu’s play on words between “jeu” (game) and “enjeux” (stakes).
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analyse the articulation of accounting, consensus and symbolic domination in a specific
setting to understand the processes of social reproduction. Specifically, we study how one
group uses accounting to appropriate the mechanisms of symbolic domination, change the
structures of capital distribution and sources of symbolic capital accumulation and reproduce
the conditions for its domination, masked by a discourse of consensus.
3. Empirical Study
This research entails a qualitative field study carried out at an international consumer
goods company, the Globalmarket Group.3 The case material was collected through a series of
interviews related to the application of international accounting standards. We set out initially
to determine whether modifications in the accounting framework had repercussions for
management tools and operational management in place. In particular, did international
accounting regulations have repercussions for the management of intangibles? We opted to
focus on brands as a specific set of intangibles that emerged as strategic, then set out to find a
company that managed a broad range of brands, some but not all of which were being
capitalised. Globalmarket emerged as a particularly appropriate choice in this respect.
We interviewed members of various functions in the organisation, including
management accounting and marketing, who worked in different entities in the French
division of the group, as well as members from each business unit and headquarters. We
asked broad questions about their daily work, the kind of measurements they used and their
work relations with people inside and outside their department or team. All participants
spontaneously mentioned “brands,” not products; we also asked questions about their
perception of what constitutes “brand value.” The financial value of brands quickly emerged
as an important subject, with various understandings of how to define and measure it. The
topics in later interviews shifted from accounting standards to “monitoring the financial value
of brands.” We also interviewed four designated brand valuation experts (an external auditor
and three members of consulting firms specialising in brand valuation). (For descriptions of
all interviews, see Appendix A.)
We thus conducted 46 semi-structured interviews between 2004 and 2007, which each
lasted from 45 to 120 minutes (see Appendix B). All interviews were fully recorded and
transcribed; they produced a volume of approximately 650 pages with 59 hours of interviews.
Certain informants were interviewed more than once, which allowed us to document changes
taking place in the organisation, as well as clarify issues that emerged as the field study
progressed. Obtaining convergent discourses from the same person, interviewed several years
apart by different researchers asking questions about different issues, also strengthened our
confidence in the empirical findings.
Our data analysis is informed by Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of symbolic violence.
We thus identify what is valued or not within the company, then trace the antecedents and
consequences of the introduction of a new “brand value” measurement to understand the links
among the discourse of consensus, symbolic violence processes and accounting.
3.1. A group organised around its brands
Globalmarket is an international group specialising in consumer goods. To sell products
in 170 countries around the world, it employs 163,000 staff worldwide and more than 4,000
3
To respect the anonymity of the participants, all names and company identifiers have been changed.
8
employees in France (where the study took place). In 2009, its overall turnover amounted to
€39.8 billion.
Its primary strategy focuses on brands with leading positions in their markets and aims
to strengthen these positions through major marketing investments. The group is organised in
three geographical zones (regions) that comprise several national-level (local) companies.
New product development takes place at the regional level in an “innovation centre”. Local
companies then are viewed as sales companies, whose sole purpose is to bring to market the
products and innovations designed at the regional level. Globalmarket France consists of three
divisions, following broad product line categories, each of which encompasses multiple
“business units.” A single business unit relates to one brand or a set of brands that belong to
the same product category. Business units in turn comprise business teams that gather
representatives from marketing, sales, finance and logistics functions.
Globalmarket offers a wide range of brands that enjoy strong brand awareness among
consumers, yet most consumers who buy these brands do not know they belong to a single
group. All external communication is brand-focused, as evidenced well by its website: The
term “brand” is omnipresent throughout the website and even provides the site’s architecture.
Main tabs provide links to identify the brands, rather than the products as the company’s main
competitors do.
From 2000 to 2005, the group chose to implement a strategic plan to streamline its
worldwide brand portfolio. It reduced the number of brands in its portfolio by a factor of five,
from approximately 2000 to 400 brands, in five years. This strategic plan aimed to improve
productivity by “refocusing” on brands that generated the highest sales. Its current stated
strategy is to structure the organisation around these brands.
Within Globalmarket, one particularly legitimate version of capital thus is associated
with the “brand” concept, which influences the firm’s internal structure, external
communication and strategy formulation. Thus the brand concept shapes the perceptions of
employees of their business. This is what Karl explains, for instance:
We live in a world of brands. We are a firm that depends exclusively on our
brands, and therefore the management of our brand portfolio has real
financial repercussions for the shareholder and particularly on our daily
work. (Karl, internal auditor)
All the persons interviewed similarly described the company as a set of brands. The group
therefore is managed as a “brand portfolio,” in which the brand concept is central to both its
internal structure and its external communication, orienting its daily management and
overarching strategic orientations. That is, the concept of brand is central to the definition of
symbolic capital at Globalmarket.
This focus offers a link to a discourse of consensus too. The persons interviewed,
regardless of their professional background, asserted that they were working toward a
common objective: brand building. Although this theme was not included in our questions,
most interviewees also mentioned that Globalmarket was oriented toward a “culture of
consensus,” as made particularly visible by the “business teams” organisation. Through
marketing actions—whether strategic innovative creations, commercialisation or everyday
customer relationship management—brands grow stronger, which leads to the accumulation
of symbolic capital. However, Globalmarket’s structure does not put a powerful marketing
and sales division at the forefront. On the contrary, its structure depends on hybrid entities in
which a “brand manager,” in charge of the commercial success of a given brand, and the
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“category manager,” responsible for relations with retailers, interact with “business partners,”
that is representatives of financial management divisions.4 Choices thus occur through
interactions and discussions among representatives with various areas of expertise. They offer
a material representation of the symbolism of rational decision making that results from a
confrontation of different viewpoints, leading to a collegial choice.
3.2. A strong financial culture
Although the Globalmarket Group is structured around a brand concept, the financial
viewpoint is never excluded from operational decision making. A “financial business partner”
is embedded in each business team, with influence recognised by the brand managers, as
Laurent’s statement reveals:
In our firm, management accounting is omnipresent because of all the
business monitoring, because every month we redo our sales forecasts for
the year to be sure that we are in line with our forecasts, and our expenditure
forecasts, because if for one reason or another we are no longer in line with
our sales forecasts, it means that we’ll have lower turnover and therefore
lower profit margins and so, if we want to deliver profits, we have to cut our
investments and it is management accounting that supervises this, through
reporting, so that in the end the shareholders are happy. (Laurent, brand
manager)
This quote indicates how a brand manager, whose role is to bring products to market and
manage marketing plans, spontaneously uses a financial vocabulary. His discourse reveals his
focus on product profit margins, not only his brand’s turnover or market share. He equally
considers his goal to be to “make shareholders happy,” not just making customers or
consumers happy. The managers interviewed all similarly emphasized the importance of
management accountants in the business teams, which exemplified the attention they draw to
the accountant’s standpoint. Both accountants and operational managers highlight the
presence of a strong financial culture:
Financial culture is very strong; we are really, really marked by
management accounting, really, really marked by management accounting.
