Gregory Wegmann
email: gregory.wegmann@u-bourgogne.fr

A TYPOLOGY OF COST ACCOUTING PRACTICES BASED ON ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING -A STRATEGIC COST MANAGEMENT APPROACH AND A CASE STUDY

Keywords: Strategic cost management, Activity-based costing, Typology, Case study

This paper examines cost accounting methods containing one or more activity-based costing (now ABC) like dimensions. The research reviews these methods since the early stages of ABC. The objective is to analyze cost accounting proposals with, in part, a philosophy reminiscent ABC. For all the methods examined, ABC is a starting point at least one important component.

according to the situation of their companies. By company type, a cost accounting model based on ABC is more or less suitable. A case study illustrates this usefulness.

The paper first introduces several developments that have emerged since the beginning of ABC. The first part presents the close relationship between strategic cost management theory and ABC.

The second part develops a typology of cost accounting systems linked to ABC. The typology emerges from three objectives associated with ABC and highlights four perspectives. A case study illustrates the developments of the paper with a French firm using a cost accounting system in connection with several of the typology's perspectives.

The research purposes are to analyze the strategic dimension of the methods described and to build a typology useful for managers. Factors of usefulness are considered in the paper. The discussion leads to a four-dimensional typology based on three strategic objectives assigned to the cost accounting systems.

The foundation of the research is the strategic cost management theory from which emerges the ABC philosophy. The methodology applies is an academic and professional literature review.

The typology designed shows common points and similarities of the methods observed and their strategic dimensions. This typology could be useful for firms willing to reform their costing system. Some of the methods studied are more or less useful for practitioners,

TYPOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENTS AROUND ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING -A STRATEGIC COST MANAGEMENT APPROACH AND A CASE STUDY

This paper examines cost accounting methods containing one or more activity-based costing (now ABC) like dimensions. The research reviews these methods since the early stages of ABC. The objective is to analyze cost accounting proposals with, in part, a philosophy reminiscent ABC. For all the methods examined, ABC is a starting point at least one important component.

The research purposes are to analyze the strategic dimension of the methods described and to build a typology useful for managers. Factors of usefulness are considered in the paper. The discussion leads to a four-dimensional typology based on three strategic objectives assigned to the cost accounting systems.

The foundation of the research is the strategic cost management theory from which emerges the ABC philosophy. The methodology applies is an academic and professional literature review.

The typology designed shows common points and similarities of the methods observed and their strategic dimensions. This typology could be useful for firms willing to reform their costing system. Some of the methods studied are more or less useful for practitioners, according to the situation of their companies. By company type, a cost accounting model based on ABC is more or less suitable. A case study illustrates this usefulness.

The paper first introduces several developments that have emerged since the beginning of ABC. The first part presents the close relationship between strategic cost management theory and ABC.

The second part develops a typology of cost accounting systems linked to ABC. The typology emerges from three objectives associated with ABC and highlights four perspectives. A case study illustrates the developments of the paper with a French firm using a cost accounting system in connection with several of the typology's perspectives.

THE ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING METHOD: A GREAT DIVERSITY OF

APPLICATIONS

The first part introduces several developments that have emerged since the beginning of ABC. The strategic cost management theory constitutes the background of these developments.

The activity-based costing method: Origin and developments

The first paragraph presents the strategic cost management theory and the second paragraph recalls the principles of the ABC method.

The strategic cost management theory

The conventional approach to management accounting [START_REF] Anthony | La fonction contrôle de gestion [The Management Accounting Function[END_REF]) reveals a conflict among the processes of strategic management, management control and operational control. [START_REF] Johnson | Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting Systems[END_REF] explain that coordination between these processes is difficult to achieve. The strategic management accounting theory is a concept and a set of practices devised to overcome this difficulty.

