Taking Translation into Account

Translation is unavoidably important for accounting. Often spoken of as language translation, it is required, inter alia, in harmonizing international accounting, in distributing information produced by accounting in international markets, and in conducting and communicating accounting research. Along with globalization and the growing internationalization of accounting, the field faces a need to express and construct itself in multiple languages. Concurrently, it is confronted by how translation appears profoundly to challenge the ideal of producing and delivering ‘objective,’ unequivocal information.

Recently, an emerging discussion has started suggesting that the problems accounting has with translation are not necessarily due to translation itself but also to how accounting scholarship has understood translation: as a technical practice whose inherent goal is to produce full correspondences between languages and contexts. This prevalent approach to translation has generated a restricted understanding of what is at stake in translation in accounting. Indeed, recent critical voices have argued that translation is a more foundational question and has further-reaching implications in and for accounting than has been recognized thus far.

Addressing these concerns, this dissertation argues that it is fruitful to turn to translation studies, the discipline that has the phenomenon and problematic of translation as its core concern. Building on the theoretical and methodological insights of translation studies, this dissertation contributes by offering to accounting research alternative assumptions about and approaches to translation. This theoretically informed view begins with acknowledging the inherent change wrought by translation. In essence, the perspective provided by this dissertation sees translation as a form of social construction with significant implications, as it factors in the complexity of intercultural and interlinguistic relations in which questions of power, hegemony, and hierarchies are unavoidable.

The introductory essay and three independent research articles of this dissertation explore and demonstrate the potential of an interdisciplinary approach built on insights from translation studies to renew accounting knowledge on what translation is, does, and means beyond its presently predominant, narrow scope and prevalent assumptions. In this sense, the dissertation at hand aims to critically review existing knowledge and to instigate change toward alternative research designs that would not only incorporate diversified theoretical understandings of translation but also see it as a question requiring critical perspectives. With a qualitative, interpretive, and critically attuned research approach, the articles in this dissertation address two of accounting’s ‘topical areas’: international accounting harmonization and organizational narrative reporting. Analyzing empirical materials from translation work conducted for the IFRS and from multilingual reporting on social and environmental sustainability, the dissertation showcases how a change in underlying assumptions can make translation appear in a significantly different light and to be seen where it was not seen before, thus also altering how we see accounting.

These alternative approaches to translation lead to recognizing modes in which accounting is prioritizing and marginalizing specific groups—or relying on the hegemonic position of certain languages, contexts, and traditions of accounting thought. The contribution of this dissertation thus lies in providing accounting research with ways of critically taking translation into account.