And that’s only natural.
Q: And that means that your colleagues also know about management
accounting?
Oh yes. Yes, especially in marketing. Since we work in close contact with
them, they have a true financial culture. (Bernard, divisional Director of
Management Accounting)
In fact, accountants do a whole work of pedagogy to explain P&L [profit
and loss] accounting, how it works, what’s behind it, what it means, etc.
And all this work is what is done in the small decision-making bodies of
brands where we talk specifically about business, what’s working and what
isn’t. So, they are always seeing tables, etc., so in the end they really get
used to the terminology and how to use the concepts. (Fabienne,
management accountant in a business unit)
In the remainder of this article, we use the general term “accountants” to refer to CFOs, internal auditors,
accounting directors and management accountants (see Appendix A).
4
10
It’s true that when we launch a project, for example this multiproduct
package, the first thing I do is a P&L: if I sell it at this price, it costs me so
much, I pay so much to my retailer by contract, and is the bottom line
positive or negative? If it’s negative, what do I do? I’d say that the first step
when we launch an idea is to buckle down to the financial aspect to test its
feasibility. We have a true culture of finance. (Dominique, brand
communication manager)
Integrated into operational teams, management accountants—who recently adopted the
title “financial business partners”—increase their colleagues’ awareness and mastery of
accounting notions and principles. This shared language favours a sense of common
perceptions and appreciations. However, even if operational managers know finance as well
as accountants command marketing concepts, we should not conclude that this scenario
constitutes a form of symmetry. Integrated into business teams, accountants have acquired
familiarity with operational issues to come to grips with them. In contrast, managers use
accounting language because it is imposed on them as a tool for evaluation and the sole
legitimate way to justify a decision or account for results. Accountants use accounting to
define others’ stakes and appreciation; the reverse is not true. This “proximity to business
activity” enables accountants to not only understand marketing matters but also offer their
own viewpoint on such matters:
We are really business-oriented. (…) One of the particularities of business
unit accountants or financial business partners is to be located physically
with marketing, for instance. (…) For us as financial business partners, we
are physically… I’m surrounded by brand managers, by marketing, etc. I
spend more time with marketing or sales than with the financial department
in the broader sense. We’re here to help them. (Bernard, divisional Director
of Management Accounting)
Today, a management accountant must be capable of discussing the
specifics of an advert, what it should really achieve, its impact on sales, etc.
(…) Hence the role, that is now fundamental, of the operational
management accountant—or business partner, depending on what you want
to call it. Clearly, today he [sic] must understand the causes underlying the
dynamism of his brand and his markets. (…) In fact, a good accountant is
someone who knows the trade better than his audience. That is to say that
there are people in this firm today who are in total command of all the
concepts of marketing. So they have credibility. (Fabienne, management
accountant)
To fulfil their partnership roles, management accountants maintain close contact with
marketing and sales representatives, which means remaining in physical proximity (i.e.,
through the organisation of office space) and conceptual proximity, through shared concerns,
a common language and similar data. Although most accountants describe the interactions as
positive, constructive and consensual, they also use this situation to influence others’
decisions and secure their powerful positions:
So clearly, he [the management accountant] should in fact orientate decision
making that marketing and sales will have to do. Clearly, if you are in a
situation in which you realise that you are wasting money for nothing,
through your promotional policy, (…) then it’s the role of the management
accountant to alert people to this fact by saying: “Careful, we’re destroying
11
value and not creating any more, we have to change.” And he actually
intervenes in all aspects, from promotions to sales policy to marketing
investments, not forgetting supply chain policies from time to time. So, you
have an overview of all the elements of your P&L—sorry, of your operating
accounts—and this gives you… it’s up to you to orientate the leader’s
decisions. So you have to present, in quotation marks, the arguments for it
to change. In this way, yes, the accountant can be someone who is much
more proactive; leading with ideas, he is present from the design phase until
completion, on all fronts. So this has become—it isn’t the case everywhere
and we aren’t in an ideal situation either, but for most people it is in
places—yes, [the management accountant] is a special member of the team
who really offers a lot of support. (Fabienne, management accountant)
This accountant’s view illustrates the ambiguity inherent in the “business partner” role and the
hidden, symbolic power of pedagogical work. Understanding the concerns of marketing is a
necessary constraint for helping other members in the organisation. It is also the opportunity
for management accountants to “present their arguments,” influence decision making, “lead
with ideas” and, ultimately, make decisions themselves before seeking validation from higher
management. The discourse of consensus masks asymmetrical positions of power in the
company, where management accountants actually enjoy considerable authority and
influence. This description emerges from the following extracts:
It’s not necessarily accounting that arbitrates, but it’s often much more
complicated when accounting is not in agreement. It’s often much more
complicated. It’s in their interest; well, it’s in the interests of everyone,
really. (Bernard, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
Everyone presents his or her issues, and afterwards, depending on the
argument that you make of it and on the feeling, we say for each case what
decisions will go in one direction or in another. But it is rare, for certain
problems, I’d say it’s rare not to follow an accountant’s advice.
Q: Why?
Because what counts in the end is the cash. (Fabienne, management
accountant)
Management accountants believe the ultimate purpose of all members of the group is to
increase the share price of their firm. The “common interest” is presented not as brand
building but as share price growing, because management accountants put forward a common
objective that is financial and then relegate marketing matters as means to achieve it.
However, accountants, brand managers, product managers and category managers alike
believe that they work in the same direction: brand building to increase shareholder value.
This stake attribution and definition of common interests can be related to an “out-there-ness”
strategy (Whittle and Mueller, 2011):
Globalmarket sets five-year plans for its shareholders. Obviously, they are
broken down into goals afterwards. Once the financial goals have been
understood, and they are, above all, goals of growth and profitability for the
shareholder, we know what growth rate and what level of profitability is
expected of us in the coming years. Afterwards, we say: “OK, here is where
we are today, this is where we need to be, do we have to make choices to
achieve our goals?” (Monique, management accountant of a business unit)
12
We all have the same role. We are here to help increase the share price and
the dividend payout. I mean, it’s very stratospheric as goals go, okay, but we
all have the same mission. We don’t work for anything else. And in the
same way, we all have an interest in the company making lots of money.