There has been a growing interest in strategic management accounting since the early 1980s [START_REF] Simmonds | Strategic Management Accounting[END_REF]. In a firm, a strategic management accounting instrument connects strategic and marketing decisions with operational ones and brings a multi-dimensional approach of performance (Mike & Yi. 2009). For instance, [START_REF] Simmonds | Strategic Management Accounting[END_REF] and [START_REF] Bromwich | The Case for Strategic Management Accounting: The Role of Accounting Information for Strategy in Competitive Markets[END_REF] suggest using qualitative and external measures with three dimensions of analysis:

products and customers (e.g. their level of satisfaction), competition (level of penetration), and the environment. Scholars (Wilson, 1995) have studied the strategic management accounting concept in depth over time (Wilson, 1995).

Strategic cost management is one dimension of strategic management accounting dedicated to cost management in relation to strategy. Several scholars have been promoting the benefits of strategic cost management [START_REF] Anderson | Managing costs and cost structure throughout the value chain: research on strategic cost management[END_REF][START_REF] Cooper | Strategic cost management: expanding scope and boundaries[END_REF][START_REF] Freeman | Transforming cost management into a strategic weapon[END_REF]Shank andGovindarajan, 1989, 1994;Wong, 1996), so that there are three ways to approach the theory:

-A restrictive way. Cost management scans the range of strategic options and control the strategic hypotheses. It is an ex post approach.

-An intermediate way. Cost management validates the strategic hypotheses. It is a more dynamic approach that requires a more detailed analysis of strategic assumptions. They are key success drivers that cost management sets up along the company's value chain. Shank andGovindarajan (1989, 1992) explain that the key value drivers are cost drivers that ABC is able to highlight.

-A broad approach where costing is a fundamental part of the strategy. With this approach, cost management should be interactive (see the concept of interactive control developed by [START_REF] Simons | Levers of Control[END_REF]. According to strategic situations and environmental uncertainties, managers choose relevant cost management instruments to become interactive, using them to articulate the strategic and operational processes and to identify new strategic opportunities.

Intermediate and broad strategic cost management imply more participation of employees.

They require a knowledge-based approach to management as developed by [START_REF] Argyris | Organizational Learning. Readings[END_REF] through the organizational learning theory. In this context, value creation is the result of an increase in resources (resource-based view approach, [START_REF] Penrose | The Theory of the Growth of the Firm[END_REF] and competencies (core-competencies theory, [START_REF] Hamel | The Core Competence of the Corporation[END_REF]. In this way, in order to be an efficient strategic decision-making tool, a strategic cost management system must closely follow each step in the implementation of strategy and the achievement of pre-defined objectives.

If Tomkins and Carr (1996, p. 165) explain that "there is still no agreed comprehensive conceptual framework for what strategic management accounting " and Sha et al. (2011, p. 5) that "empirical evidences so far are not very strong to lead us to a convincing belief that strategic management accounting will deliver all that it promises today", Hoffjan and Wömpener (2006, p. 248) point out that several strategically oriented cost management tools are well developed in firms such as: customers profitability cost management, target costing and ABC. Likewise, [START_REF] Cinquini | Exploring the Relationship between Strategy and Strategic Management Accounting Techniques[END_REF] present the results of an empirical study about medium-sized Italian firms. Most of them use strategic cost management instruments.

Is the ABC method able to drive each step of the strategy and to control the achievement of strategic goals? Is it also able to validate the strategic hypotheses and to engender new strategies? In this paper, we first demonstrate that ABC is a strategic cost management instrument.

The Activity-Based Costing method, a way to drive strategically the costs

This paragraph demonstrates that strategic cost management is the theoretical base of ABC.

First, a brief reminder of what ABC represents is proposed.

Several American scholars and practitioners designed the ABC method during the 1980s [START_REF] Cooper | Measure Costs Right: Make the Right Decisions[END_REF]. ABC emerged in an increasingly complex environment leading to higher overhead costs. ABC is a refined cost system enabling first to classify more costs as direct, second to expand the number of indirect-cost pools and third to identify cost drivers.

ABC favors better cost allocations using smaller cost pools called activities.

