The sociology of translation and accounting inscriptions: Reflections on Latour and Accounting Research

This paper is a reflection upon the work of Latour and its influence upon accounting research, thirty years after the publication of Science in Action. After outlining the core features of the Sociology of Translation, we reflect upon the reasons we consider made the sociology of translation a productive methodology for understanding accounting practices. We place this analysis within the context of the development of an organizational and sociological understanding of accounting that was emerging during the 1980s. Three key themes in the accounting research that has drawn upon the sociology of translation are elaborated. We follow this with an extended account of the accounting literature that has mobilised Latour's work. We conclude with several suggestions for where this work is still going and might go further, before a concluding summary.