(Bernard, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
Because the firm is listed on the stock market, managers commit to shareholders. These
plans are applied as goals, and the opinion of shareholders is taken into account in daily
decision making. The shareholders thus appear central, which justifies putting the
accountant’s view at the fore. Bernard commits a significant slippage in the preceding quote,
which is evocative of symbolic violence being exercised, when he suggests as patently
obvious the relationship between a willingness to “grow the share price” and the fact that “the
company is making lots of money,” which assimilates “the company” with its shareholders.
As a brand communication manager summarises, “the starting point is the consumer; we
quickly move onto financial considerations afterwards.” This general concern for financial
aspects seems increasingly central:
It’s something that has happened slowly but surely with increasingly strong
competition, tougher markets and increasingly demanding shareholders,
which means we have profit goals to comply with and, overall, it’s the only
thing that Globalmarket looks at. (Dominique, brand analyst)
This generalisation of financial measures and definitions of performance is recognised
and accepted by operational managers because it relates to market competition and
shareholders’ influence—that is, to external factors. However, they do not perceive it as a
modification of symbolic capital definitions, nor do they see that new strategies of
accumulation have been rendered thinkable while several older ones become unthinkable. In
short, they do not realise that dominant positions are being redefined. Accounting’s power to
change positions, stakes and access thus is not perceived by those subjected to it.
Although operational managers accept this evolution, they raise a few objections. The
main limitations and critiques levelled at management accountants relate to their short-term
vision and focus on accounting data, something viewed as excessive. Wherever physical
indicators provide greater aptitude to represent different performance dimensions, the long
term appears to be an unfamiliar horizon to accounting, as arises in Damien’s speech:
In fact, we don’t share the same standpoint. They [management accountants]
have a viewpoint that, well, is a little more medium term, and we have a
longer-term view, for this type of op [advertising campaigns]. Behind that,
they understand that it’s going to bring in money by increments,5 but since
these are difficult to measure, it’s always a little frustrating perhaps for
them, I think. Because, in fact, they can’t, they are always niggled by doubt.
(Damien, brand manager)
This brand manager criticises management accountants for only taking into account what can
be measured. Measuring the performance of advertising is challenging, particularly from a
financial standpoint. Thus their view—or “standpoint”—gets called into question: According
to the managers, accountants do not look to the long-term horizon. Accountants’ focus on
what is measurable orients them toward a conception of performance that operational
“Increments” refer to gradual increases in sales caused by marketing initiatives, advertising or promotional
campaigns, for instance.
5
13
managers view as short-term. The different ways they have defined their work gives these
managers a specific habitus that is not completely compatible with the accounting logic.
In summary, Globalmarket is strongly influenced by a discourse of consensus,
according to which “rational” decisions result from a confrontation of diverging viewpoints.
However, this description of collegial choices masks position asymmetries, in which certain
actors, such as accountants and marketing managers, exert more influence over decisions than
do others. Accountants appear to be gaining ascendency over all other groups, to the point of
being dominant in the company, as is visible in the changing vocabulary and stakes that
increasingly are structured around accounting categories. This shift is supported by
accountants and their pedagogical work to monopolise the power to name capital for the
company. Even if operational managers criticise some consequences of the generalisation of
financial measurements, they do not perceive slippage toward new definitions of symbolic
capital. They even seem to be participating in undermining their own positions of power. We
thus witness how accountants undertake pedagogical work to exert symbolic violence,
redefine legitimate capital and take dominant positions within their organisation. We move on
to analyse how, by introducing a specific accounting technology—a financial definition of
brands—accountants have managed to secure and reproduce their new dominant position.
3.3. From a marketing to a financial definition of brands
Accountants at Globalmarket progressively redefine symbolic capital in their own
terms, which modifies the accumulation strategies and positions most valued in the company.
Here we focus not on how they attempt to change the situation but on how they succeed in
reproducing their dominant position. This effort relates to the introduction of a new
managerial accounting device: the financial valuation of brands.
3.3.1 Accountants gaining brand value awareness
Brands once were perceived solely as a marketing issue, yet the introduction of “brand
valuation” devices, based on accounting numbers, endowed them with a different meaning.
Two main factors helped shift the emphasis to the financial value of brands: mergers and
acquisitions and the application of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). In this
description, we note how group members became aware of the financial value of its brands.
Starting in 2000, the company launched a plan to reduce its brands, by both selling off
brands and engaging in several brand acquisitions. The very high sales prices for these brands
increased the emphasis on their valuation, as one management accountant explained:
In the sectors we work in, brand sell-offs bring in a lot more money than the
sale of industrial assets. Our brands have much greater value than our
plants, which are already worth a great deal, and yet on the balance sheets
you’ll see mostly industrial assets and hardly anything about brands. (Gilles,
divisional Director of Management Accounting)
The brand acquisitions and sales enabled the firm to generate considerable cash flows, leading
this management accountant to the conclusion that they were worth more than industrial
plants and equipment. Imposed across the board, the policy of shrinking the brand portfolio
therefore brought to light the need to determine a price for selling brands to create shareholder
value. Accountants then recognised that brands have “value” and deplored the lack of
acknowledgment of this value in financial statements. Gilles stressed an interest in recording
the financial value of brands:
14
The presence of an item on the balance sheet gives it reason to exist and
draws attention to it. If brands are on there, it’s because we have acquired
them recently; and if we have acquired them recently, that means we have
paid a high price for them; and if we have paid a high price for them, then
it’s important to check their value. In relation to Globalmarket’s recent past,
brands recently acquired and for which Globalmarket has also taken on debt
for a long time to come, it’s interesting to check what is being said to
financial analysts, which is: “yes we paid a high price for them, yes we have
taken on a large amount of debt, and yes we are going to pay back the debt
rapidly.” (…) The fact that we now have a standard to regulate this issue of
brand valuation will actually help us see things more clearly in the future.
All of this has shifted the idea that a brand has a value back into the heart of
the matter. (Gilles, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
For accountants, recording a brand on the balance sheet gives it a “reason to exist.”
Gilles’s statement reveals accountants’ sudden awareness of brand value—in terms of
financial worth. During interviews, only accountants stressed this new importance of brand
value; members of marketing and sales divisions always perceived that brands have “value”.
As brands became parts of the accountants’ field of knowledge, they stopped regarding them
as simple supports for marketing communication and instead turned them into key assets in
the company’s net worth. The concept of “brand” thus came to define a new way for
accountants to accumulate symbolic capital.