A sophisticated cost assignment approach, which assigns resources to activities and then costs to costs objects, is at the heart of the method. Using cost drivers, the costs of the activities are the basis for assigning costs to cost objects such as products or services. Since the seminal work of [START_REF] Johnson | Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting Systems[END_REF] on the "Relevance Lost" of management accounting practices, several management accounting developments based on the strategic management accounting stream emerged. The historical research of Johnson and Kaplan makes us understand the context from which ABC arose. Looking for management accounting methods which could clarify the decision making process, they first suggest a more in-depth analysis of the activities and processes and, second, a closer link between strategic and operational management. These proposals prefigure the development of the balanced scorecard [START_REF] Kaplan | The Balanced Scorecard -Translating Strategy into Action[END_REF] and a strategy-oriented ABC.

The structure of ABC makes us understand its natural strategic direction: the central role of the cost driver concept as a variable which explains costs consumption and describes value chains materializes the link between strategic and operational management. A process approach is at the heart of ABC and the company is seen as a network of horizontal, flat, and transverse structures where the activities depend on market requirements.

To correct misleading overhead allocations was the first objective when designing ABC. It was a response to the inaccurate American standard costing methods. However, several academics, like [START_REF] Lebas | Why ABC? Accounting Based on Causality rather than Activity-Based Costing[END_REF] in France, explain that ABC rapidly gained managerial (activity-based management) and strategic dimensions. [START_REF] Jones | The ABC Bandwagon and the Juggernaut of Modernity[END_REF] point out the links between ABC and the strategic cost management theory. [START_REF] Shank | Strategic Cost Analysis: The Evolution from Managerial to Strategic Accounting[END_REF] developed an operational model with the definition of key success factors, determined using a competitive analysis of the environment and an analysis of the internal processes, with the help of ABC. This ABC is a strategic cost management system with a life cycle and value chain perspective. Using the works of [START_REF] Porter | Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Advantage[END_REF], Shank et Govindarajan suggest integrating the customer and supplier dimensions within the cost allocation system.

To synthesize, ABC makes it possible to decipher organizational architecture, the links between strategic and operational management, to question strategic hypotheses and lighting new ones.

An historical background shows that firms have experimented several cost management tools based on ABC. The next section presents the diversity of costing methods based on ABC.

A great diversity of cost accounting methods based on ABC

This section presents developments observed during the last twenty years. The section focuses on the most diffused technics. The next section completes the list.

First, academic and professional literatures put a strong emphasis on ABC developments taking into account stakeholders1 as costs objects and more especially the customers. Through a customer profitability analysis [START_REF] Horngren | Cost Accounting -A Managerial Emphasis[END_REF] using an activity-based approach, the managers try to optimize the customers' relations processes. The literature offers numerous developments on the customer dimension of cost management. Otley (2003) reviews the evolution of management accounting. He describes the fact that the notion was originally associated to economic rationality, internal control and a shareholder view. He explains that later on, due to a changing environment, the attention shifted from internal control to value chain management. This evolution reflects the need to coordinate internal and external processes.

Other contributions also focus on expanding cost management to customers analysis: Brignall Second, companies can use ABC to obtain more accurate future costs and budgets. Horvath (1998), [START_REF] Antos | Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting[END_REF], [START_REF] Cokins | Integrating Target Costing and ABC[END_REF] and CAM-I studies (Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing International2 ) have developed the activity-based budgeting and activity-based planning and budgeting models.

Third, taking into account critics about ABC [START_REF] Datar | Aggregation, Specification and Measurement Errors in Product Costing[END_REF][START_REF] Malmi | Towards Explaining Activity-Based Costing Failure: Accounting and Control in a Decentralised Organization[END_REF] looking for a refinement of ABC at the resources allocation process level. The RCA method adds another allocation phase from the resources to pools and systematically distinguish variable from fixed costs. The RCA method proposes a more refined task architecture, a more rationalized allocation process of resources to activities and statistical approaches to correlate the consumption of resources and activities with the cost drivers.

