ABSTRACT
This is a study about accounting and industrial relations. It aims to say something about accounting, something about industrial relations, and about the relationships between the two. The work has been undertaken with three central themes in mind:
The study seeks to consider some of the factors which led to the emergence of accounting in the structure and practices of industrial relations in one particular company over a substantial period of time. It is concerned with a complex network of objectives, requirements and considerations which brought about such a union.
The study addresses the question as to the roles accounting numbers and systems were called upon to play in the conduct of industrial relations. By refusing to accept as unproblematic the origins of a merging of accounting and industrial relations, the reseach attempts a more thorough interrogation of the priorities and assumptions often called upon to explain and justify such a relationship.
The study is concerned with the consequences of the interweaving of accounting and industrial relations. It examines the effects of accounting practices and discourses upon industrial relations and explores the nature of a reciprocal type of influence, whereby the techniques and perceptions of accounting are in turn reformulated as a consequence of the demands which emanate from the industrial relations arena.