3.3.2. The need for a “reliable” value calculation method
Brand sales and acquisitions require financial valuations. The brand, its value and the
relevant measure therefore became an area of significant concern for management
accountants. The method of calculation used must appear objective, because it needs to be
accepted (i.e., recognised) by both buyer and seller, as well as by the accountants charged
with recording it on the balance sheet. Again, objectivity (or appearances of disinterestedness)
was fabricated through an “out-there-ness” strategy that relied on three tacit phenomena. First,
the accountants hired the services of a consulting company. By using externally fabricated
tools, accountants could claim they had no stake in the methodology chosen, which increased
the legitimacy of their calculations. Second, the reputation of the consulting company exerted
symbolic violence, because its production, as a leading brand valuation company, was
particularly difficult to criticise. Third, the bodies produced thick, dense reports (sometimes
containing analyses running 100 pages or more), based on calculations that appeared
particularly complex at first glance. By synthesising these calculations and analyses into a
single figure, the consulting companies produced a valuation for the brands that precluded—
or at least complicated—any questions about the methods used to determine that value.
These three factors (external neutrality, reputation, and strategy) made the calculation of
brand value more obscure and harder to contradict, even as it appeared more legitimate
because it was perceived as technical and neutral. That is, the arbitrary conditions of the
construction of these devices were associated with appearances of objectivity.
3.3.3. From calculating to managing the financial value of brands
The attention paid to the brands’ financial values, as well as the introduction by external
consulting companies of a measurement method that appeared reliable, led management
15
accountants to consider the question of how to monitor this value. We thus outline the shift in
the management of brands brought about in Globalmarket.
Until the early 2000s, a brand’s monitoring indicators mainly related to its operating
margin, market share and turnover. Brand management focused on the income statement and
surprising arbitrages, such as those that arose during brand “migrations”:6
Until quite recently, i.e. clearly before the year 2000, the brand’s valuation
was the P&L index. (…) Potential strategies for migrating various brands
were seen according to relatively simple factors. In a nutshell, when two
brands had to migrate together, we looked at what savings we would make
on packaging. Instead of making two sets of packaging, I now only make
one, and so the income statement for the two brands, when some brands
migrated, it was magical: We always had a better income statement due to
economies of scale—and that was what we consulted! (Gilles, divisional
Director of Management Accounting)
By solely comparing the costs of each brand, this choice distorted any strategic dimension;
long-term profitability was ignored. Gilles thus expressed surprise at the old policy and that
the issue of brand financial value only recently has been taken into account. He continued by
explaining that because brands did not appear in the financial statements, “real questions”
were never raised:
In contrast, the poor brand that was “written off” in the migration—what
could it have been worth had it been sold off? Did it have value? These were
questions that were never raised. Since it wasn’t written in the books, it was
a question that never really surfaced. Brands therefore disappeared without
questions being asked. (…) Without brand valuation, precisely one of the
problems is that we can completely miss true value creation and make the
brand disappear. (Gilles, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
With this point, Gilles asserts that several discarded brands actually had strong potential
for development and assigns the error to previous brand management based on daily, shortterm, operational monitoring with no focus on financial or strategic value. This accusation
parallels one of the main critiques levelled at accountants, namely, that they focus too much
on the short term. Management accountants thus attempt to integrate the long-term strategic
vision in their analyses, and taking the financial value of brands into account enables them to
do so:
I think that [the IFRS] allow us to reposition ourselves on a slightly longerterm basis. From a purely strategy viewpoint, this seems like a good
position to me. (…) I think that this will have the advantage of bringing to
light those brands that really create value, the true levers of growth in the
coming years and will perhaps also allow us to better arbitrate our means
and how best to deploy them. (Pierre, management accountant)
All that [the IFRS] is something very interesting, and also a fairly heavy
task to manage I have to admit, but which will enable us in the end to better
position our brands within the company and, as such, perhaps to better
assess the strategic priority we can give them. (Mathias, management
accountant)
The “migration” of one brand to another implies bundling two brands together, with a view to discarding one in
the future.
6
16
The two extracts illustrate how international accounting regulation, which stipulates
accounting for brands as distinct from goodwill, emerges as a new opportunity for
management accountants. Although the application of IFRS became mandatory in Europe
only in 2005, Globalmarket’s accountants had pre-empted the changes several years earlier.
They perceived the international accounting standards as an opportunity to provide more
long-term vision and implemented several “strategy-oriented” devices, centred on shareholder
concerns rather than customer ones. When Pierre mentioned brands “that really create value,”
he was referring to shareholder value. The inscription of a brand on the balance sheet
therefore increased its visibility among shareholders and their interest in “brand value.”
Since the imposition of the international accounting standards, accountants also have
had to construct “business plans” for each brand acquisition. This task testifies to their
capacity to rely on strategic considerations. To obtain the data required to draft these
documents, accountants must increase their interactions with other members of the
organisation, especially those from marketing departments. This situation creates an
opportunity to encourage managers to take financial arguments into account in their choices:
It’s interesting to see how marketing is excited to see how the business plan
will be assessed. Marketing asks for financial information and fully
understands that it is able to enhance or undermine a brand. [This] is one of
the issues that will force accountants and marketers to work more closely
together. (Gilles, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
The approach is sound; the approach is good, now. (…) You will involve
people from marketing and people from accounting more and more often in
this type of exercise. For me, it’s an improvement. In fact, it’s something
good insofar as, from an organisational viewpoint, it will probably force
people in marketing to take the financial aspect into greater account. From
that viewpoint, I find this very interesting. (Karl, internal auditor)
The notion of brand financial value forces brand managers and management
accountants to interact and compare their points of view, which implies consensus building.
However, because it is framed through accounting categories, this consensus is not neutral;
accountants act as referees of the alternative viewpoints. The discussion aims to construct a
financial definition of brands, with little room for debate as accountants aim to teach
managers how to understand their work in financial terms. This pedagogical work conceals
the desire to influence the representations of managers—that is, “to force people in marketing
to take the financial aspect into greater account.” Those who are most accustomed to
accounting numbers thus are best suited to ensure their arguments are heard and dominate.
Accounting becomes a “shared” language, and management accountants oversee various
brands, as well as the members of the different functions:
I have a more complete set of data than operational managers. Because
someone in marketing must deal with marketing in a highly specialised way,
but won’t necessarily have input from other departments. (…) Because they
are required to be extremely specialised and focused on their profession. I’m
less focused. (…) What is required of me is to have a more global view of
things. So, to understand input from marketing, but also to understand input
from sales, to understand input from the whole supply chain, input from
Europe when they give us guidelines on strategic orientations, etc., and on
that basis to build a global project for the company. And for that, well, sales
17
doesn’t necessarily have all the data and nor does marketing, etc. (Mathias,
divisional Director of Management Accounting)7
When we’ve paid a very, very high price for brands and, in parallel, we have
business plans essentially based on innovation and marketing, it’s still
interesting to check: “I’ve bought A, I’ve bought B, I’ve got real issues
today knowing if I should put innovation under Brand A or under Brand B,
beyond what marketing will tell me about the power of Brand A and the
power of Brand B, about our interest in launching innovation under Brand A
or under Brand B.” I find it interesting, once I’ve listened to people from
marketing, to check that it is also consistent with the respective business
plans. So, it’s important to focus on brand valuation even if it isn’t an easy
exercise. What is exciting is that it brings the medium and long-term more
into play; it’s less short-term and even if it’s just because we’re obliged to
do business plans, it’s still interesting. (Gilles, divisional Director of
Management Accounting)
As is notable in Gilles’s statement, constructing a “business plan” for a brand enables the
accountant to go beyond the arguments put forward by marketing and reach a strategic vision.
