The role of accounting in making sense of post-acquisition And with audit clients on perceptions of auditor independence

This study examines how accounting as a resource for sensemaking affected the shaping of meaning construction of two companies during their post-acquisition integration. Whereas earlier literature has shown accounting as forming organizational life, this paper corroborates this constitutive role of accounting by indicating that accounting has different roles for different actors at different times during ex ante- and ex post-acquisition sensemaking. The paper shows how accounting via forecasted net sales, average project sizes, and EBITDA framed the acquisition opportunity as anticipated and assisted in constructing a new meaning for the buyer in ex ante sensemaking. Adding to the accounting and sensemaking literature, this study indicates how accounting reduced complexity for the buyer so that the transaction could be legitimized within a limited pre-acquisition timeframe. Driven by the ex ante constructed meaning, the buyer’s sensegiving attempts resulted in resistance to change on the part of the seller company’s previous owners. It is a common knowledge that auditors often being offered a position in their clients’ firms. However, following the collapse of Enron and other infamous financial scandals like Global Crossing and Waste Management in the US, the accounting profession was brought into sharp focus particularly regarding issues that may affect auditor independence.

Keywords:

accounting in making , perceptions , auditor , independence.