Research seminar by professor Victoria HONSEL

Department : Accounting and Management Control

Speaker : Victoria HONSEL (University of St. Gallen)

Room : V Ramanantsoa and by zoom : https://hec-fr.zoom.us/j/96878560147 

“From infrastructure to accounting gadgets: the subtle enticement of cost management on an airplane flight deck”

Abstract:

In this paper, we develop the notion of accounting gadgets to trace the increasing use of decentralized technological devices for cost management in transport and mobility systems. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of modern commercial flying, we examine how different gadgets embedded in the larger system infrastructure of the autopilot are used to make the complex technological architectures work more cost-efficiently. We show how airlines have shifted from explicitly encouraging pilots via training or incentives to perform manual cost management to letting the aircraft “think” cost. Rather than disappearing, accounting is thereby invisibilized in a way that is felt: gadget-guided routines invite small, often enticing adjustments that make economizing feel like “flying well,” thereby embedding a cost-saving rationale in everyday flight deck practice and directly into the human operator’s body. Drawing on interviews with pilots and airline operations managers, a Level-D simulator vignette, and incident narratives, we outline how this strategic move redefines how pilots handle instruments, what excites them about flying, and how they experience non-routine situations. Conceptually, we make a case for integrated, embodied sensemaking in accounting by specifying gadgetization as a pathway through which organizations implement strategic accounting intentions and engage non-accounting professionals in a playful, almost seductive manner.