This tool brings together indicators provided by marketing and translates them into financial
data, through the mediation of management accountants. For Gilles, such projections appear
inseparable from the task of “valuation,” which he defines as measuring the financial value of
brands. Fabienne in turn believes that management accountants have become arbiters, whose
influence can be justified by their neutrality:
In the decision-making bodies, there are few people who are neutral. Let’s
say that there are two large bodies that have, in quotation marks, a vocation
to be relatively neutral; they are (…) market research and accounting. Why?
Because we don’t have preconceived opinions about promotional policy,
etc. What we see is materiality and how it is transformed on the ground,
how it is transformed into money, into value creation, etc. So often, we are
called to question certain decisions, (…) to discuss promotional policies,
marketing investments, etc. (Fabienne, management accountant)
Bolstered by this supposed neutrality, management accountants impose financial
definitions of brands as a purely objective exercise removed from operational strategies.
Brand managers may be inclined to defend their brand, as well as any associated promotional
budgets, at the expense of other brands, but accountants claim to be the only disinterested
agents in the company. They thus position themselves as judges of what is consensual or not.
Their resulting position enables them to introduce potentially controversial devices (e.g.,
financial value of brands) without suffering criticism; the interested nature of their devices is
misrecognised, because they are perceived as technical and neutral. The financial value of
brands thus redefines how symbolic capital can be accumulated and distributed and changes
power positions, stakes and access. Accountants become dominant, and maybe even
hegemonic, by strengthening their position while also undermining their main competitors’.
The accountants also work to secure their position by giving the financial valuation of
brands a global, recurring character. The recurrent and routine nature of the exercise stems
from the implementation of “impairment tests,” imposed by international accounting
7
Mathias was interviewed on two occasions. Between interviews, he was promoted from being a management
accountant of a business unit to a divisional Director of Management Accounting.
18
standards. Various members of the organisation must collaborate to ensure an annual followup on the value recorded on the balance sheet:
If, in 2007, we want to launch a new product under Brand A, on a new
market segment, then we’re going to see with the marketers the volumes
that we are likely to make, the stores in which we’ll be selling and then it’s
up to us to make a turnover as a result. That’s a slightly broader way of
seeing our daily work (…). So an impairment test has a slightly longer-term
horizon, with broader scope, but that’s basically what it is. (…) To do this,
it’s work that requires us to have real exchanges with marketing teams and
sales teams in particular. (Pierre, management accountant)
Each year, these impairment tests ensure recurrent interactions of the different
functions, organised around financial definitions of brand value. Accountants and marketers
also interact to draw up business plans, which is the first step of valuation. Our interviewees
present such interactions as a natural and rational way to combine specialised skills and thus
create a global image for their organisation. No one considered the evolution as evidence of
changing relations. However, impairment tests and business plans force managers and
accountants to use the metrics of financial brand value: Accountants collect information
necessary for its construction, and managers recurrently use new related categories. These
processes place management accountants in a central position. According to the IFRS, only
the acquired brands should be recorded as assets on the balance sheet,8 though management
accounting does not have to comply with the regulation. Satisfied with the new devices, the
accountants could lobby for a broader application of the financial definition of brand value:
There are the brands that are in the balance sheet and there are those that
actually aren’t. This doesn’t stop us from having the same type of reasoning.
(…) We can go far further than this rule by saying: “if we extend this rule to
all brands in our business portfolio, this can allow us to have long-term
strategic management and to be more efficient than if we hadn’t done the
exercise.” (…) It’s a good opportunity to try to extend the exercise from
brands that are on the balance sheet to those that are not, in order to get a
global view of the value of the Globalmarket firm, and in the end to
communicate about it. (Mathias, management accountant)
It’s interesting to do a valuation exercise, whether or not the brands are on
the balance sheet. This exercise is intimately tied to the marketing plans. It’s
interesting that marketing does not make these marketing plans for itself so
that Globalmarket will be positively viewed on the financial markets, and
that’s a plus. (Gilles, divisional Director of Management Accounting)
In this sense, management accountants are interested in the valuation process and plead for its
generalisation. Broadening its scope to encompass all brands in the portfolio, and therefore
drawing up business plans systematically, enables them to globalise the financial definition of
brand value. Among the various indicators of value created by other functions, one unique
measurement is constructed to materialise the value of brands. The concept thereby translates
specialised vocabularies into one consensual set of categories, shared representations and
language.
Within the group’s portfolio, some brands were acquired; others were created. International accounting
standards specifically forbid recognising “internally generated” brands as assets.
8
19
Central to the accumulation of symbolic capital at Globalmarket is the increasing
relation of the brand concept to a specific measurement that is based on accounting numbers.
This link modifies its meaning and thus the definition of symbolic capital in the company.
That which is consistent with accounting metrics becomes “general”; other vocabularies are
deemed specialised or interested. Other calculations may be legitimate but still appear biased,
whereas financial definitions of value are presented as the only neutral, objective measures
that allow for arbitration among parties. Accounting thus colonises the previous (marketing)
logic of practice, changing what is and is not valued and altering the stakes and strategies to
follow. By enforcing accounting as the language for defining symbolic capital, accountants
change how capital gets accumulated and appropriate for themselves the channels of capital
distribution. Accountants’ habitus thus becomes better suited to the accumulation of symbolic
capital within the company than is the habitus of marketing and sales officers. In addition,
their strategies are perceived as more “natural” and legitimate; they have exercised symbolic
violence to secure their position and reproduce their domination.
3.3.4. Perceptions of change
Accountants present the financial measurement of brand value and its related devices as
an opportunity to improve brand management. They enjoy stronger ties with managers,
notably brand managers, as a positive outcome, but they do not consider the process related to
issues of power and interest. Because our main argument states that this process undermines
marketing definitions of capital, it is of interest to determine whether this change modifies
how non-accounting managers view and deal with brands; how they perceive, or not, changes
in their job; and how they feel about the new devices.
Most managers asserted that they have not been affected by this change. For example,
brand managers claimed the changing accounting regulations were “mainly a bookkeeping
issue” or that “accountants are better suited to talk about it.” When asked about how to value
brands, they talked about marketing measurements (e.g., market shares, brand personality,
brand recognition, attachment to the brand, perceived quality). Sometimes, they specified that
these elements influenced the financial value of brands; all of them believed the brands they
managed has important financial value. Few could draw any link between these two spheres;
they regarded the financial valuation of brands as part of the accountants’ jurisdiction.
