Du pouvoir visuel des nombres comptables: les apports de la phénoménologie d'Husserl

Lambert Jerman () and Pierre Labardin
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Lambert Jerman: HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal
Pierre Labardin: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In this article, we analyse the visual and classificatory power of accounting numbers (Quattrone, 2009; Busco & Quattrone, 2015) by using Husserlian phenomenology to study the restructuring of a firm. We thus explain how accounting images and inscriptions impact individuals at a distance by drawing on the dynamics of perception. By revisiting the Husserlian concept of image-consciousness, we characterize the perception of accounting inscriptions as the product of the interaction between a physical thing (image-thing), a representation (image-object), and a more or less observable reality (image-subject). We reveal the benefits of using this level of analysis by studying how accounting images progressively transformed a painful corporate liquidation into an industrial and financial success. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of the restructuring of a large French firm, which took place in the early 1980s. Through phenomenological analysis, we build on works studying accounting inscriptions and the visual power of accounting, by specifying how they act by drawing on the levers of perception in a flexible, fragile, and sometimes even involuntary way, going as far as to subjugate individuals' representations.

Keywords: visual power; inscription; Husserl; phenomenology; corporate restructuring; archival study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-05-30
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01902585v1
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Published in Accountability, Responsabilités et Comptabilités, May 2016, Poitier, France. pp.cd-rom

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