Fourth, by contrast, experts have developed simplified ABC that can be suitable for simplified and/or intangible processes, as part of service activities for instance. The activity can be an excessive level of detail in sectors with a lot of intangible processes. When the process complexity is low or intangible, a simplified ABC is adapted, combining several activities into one meta-activity or into a process with a single cost driver. The time-driven ABC (TDABC, [START_REF] Kaplan | Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing[END_REF] is the most famous method of that kind.

As mentioned at the beginning of the section, the list is not exhaustive but makes it possible to highlight certain characteristics conducting to a global typology presented in the next section.

1.3.Proposal for a typology

The proposed typology is the outcome of an academic and professional reading review.

Developments in the following section after table 1 details several of the practices observed.

The literature review highlights three strategic objectives in relation to the developments observed:

-Diversifying the cost objects (not only to products but also to customers, services, processes, suppliers, environment, etc.),

-Broadening the scope of cost analysis (spatial and temporal extension),

-Determining the relevant level of cost analysis complexity: refinement or simplification of cost calculations.

These three objectives converge towards a single one: to provide strategic direction for cost calculations in accordance with the strategic cost management theory. These objectives fall into the four perspectives of the typology. Figure 1 shows links the links between the objectives and the perspectives. A first observation is that an objective can be associated with several categories. For example, a simplified ABC (relevant level of cost analysis) can conduct to analyze customers' profitability (cost objects diversification) and/or future costs (cost scope broadening). The case study shows combinations like this. -The first perspective focuses on external stakeholders3 . Taking into account external stakeholders in its cost accounting systems, a company can experience a positive impact on its decision making process.

Figure 1 -Links between cost accounting objectives and typology perspectives

-The second perspective focuses on future-cost oriented methods to contribute to the prospective and life-cycle analyses.

-The third perspective regroups attempts to refine costing systems on different aspects:

resource allocation, cost drivers diversification and mathematical approaches.

-The fourth perspective regroups attempts to simplify costing systems.

ANALYSIS OF OBSERVED PRACTICES IN LIGHT OF THE FOUR PERSPECTIVES AND CASE STUDY

Based on the previous developments, this part analyzes in more detail the content of the typology. A case study illustrates the analysis.

Detailed analysis of the four perspectives

Since the beginning, ABC has promoted an improvement in managerial decision support.

But, industrial companies seemed to be more adapted to the ABC methodology than firms in other sectors (in services, mass distribution or the media). It is easier to break down industrial processes into activities and cost drivers are easier to express in physical values: labor and engine hours, number of batches, volume of production orders, numbers of fabrication orders, volume of setting minutes, etc. However, value creation also results from what happens outside the company, through the customer or supplier relationship.

First perspective: external stakeholders

Since its early stages, researchers point out the usefulness of ABC to take into account the value of customers (Lebas, 506-507, 1999).

The principle of customer profitability analysis mixed with ABC, is to reorganize the costing architecture to focus on customers, markets or other commercial and marketing aspects as cost objects. [START_REF] Kuchta | Activity-Based Costing and Customer Profitability[END_REF] explain that ABC is a good method for profiling customer profitability. They believe that a customer-driven ABC "…can help determine which products and customers are the most profitable, which activities are customer-focused, whether processes are customer value-added or not, and where efforts toward customerrelated improvements should be made" (p. 18).

Several researches analyze other external stakeholders. This is the case with environmental costs through an ABC methodology. [START_REF] Tsai | Using activity-based costing to evaluate capital investments for green manufacturing systems[END_REF] use ABC to assess the performances and benefits generated by the adoption of green manufacturing systems. In another study, [START_REF] Tsai | A fuzzy goal programming approach for green supply chain optimisation under activity-based costing and performance evaluation with a value-chain structure[END_REF] integrate ABC into a value-chain to optimize supplier selection to obtain a green supply chain.

