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Cited by 46Management and Organizational StudiesAccounting and Organizational ManagementAccounting Theory and Financial Reporting

From Categorical Imperative to Learning by Categories: Cost Accounting and New Categorical Practices in American Manufacturing, 1900–1930

Schneiberg, Marc, Berk, Gerald·2010·Research in the Sociology of Organizations
DOI 10.1108/s0733-558x(2010)0000031011
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Abstract

Organizational scholars increasingly appreciate the role of categories as bases of order or “cognitive infrastructures” in markets. Yet they construe categories as disciplinary devices. They understand category formation, implementation, and revision as the purview of professionals. And they tie those processes to notions of institutional development that sharply distinguish settled from unsettled or disordered eras. We challenge these conceptions through a historical study of how manufacturers, associations, and cost accountants broke from the disciplinary functions of accounting categories underlying mass production to create new categorical schemes devoted to learning, innovation, and improvement. Reformers reconfigured the uses of categories in markets, mobilizing classifications to spark reflection, experimentation, and improvement among firms by perturbing taken-for-granted assumptions. They also redesigned the practices of producing, implementing, and revising categories. Manufacturers themselves produced and routinely revised classifications through collective deliberation, while accountants served as their consultants, rather than autonomous authorities who monopolized category formation and implementation. In so doing, reformers forged foundations for upgrading markets and fostering competition based on innovation and improvement in a variety of industries. Based on these findings, we extend existing research beyond categorical imperatives to highlight how categories also serve as cognitive infrastructures for learning, discovery, and innovation in markets.

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  • Categorical infrastructures shape perceptions, guide attention, and pattern structures of intentionality.

    “But not only physical infrastructures exercise power; categorical infrastructures (Schneiberg & Berk, 2010) shape perceptions, guide attention and pattern “structures of intentionality” (Goodwin quoted in Bowker & Star, 1999: 287).”

    From Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for platform organization (2017) · cites this paper as Schneiberg & Berk, 2010

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Authors
Schneiberg, M., & Berk, G.
ORCID
Venue
Research in the Sociology of Organizations
Publisher
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Published
2010-01
Pages
255-292
ISSN
0733-558X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1108/s0733-558x(2010)0000031011
OpenAlex
W2181739126
Cited by
46
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 2
FWCI
9.36
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.emeraldinsight.com/page/tdm (tdm)
Locations
Research in the sociology of organizations (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Accounting and Organizational Management
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Accounting Theory and Financial Reporting
Keywords
cost accounting, accounting categories, cognitive infrastructure, mass production, organizational learning, innovation, accounting consultants, collective deliberation, market upgrading, United States manufacturing

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