Chapter 8: The Uses and Roles of Interfirm Accounting in Strategic Alliances: Does Transparency Make a Difference?

The aim of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, we present a review of the most relevant contributions on the uses and functions of accounting information exchanges in partnerships and interfirm alliances. More specifically, we describe the accounting techniques and practices used in boundaryspanning contexts as well as the possible roles that accounting information may play within such forms of organizing, including supporting interfirm value-creation processes. On the other hand, we try to illustrate what the main unaddressed issues in this area are as a premise to exploring one possible way to advance research in this area. In doing so, we interpret transparency as a precise design choice that needs to take into consideration the interrelatedness of alliances’ networked contexts as well as of their underlying processes of value creation. Our design approach underlines the influence of the network architecture on interorganizational accounting and draws on some measures typical of Social Network Analysis that can be used to direct attention to the peculiar features of alliances and interfirm contexts and to their interorganizational accounting information flows.