With an extension of the scope of cost analysis to customers, suppliers, partners and environment, ABC focuses on optimizing the company's external performance. [START_REF] Cooper | Interorganizational Cost Management and Relational Context[END_REF] describe a methodology they call "interorganizational cost management (IOCM)" that comes from observing Japanese practices (see also [START_REF] Agndal | Interorganizational Cost Management in the Exchange Process[END_REF][START_REF] Fayard | Effect of internal cost management, information systems integration, and absorptive capacity on interorganizational cost management in supply chains[END_REF]. Researchers have also reported studies elsewhere than in Japan. Chiarini and Vagnoni (2015) show with the example of the Italian company Fiat that ABC, combined with an IOCM process, can be useful for calculating wastes and losses in the production process. [START_REF] Sohn | Implementation of interorganizational cost management and its infrastructure: the case of a Korean 'Chaebol' firm[END_REF] describe an IOCM system in a Korean distribution company.

Within an IOCM perspective, the costs calculations include at least two firms. ABC makes it possible to describe the value chain between them. With target costing, the leading firm of the value chain identifies an estimated price that customers are willing to pay and then, with the supplier part of the value chain, a target cost to earn the desired profit is determined. One important question is what costs should be included in the target calculations? Cost reduction efforts often need to be extended to all levels of the value chain, from research and development to customer service, including the search for the lowest prices for materials and components. ABC helps determine which activities and costs fall into value-added or nonvalue-added categories. It also identifies costs along the value chain and analyses the effects of, for example, a change in product design on costs. Cooper and Slagmulder call this process the "costs interorganizational investigation". With an IOCM process, relevant costs can be future costs because target costing favor long-term analyses, considering the life cycle of a project for instance. In that case, an IOCM practice can also refer the second perspective of the typology.

Second perspective: Temporality

Concerning the second perspective of the typology, the strategic dimension is quite obvious.

The common objective of cost accounting systems from this perspective is to analyze future costs. The practices described here seek to extend the temporal scope of cost analysis. This is the case with activity-based budgeting (ABB: [START_REF] Antos | Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting[END_REF], activity-based planning and budgeting [START_REF] Sandison | Activity-based planning and budgeting: A new approach[END_REF], beyond budgeting [START_REF] Bourmistrov | From comfort to stretch zones: A field study of two multinational companies applying "beyond budgeting" ideas[END_REF] 4 , life-cycle costing ABC (Tsai et al., 2015) and target costing ABC [START_REF] Horvath | Linking Target Costing to ABC at a US Automative Supplier[END_REF]. The managerial dimension is more important with the first three methods cited with planning, programming and budgeting processes. One point to emphasize is that at certain levels of the process, the practices cited include an ABC approach. Costs drivers become "activity triggers", tracking accurate future costs thanks to a refined assignment process.

Third perspective: Towards costing refinements

The third and fourth categories of the typology group together methods to find the relevant level of granularity to analyze costs, according to the strategic and organizational specificities of the company. In some cases, the level of complexity is significant. A method such as "resource consumption accounting (RCA, see [START_REF] Clinton | Understanding resource consumption and cost behavior -Part II[END_REF][START_REF] Al-Hebry | Proposed framework to determine appropriateness of cost accounting methods[END_REF] completes ABC with a more in-depth analysis of resources. Within complex organizations the variety of resources is important, which requires a large number of resource drivers, and more complex allocation processes. With RCA, resources are classified in pools, which makes it easier to assign them to activities. RCA tries to improve the allocation process so that managers have a clearer vision of the consequences of their strategic decisions. RCA systems try to provide decision-makers with more detailed analytical information than ABC.

RCA adds a distinction between variable and fixed costs to ABC, making short-term marginal calculations possible. One or more driver can be deployed per pool, resources are assessed on a quantitative basis and there are more cost centers. RCA has several similarities with ABC: they both use a value chain analysis, charge manufacturing and non-manufacturing costs to costs objects using cost drivers and exclude non-traceable costs. They both can use cost drivers that could be volume and non-volume related. RCA has also several differences with ABC. ABC focuses on activities whereas RCA mainly on resources. ABC does not distinguish between fixed and variable costs, the costs of capacity are rarely measured, historical cost depreciations are favored and financial reporting feed the cost system.

