INDETERMINACY AND THE SPECIFICITY OF ACCOUNTING CHANGE - RENAULT 1898-1938

This essay focuses on the manner in which an enterprise's accounting practices may be affected by a complex of independent and disparate external factors interacting with internal forces to create a sustained dynamic of change within the organisation. As its object of enquiry, the French motor car manufacturer Renault is studied over a forty-year period immediately preceding the Second World War. The conditioning influences of scientific management and statistical information and their interplay with Renault's costing concerns are examined. The study suggests that accounting change at Renault was dependent on a complex set of relationships and preconditions and that the specificity of the company's accounting controls was tied to both contemporary and historically distant influences rather than to notions of functional requirements dictated by processes internal to the organisation. As such, accounting change is argued to have been determined by circumstance as opposed to essence.