However, a few managers recognised some impact of shareholder value on their
practices, even if they could not relate it to the financial definition of brand value. For
example, a central measure used by brand managers is the amount of sales generated by a
brand, a metric whose definition recently had been modified:
Q: Did IFRS standards change anything for you?
For us, it brought a huge change, because we changed our way of
monitoring sales. Until now, we used to follow the NPS, which, basically,
was, um, I don’t remember exactly what it was, to be honest with you! But
it was our main measurement. And now, due to IFRS, it has changed, so we
don’t use the NPS but turnover, the real one. (Dominique, brand manager)
Q: Did IFRS standards change anything for you?
For us, it’s mainly an accounting issue. The impact was, I mean, we were
talking about the turnover, (…) now we’re going to look at a turnover figure
from which we subtract any investment we make for the brand. (…) But at
least it makes us ask the right questions (…). So before we used to do a lot
20
of promotions to boost the sales. Well, promotion, even if it’s important, it’s
20% of the business, whereas, for the teams, it takes them more than half of
their time. So at the end of the day, if promotion is costly and does not
generate bottom line outcomes, we need to ask ourselves: “Is this a good
promotion, is this the right investment I’m making?” So this standard leads
us to ask the right questions.
Q: So, in the end, it looks like a good thing.
Yeah, I believe it’s really healthy, because it allows us to look at all the
brands with, at the bottom line, things that are really comparable. So it
improves our performance monitoring. (Nathalie, key account manager)
Since 2005, turnover has been measured by subtracting promotional costs from sales,
which previously appeared as a separate entry. Accountants not only monopolise the power to
name what turnover is (i.e., “the real one”), but also influence brands’ daily operational
management. It is no longer beneficial to conduct promotions systematically; they can
“destroy value” by reducing turnover, according to the new definition. Although they do not
have a precise notion of what changes when they adopt a financial valuation of brands, the
managers know their work is being influenced by international accounting regulations. They
also consider this evolution “really healthy” and reproduce a consensus discourse: When
persons from various fields of expertise ask “the right questions,” it favours rational decision
making and “improves performance monitoring.” They are not conscious that changing the
definition of turnover gives accountants a new position of power, such that they can refuse
brand managers’ promotions and present them value destroyers, which previously was not
possible. In Bourdieu’s terms, these managers misrecognise the symbolic domination exerted
by accountants. Accountants are not necessarily aware of this shift in positions of power, but
their positions and dispositions are increasingly well suited to argue with managers and even
make decisions related to other fields of knowledge.
In summary, resources, stakes, vocabulary and access to powerful positions in
Globalmarket are tied to the brand concept, which is being appropriated by accounting as new
measurements and devices change the definition of brand value. Accounting colonises the
previous logic of practice through symbolic domination patterns: Managers who are losing
capital and whose position is being devalued do not realise how the changes reduce their
control over their own work, nor do they see that accountants increasingly influence their
daily practice. Thus they participate in the process of undermining their own capital. As the
definition of what constitutes symbolic capital and legitimate strategies changes, accountants’
habitus becomes the one best suited to capital accumulation. Accountants then use accounting
to introduce new categories and definitions—such as the financial measurement of brand
value. Such arbitrary categories are perceived as objective, or even mandatory, and natural.
Because the concepts around which the company is structured are tied to financial
measurements, accounting increasingly appears as the only consensual language. Accountants
then monopolise the legitimate right to name and exercise symbolic domination, without ever
triggering conflict or resistance.
4. Discussion
This study has examined the links between accounting and the manufacture of
consensus as a means to understand the processes by which accounting participates in the
production and reproduction of specific interests. Specifically, accounting produces symbolic
21
violence and is implicated in the mechanisms by which powerful actors consolidate their
influence and secure their position.
At Globalmarket, most of the interviewees stressed that their organisation embraced a
“culture of consensus.” This discourse pervades representations and shapes how
organisational members account for their working practices. They see rationality as
necessarily resulting from collegiality and believe that divergent opinions are complementary
viewpoints to be compared, rather than structurally antagonistic positions. Parker (2002,
p. 46) ironically synthesises this view as follows: “We sing the company song together and
the noise produced is harmony.” Fleming and Spicer (2007, p. 11) also note that a similar
view pervades much academic literature:
Much mainstream organization theory views organizations as places where
thousands of diligent souls work contentedly towards a universally accepted
goal. If political squabbles appear, then this is the fault of a power-hungry
manager, a few deviant subordinates or an organization that is in terminal
decline. In this otherwise perfect world, good people in good organizations
do not engage in politics. They just work towards the common good.
These authors view such a discourse as naïve, considering that “power and politics are
endemic in organizations” and that “organizations have, in fact, become one of the most
important sites of power and politics in contemporary societies” (Fleming and Spicer, 2007,
p. 11). However, what is important is not whether the discourse of consensus is “true” or
empirically accurate but rather if it is believed by managers and thus the effects of this belief.
Positive accounts of consensus also permeate accounting literature. For instance, Hall
(2010, p. 306) sees consensus building as a crucial “function” of accounting: “Accounting
information can play a key role in consensus building by constructing a common set of
information to facilitate communication.” In contrast, we argue that the role of accounting
exemplifies what Bourdieu (1977, 1980) calls symbolic violence. What is “common” is what
supports the interest of dominant actors; the communicative properties of accounting reflect
its subtle influence in silencing other, dominated voices (Oakes et al., 1998). Consensus thus
results from compromises reached when certain groups manage to impose their interests on
others, and the discourse of consensus serves to mask domination patterns, power strategies
and the shaping of interests to manufacture consent within organisations and society.
The Globalmarket case illustrates this symbolic power of accounting. Specialising in
consumer products, the group functions as a brand portfolio, and its success mainly stems
from developing consumers’ brand awareness. However, accounting has appropriated the
concept of “brands,” which previously had been marketing’s stake. This move shifted the
balance of power in the company, such that powerful duos formed by marketing
representatives and accountants gradually gave way to domination by accountants. Our study
shows how the introduction of a financial measurement to define the value of brands helped
accountants reach and secure this dominating position.
In Globalmarket, the dominant logic once was influenced by a marketing definition of
brands, such that the “power” of a brand reflected market research-based concepts, including
market share or brand awareness. The financial valuation of brands changed that logic. The
most powerful positions were taken up by those capable of identifying what “creates” or
“destroys” value, not those responsible for value creation itself. By controlling the
measurement of and accounting for value creation, as well as interpreting the “symbols” of
brand value, accountants came to monopolise the ability to speak for brands. In Bourdieu’s
22
words, accountants have appropriated most symbolic resources and also designated what
constitutes symbolic capital.
