Over the last decades, contributions in Management Accounting have focused at the forms of controls that are suited in situations of strategic alliances with suppliers, investigating the role of accounting tools, such as Accounting Information System (AIS), in supplier selection. We investigate the performative role of AIS in selecting suppliers. More specifically, we interpret AIS not just as an accounting tool, which explains reality but as an actor who contributes to create reality, performing it. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT) as a proper method theory, we study the dynamics among actors (human and non-human) directly involved and their interactions. In doing so, we carry out a longitudinal case-study at a manufacturing firm located in the south of Italy, where we examine the performative role of the AIS in supplier selection from 2012 up to 2014. ANT lens provides a better understanding of role played by AIS in selecting suppliers by mobilising all actors enrolled in the selection process.
Keywords: performativity, Accounting Information System, supplier selection, interfirm relationship