Differently, with RCA, the fixed and variable costs are separated, managers keep an eye on cost centers, the measure of unused capacities by cost center is easy, replacement cost depreciations are favored and the cost system and financial reporting are integrated. The major advantage of RCA is that it makes it possible to combine strategic analyses with shorter-term ones. But the main difficulties with RCA are that it is time consuming and difficult to implement. It requires investment in a powerful enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Feature costing [START_REF] Brimson | Feature Costing: Beyond ABC[END_REF][START_REF] Cokins | Integrating Target Costing and ABC[END_REF] introduces a new level of analysis to ABC: the features of a product. With this general idea, a cost accounting system can complement

Fourth perspective: Towards simplifications

In other situations, the process is less complex so that standard ABC is oversized. Solutions TDABC is based on a strong assumption: working time consumption correlates with cost generation. This is the case in certain circumstances, notably when processes and services are standardized, such as for supply chains, hospital activities or bookstores. This is why [START_REF] Hoozée | The impact of refinement on the accuracy of time-driven ABC[END_REF] explain that firms using TDABC would benefit from using transaction-level data to test the relevance of time-drivers.

The next section illustrates the typology thanks to an ABC experiment in France.

2.2.Illustration

The case study takes place in the IT division (Infotech) of a French industrial and diversified group. Figure 1 describes the links between Infotech and the other divisions of the group.

Infotech is a profit center which sells IT services inside and outside the group. Within the group, it is a supply chain process for the various IT activities: hardware, software and services (hotline, ...)

Management decides to implement ABC for IT process.

Figure 1. Infotech organization

The old analytic model, based on cost center P&L (profit and loss), did not easily report Infotech data for a specific activity and did not explain relationships between costs and

New customers

activities. So, in order to establish links between costs of resources given by the SAP system and services defined by the sales teams, a new tool was required.

The financial controller of Infotech then decides to develop an ABC system to calculate more accurately the costs of the different activities of his division. He is convinced that ABC is appropriate to the situation.

The main objective of the ABC project is to define relevant prices for the IT services offered.

The project is divided into six steps:

1. Diagnosis, planning, and project team constitution.

2. Activities identification with managers' interviews. The activities identified refer to the strategic objectives of the division which is declined in key processes.

3. Activity cost calculation with elaboration of a timesheet. 4. Definition and collection of activity drivers and calculation of full costing. This is a fundamental step, which links strategic objectives to activities. 5. Profitability calculation.

Validation, corrections and analysis of results.

The methodology allows:

-The allocation of dedicated and shared resources to activities.

-To manage activities as basic components of processes.

-To track costs of services which are aggregation of all components of the activity nomenclature.

-To be definitively focused on process improvements rather than on structure improvements.

-To facilitate benchmarking.

-To drive partnership performance by improving common processes.

Figure 2 shows an extraction of analytic accounts, costs centers, activities and services catalogue. In reality, the ABC model include about fifty activities. The extraction distinguishes project, shared, support and on-going activities. For instance, the costs of "incident management" activity is allocated to cost objects based on the number of incidents observed according to the type of services delivered. The cost allocation of the "helpdesk" activity depends on the number of times a customer calls the service desk. Figure 3 shows resource drivers and activity assignment logic. -An inter-organizational approach to costs (first dimension) with the integration of external clients into the ABC architecture.

-A time-driven dimension (fourth perspective) with a timesheet used to build several resource drivers.

-A simplified ABC, the number of activities and drivers remaining limited.

Even if there is a large variety of drivers, the total volume is reduced.

The project group quickly understood the strategic dimension of ABC. It is a transversal ABC with meta-activities that can span several cost centers. They are more meta-activities.

Working time is an important resource driver because IT experts are the main value drivers. The company's main customers can have a look at ABC calculations to understand the price of a service (open-book accounting perspective). The Infotech ABC model also allows internal and external benchmarking analyses.

