Accounting and Science: Natural Inquiry and Commercial Reason (Cambridge Studies in Management, Series Number 26) - Hardcover

Power, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521553253 ISBN 13: 9780521553254

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Synopsis

This volume is concerned with the intellectual intersections between the history and sociology of science and the history and sociology of accounting. The various chapters describe a broad shift from concerns for the scientific credentials of accounting to a recognition of the constitutive role that accounting plays for science. They explore the links between the ideals of scientific objectivity and different administrative and political values, look at laboratory practice in social context, and evaluate the emerging interest in the economics of science. The volume as a whole considers the implications of accounting for science, particularly given recent initiatives in the industrialized world to make science more accountable.

About this title

Book Description

In considering the implications of accounting for science, this volume explores the links between the ideals of scientific objectivity and administrative and political values. It looks at laboratory practice in social context, and evaluates the emerging interest in the economics of science.

From the Back Cover

In recent years policy makers and scientists have become increasingly interested in the economics of science, and in particular in the relationship between accounting and science. This book, originally published as a special issue of the journal Science in Context, explores the intersections between the sociology and history of science and the sociology of accounting. Using a truly interdisciplinary approach the book draws attention to the constitutive role that practices of economic calculation in general, and of accounting in particular, play for the conduct of science and for the forms of economic life within which science is embedded. The contributors explore a number of issues, including the role of accounting as a distinctive form of administrative objectivity; conceptual exchanges between science and business administration; actuarial practices and their claims to scientificity; conceptions of the factory as a form of laboratory; accounting for research and development expenditure; the emerging role of patents in the physical sciences; and models of scientific accountability. One recurrent theme throughout the book is the manner in which forms of accounting practice construct possibilities for thought and action.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521553253
• ISBN 13: 9780521553254
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 308