Under the previous logic, the main objective was to build well-known brands, so
symbolic capital was based on brand reputations. The most useful resource to accumulate
symbolic capital—i.e., the most legitimate cultural capital—was marketing knowledge. With
the new logic, the main objective is to increase shareholder value, and symbolic capital stems
from the financial value of brands. Thus, the most legitimate cultural capital refers to
accounting skills and knowledge about valuation metrics and formulae, which are forms of
capital primarily held by accountants.
In both cases, symbolic capital is needed to obtain economic capital. The budgets
allocated to a brand (including the advertising and promotional budgets a brand manager is
able to spend) increasingly reflect its financial value; previously, they were associated more
with its market share or reputation. Beyond budgets, the proliferation of indicators and
measures associated with business plans give accountants a broad array of levers to
accumulate more capital. Most of the indicators are financial, calculated and monitored by
accountants. If marketing managers hope to understand the impact of their choices on the
financial value of the brand they manage, they must work closely with accountants. This
development does not mean that all accountants increasingly command managerial choice—
even if arguably it is likely—but rather that they can exert greater symbolic violence as their
position becomes more central and their status more prestigious. Prestige derives from their
ability to explain the value of brands managed by others; centrality relates to their language
(i.e., accounting), which integrates and encompasses other, more specialised languages, such
as that of marketing. Accountants thus have acquired a central position to accumulate
symbolic capital by naming the capital (Everett, 2003; Oakes et al., 1998) and changing the
distribution of symbolic resources. From this powerful position, they accumulate symbolic
resources and take a dominant position, which they use to monopolise the ability to define
what resources are symbolic.
The financial value of brands also redefines interests and stakes within the organisation.
Thus shareholder value creation appears to provide a “collective” and “common” objective,
and specific stakes then get presented as related to “universal” interests. This effect of
universalisation legitimises choices made in the name of shareholders, even when they are
controversial, by associating them with a veneer of disinterestedness. Consensus thus gets
defined by what is in the interest of the shareholders, as translated by accountants, to the
extent that the latter are more likely than others to be heard.
Yet in a surprising finding, we discover that marketing managers welcome the
introduction of a financial definition of brand value, even though this new device threatens
their capital, does not provide them with any new lever (they do not know how the numbers
are calculated) and can be used to exert increasing pressure on them (when the number goes
up, they can only guess why; when the number goes down, they must account and take
responsibility for it). They even lose the ability to speak for their brands. Accounting for
brands constitutes less an opportunity for marketing to speak to shareholders about the value
it creates than an opportunity for accounting to monopolise this ability to speak for the
company. To build well-known brands is no longer the main objective but rather a means
subordinate to the “common goal” of shareholder value creation. In a competition to define
organisational goals (e.g., being able to attract and retain customers vs. giving the most
money to shareholders), accounting monopolises the power to name “value.”
23
In this setting, two powerful actors struggle to define symbolic capital within a single
company, but favoured by a strong “financial culture” and seeming “out-there-ness” of the
device they introduce, accountants gain ascendency. Despite their capital and positions being
undermined, marketing and brand managers did not seem to realise the implications and even
considered the change highly beneficial to their brand management in some cases. By not
seeing the potential impact, these managers felt no concern, even as the concept of brands,
which represents the centre of their daily practice, gets redefined by accountants who have
come to monopolise the right to designate “good brand management.” Although in this setting
the balance of power has shifted, we find no conflict or attempts among those who are losing
influence to resist change. Managers fail to contest the situation because they see it as
legitimate and natural: They misrecognise accounting power and associate it with appearances
of objective necessity. Euphemised violence makes domination patterns more difficult to
contest.
Our case study thus illustrates changing power positions and dominant forms of capital
accumulation. However, accountants at Globalmarket not only reach a dominant position but
also succeed in making the asymmetry durable. Thus the study of the symbolic power of
accounting and consensus helps reveal some strategies of reproduction. Powerful actors use
accounting to secure their established positions, and then rely on consensus to make it
difficult to contest their domination, which is based on euphemised and censored violence, as
well as on misrecognised mechanisms, even among those subjected to this domination.
Such reproduction strategies are not necessarily intentional or planned; as Bourdieu
(1980) argues, the most effective strategies are not those shaped by a strategist but those that
result from well-adjusted practices that are not reflexive. Whether conscious or not, the
changing meaning of value becomes non-reflexive as it is progressively embedded in
organisational routines, through the recurring use of related accounting devices. Impairment
tests and business plans, for example, favour routine interactions that define brand
management primarily through accounting concepts. This non-reflexive character
“naturalises” some practices, which then become more difficult to criticise. The situation we
describe is particularly stable because accountants themselves are possessed by illusio and
misrecognise the domination they exert. Thus they can claim to aim for consensus and in
“good faith” state that their purpose is completely selfless and disinterested, using tools that
are simply more efficient and rational than any others.
Bourdieu explains illusio with the concept of field. Misrecognition relates to practices
embedded within autonomous fields, and illusio means that a field’s agents choose to play the
game and pursue stakes specific to that field (Bourdieu, 1980). The resources that constitute
symbolic capital then relate to the field within which they are accumulated. The focus on field
level also helps document changing logics of practice, because fields are always in a state of
flux and constant struggle over what is or is not valued (Everett, 2002; Oakes et al., 1998).
Several authors thus show that dominant fields colonise restrictive fields and change the
latter’s illusio and habitus (Everett, 2003; Oakes et al., 1998). However, such studies explore
the mechanisms of change within institutional fields. They focus on the (re-)production and
(re-)definition of cultural capital in settings in which economic capital is increasingly
pervasive, such that accounting is a means that facilitates change. We instead consider how
symbolic domination operates for one private company and reproduces asymmetries in power
positions. Studying a single company—which arguably constitutes a field in itself—helps
illustrate that economic capital does not always constitute the only source of symbolic
24
influence, even in the private sector or economic field, even in a company heavily influenced
by a shareholder value discourse that arguably shapes its illusio.
We have tried to avoid postulating a priori which field should be taken into account and
instead determine empirically the relevant logics and illusio patterns at work. Our choice not
to rely more on the field concept may seem surprising; several authors argue that “Bourdieu’s
core concepts should be used relationally if one is to really exploit their power to develop
understandings” (Malsch et al., 2011, p. 198). Yet the concept of field also remains
controversial. Lahire (1999) argues that most practices are not embedded in the kind of field
Bourdieu describes, such that the concept obscures the plurality of ways actors invest and are
invested in reproduction strategies.9 Also, the concept may be used too often as “an
instrument, rather than an object, of analysis,” as Bourdieu would put it (Everett, 2002, 2003).