Conclusion

This paper examines strategic cost management with a focus on cost accounting methods in relation to ABC. The typology designed classifies strategically oriented cost accounting practices from four perspectives.

The developments and case study show that the ABC philosophy can be a good way to improve costing systems and drive strategic decisions. The French case study confirms the usefulness of the typology. The ABC model described is strategy and process oriented, combines customer and supplier dimensions, and use working time as resource driver.

Other case studies will complement the research in the future.

  andBallantine (1996),Ballantine et al. (1998), Brignall et al. (1999), Ittner et al. (2003) and[START_REF] Cugini | The cost of customer satisfaction: a framework for strategic cost management in service industries[END_REF]. ABC is particularly suited to a customer perspective. Value chain analysis and cost drivers, at the heart of ABC, emphasize the role of customer relations in value creation.

  Keys and van der Merwe (2002 a & b) develop the resource consumption accounting (RCA) method,

  ABC with characteristics relating to the industrial process of a product, a service or a category of customers. Researchers propose other types of refinements such as[START_REF] Park | Toward an activity-based costing system for product families and product platforms in the early stages of development[END_REF], with cost modularization (costs map to individual parts in the product family), or[START_REF] Bazrafshan | Examining the Disadvantages of Activity Based Costing (ABC) System and Introducing the Modern (Behavior Based Costing) (BBC) System[END_REF] with multivariate drivers, pools categories and costs behavioral modelling. Other proposals tend to refine ABC with mathematical programming at different levels such asKhataie et al. (2009) for the supply-chain level,Tsai et al. (2014) for life-cycle and environment costs or Zhuang and Chang (2017) who combine TDABC and programming modeling.

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Extraction of analytic accounts, cost centers, activities and services catalogue

Figure 3 .

 3 Figure 3. Resource drivers and activity assignment

Figure 4 .

 4 Figure 4. EPO dashboard

Shared divided into three objectives Four perspectives objective identified

  Table1presents the four perspectives and gives some details about the practices observed.

			External
			stakeholders
		diversifying the
		cost objects	Temporality
	Make cost
	calculations relevant	broadening the scope
	for strategic decisions	of cost analysis	costing
			refinements
		determining the relevant
		level of complexity
			costing
			simplifications

Table 1 -Perspectives and cost accounting practices identified

 1

	Perspectives	Practices identified
	1st perspective: External stakeholders
		ABC & customer-driven cost accounting
	Feature: trends towards extending the scope of
	cost analysis to external stakeholders
		ABC & supplier-driven cost accounting
	Extension to customers, suppliers, partners,
		ABC & environmental cost accounting
	environment and other stakeholders
		Inter-organizational cost management
	2nd perspective: Temporality
	Feature: costing methods focused on	ABC & strategic planning, long-term programming
	future costs to facilitate forward-looking & life-
		Activity-based budgeting, Activity-based planning
	cycle analyses
		Beyond budgeting
		ABC & life-cycle costing
		ABC & project cost accounting
		ABC & target-costing
	3rd perspective: Costing refinements
	Feature: cost accounting with analytical
		ABC & resource consumption accounting
	refinements
	Refinement of the resource allocation stage	ABC & feature costing
	Diversification of cost drivers	multivariate drivers, costs modularization
	Mathematical approaches	mathematical programming

See Freeman (1984) for the stakeholder theory.

See www.cam-i.org/

See Freeman (1984) for the stakeholder theory.

Activity-based planning and budgeting and beyond budgeting have been promoted by CAM-I (Consortium for Advanced Management International: http://www.cam-i.org)

to simplify ABC then emerged.

Several proposals include combining ABC with:

-Process cost accounting (Horngren et al., p. 594 s., 2005), -Lean accounting [START_REF] Maskell | Practical Lean Accounting. A Proven System for Measuring and Managing the Lean Enterprise[END_REF], -Value-stream costing [START_REF] Abuthakeer | Activity Based Costing Value Stream Mapping[END_REF].

Time-driven ABC (TDABC, [START_REF] Kaplan | Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing[END_REF] is today the most renowned method of simplifying ABC. TDABC is classified in the category of "equivalence methods".

