Justification and accounting: applying sociology of worth to accounting research

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce and illustrate the insights of the sociology of worth as advanced by sociologist Luc Boltanski and his collaborator economist/statistician Laurent Thevenot in their works, including their path-breaking book De la justification published in 1991. Design/methodology/approach - The paper explores the basic tenets of this "new sociology" and draws on it to render a reinterpretation of Ansari and Euske's study of cost accounting in a military depot. Findings - The sociology of worth complements extant sociological approaches to accounting by providing a language and a conceptual tool-box for understanding the multiple rationalities in which accounting is implicated. In addition, given its pragmatic micro level approach to accounting, it has the potential to act as a bridge between institutional theory and practice theory. Originality/value - This paper is the first known to render an extensive discussion of Boltanski and Thevenot's work in the accounting literature and to apply insights from this work to accounting research.