Our case description shows that it is possible to mobilise Bourdieu’s work to understand
symbolic domination and social reproduction patterns, without postulating well-defined fields.
Then the aim is to understand the illusio toward which the practices are oriented and their
dominant logics, which reveals the forms of capital most valued in a specific setting and their
influence on legitimate strategies of accumulation.
The concepts also help explain why managers losing power do not resist change.
Bourdieu (1980) suggests that agents interiorise “objective” chances (i.e., achievements they
can expect from statistical distributions) in their habitus. As dispositions internalised in
practice, habitus indicates what agents can “realistically” expect. We do not argue that
managers outside accounting fail to resist change because they do not expect to influence
outcomes; rather, they internalise the discourse of consensus, which makes any
confrontational strategy appear illegitimate and unrealistic, as do open struggles for power or
visibly interested tactics. Choices have to be deemed consensual, which discourages direct
action, resistance and overt conflict.
The concept of habitus also helps explain the ascendency of accountants over other
managers. By introducing the financial value of brands, they designate stakes to pursue and
legitimate strategies, which ensures that their habitus is best suited to accumulating capital.
The devices we describe do not necessarily change managers’ habitus, though they could as
the financial definitions of brand management become routinised and repeatedly enacted. We
can only speculate whether managers’ habitus will change or estimate the degree of its
durability or malleability. What we can observe though is that accountants’ habitus is better
adjusted to the new situation than other managers’ habitus, so they possess the most symbolic
resources when negotiating with others to reach consensus.
5. Conclusion
Our purpose has been to highlight and explore the links among accounting, consensus
and symbolic violence. Rather than assuming that consensus building is or should be a central
value for management purposes, we have studied how, in a context in which conflict, power
and interests are denied and euphemised, presenting practices and strategies as disinterested
and consensual enables actors to gain and secure dominant positions without triggering
resistance. Drawing on work by Pierre Bourdieu, we argue that powerful actors use
9
Fields may be too narrow to allow a comprehensive understanding of social differentiation. Although Bourdieu
defines the concept as a pattern of social relations, he uses it empirically as if fields were separated, clearly
defined and relatively stable objects with clear-cut boundaries. Lahire (1999) argues that Bourdieu uses the
concept flexibly, without ever justifying a cut-off point.
25
accounting to exert symbolic violence, which is denied by both those who exert it and those
who are subject to it. By exploring the role of accounting in the manufacture of consensus, we
show how it can produce and reproduce asymmetrical positions of power and participate in
the shaping of interests, so that compromises always favour one side over the others, with the
consent of those who have most to lose in the process.
Our case study of the intersections of accounting and marketing definitions of value
complements previous accounts of the symbolic violence of accounting. As a system of
classification, accounting exerts symbolic violence by establishing a language that favours
dominant representations, distinctions that create power asymmetries and devices perceived as
objective. This subtle form of power can change institutional logics, organisational practices
and individual identities. Yet accounting also can be implicated in the reproduction of
previous practices and power asymmetries. In our presented case, one powerful actor
appropriates its main organisational competitor’s symbolic resources to secure its influence
and consolidate its position. Defining as consensual that which supports its interest, this actor
claims that everyone can express their ideas or that all specialised inputs are of equal interest,
while arguing that its own language is more general and builds the “big picture.” The sense of
discussion and confrontation persists, even as the dominant actor always has the final word.
These findings contribute to our understanding of the symbolic violence of accounting.
Previous studies have related the power of accounting to its ability to create new visibilities
and its inward focus, which gives external actors more knowledge of internal processes. In
contrast, we have shown that outward strategies can provide a feeling of disinterestedness and
“out-there-ness,” such that symbolic violence is exerted by linking accounting numbers to
devices fabricated by external actors, based on a methodology in which internal parties have
no stake. When domination derives more from obscurity than visibility, its effects are more
difficult to deconstruct and question, and its impact on managers can be misrecognised,
because the new devices, manufactured by “independent” parties, have the appearance of
objectivity and technicality.
Our analysis also places consensus and adherence, not conflict and contradiction, at the
centre of change processes. We thus confirm previous studies arguing that changes can be
more substantial when based on hidden and subtle mechanisms; the concept of consensus, like
many other concepts (e.g., “choice,” “rationality” or “decision making”), produces
euphemised forms of violence. Precisely, consensus produces both power (because defining
what is consensual and what is not implies designating what legitimate resources, stakes and
interests should be and silencing alternative voices by presenting them as interested) and
consent (because contesting consensus implies engaging in politics and trying to advance
interested strategies, detrimental to the common good). To relate rational management to
consensus building while denying organisational position asymmetries is to delegitimize
confrontations and struggles and conceal domination behind a feeling of shared interest and
community. By producing consensus, accounting participates in the shaping and reproduction
of dominant interests.
We accordingly have shown how powerful actors can use the symbolic violence of
accounting to consolidate their influence and secure their dominant position. We also relate
such strategies to a discourse of consensus that discourages open conflict and resistance.
Finally, we have highlighted the processes by which powerful actors relate accounting devices
to commonsense discourses, shaping what organisational goals and interests are or should be
so that they can legitimise the reproduction of asymmetrical positions of power.
26
6. Appendix A. Positions of Persons Interviewed
Persons Interviewed
Brand Valuation Specialists
Brand Valuation Consultants
Manager of a Brand Valuation Institute
External Auditor
4
2
1
1
9%
4%
2%
2%
Accountants
Management Accountants
CFOs
Accounting Managers
Internal Auditors
20
12
4
2
2
43%
26%
9%
4%
4%
Marketing Staff
Brand Managers
Product Managers
Category Managers
Analysts
Key Account Managers
Sales Representative
Sales Force Manager
21
5
4
4
4
2
1
1
46%
11%
9%
9%
9%
4%
2%
2%
1
2%
46
100%
Logistics Manager
Total Interviews
27
7. Appendix B. Interview Statistics
Positions of Persons Interviewed
Brand Valuation Specialists
Brand Valuation Consultants
Director of Brand Valuation Consulting Firm
External Auditor
Number of
Persons
Interviewed
Total
Duration of
Interviews
(in minutes)
Average
Duration of
Interviews
(in minutes)
4
2
1
1
295
135
90
70
74
68
90
70
Accountants
Management Accountants
CFOs
Accounting Managers
Internal Auditors
20
12
4
2
2
1565
895
355
135
180
78
75
89
68
90
Marketing Staff
Brand Managers
Product Managers
Category Managers
Analysts
Key Account Managers
Sales Representative
Sales Force Director
21
5
4
4
4
2
1
1
1600
355
325
275
315
160
75
70
76
76
81
69
79
80
75
70
1
60
60
46
3520
(59)
77
(1.25)
Logistics Manager
Total
(hours)
28
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