With this technique, the division into activities can be simpler (as with process costing and lean accounting approaches). The principle of TDABC is to translate costs drivers into time equivalents (in standard of working hours). Changes in production conditions lead to a revision of standards. TDABC is a way to introduce standard costs in an ABC model

Here is an example of a sales department with three activities: order processing, client The literature now offers a wide variety of TDABC case studies. [START_REF] Santana | Analysis of studies on time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC)[END_REF] analyze 20 studies published in the ISI database showing that TDABC has been implemented in different countries and sectors such as distribution [START_REF] Everaert | Cost modeling in logistics using time-driven ABC: Experiences from a wholesaler[END_REF], health care organizations (Balakrishnan et al., 2007;[START_REF] Keel | Time-driven activity-based costing in health care: A systematic review of the literature[END_REF] or manufacturing companies [START_REF] Öker | Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing: An Implementation in a Manufacturing Company[END_REF].


Philippe Sormani
email: philippe.sormani@unilu.ch

Esther González-Martínez
email: esther.gonzalezmartinez@unifr.ch

Alain Bovet
email: alain.bovet@unifr.ch

Discovering Work: A Topical Introduction

come

This special issue of Ethnographic Studies offers a collection of ethnomethodological studies of practical investigations in the natural sciences, mathematics and related domains (e.g., surgery). The leitmotiv of the collection -"discovering work"hints at both its outlook and topic.

On the one hand, the collection brings together descriptive studies of practical activities in the domains mentioned above, studies that teach the reader those domains "from within", so that s/he may (re-) discover their constitutive activities in their phenomenal detailbe it in tutorial situations, expert practice or hybrid settings. On the other hand, the collection offers the reader a distinctive reminder of "discovering work" as an ordinary feature of both science instruction and research practicethat is, their directed character, to expose or find something new (at least to the involved student or practitioner)instead of dismissing that feature on philosophical or sociological grounds (e.g., from a skepticist stance, as integral to many constructivist approaches).

To meet that double objective, the collection favors descriptive, video-and/or practice-based approaches, as well as detailed investigation into the close, yet curiously neglected ties between action and instruction, practice and pedagogy. "Discovering work", then, stands as an introductory gloss for the instructive and methodical work that it takes to have any discovery recognizably obtained and exhibited, in and as part of a distinctive practice and manifest discipline. The gloss encapsulates the heuristic orientation of disciplinary inquiry, devoted to "making discoveries", if not in the second then at least in the first of the two senses quoted in the epigraph. 1The remainder of this introduction is meant to be "topical" in a double sense. First, the very topic of discovery is introduced, as a classic topic in social studies of science, yet re-specified by ethnomethodological inquiry. Second, the point and purpose for taking up that topic at all and re-specifying it here and now, in this special issue, is elaborated upon, especially with respect to the current mainstream in science and technology studies (STS). Finally, the collected studies are briefly presented.

From discovery to discovering work: Re-specifying a classic topic

As M. Lynch points out in his contribution to this special issue, "Discovery is one of the most persistent and alluring topics in philosophy, history, and social studies of science, and yet there is surprisingly little work that directly addresses discovering work." (Lynch,this issue,p. 79; emphasis added) Lynch's remark echoes a related, much earlier comment by A. Kaplan: "Because our reconstructions have occupied themselves with justifications, we have concluded that there is no logicin-use in making discoveries." (Kaplan, 1967:14) The point of recalling Kaplan's comment is to hint at the intellectual tradition that runs across philosophy in epistemological mode and social studies of science. Although Kaplan's comment bore mainly on the philosophical reconstruction of research practices, it applies to the sociological reconstruction of the resulting sciences and their technical contents as well.2 Indeed, the "sociology of scientific knowledge" (SSK) envisaged a social explanation for the justification, acceptance or refusal of knowledge claims, under causalist rather than rationalist auspices, where it had been previously sought of "false beliefs" only, if at all (e.g., [START_REF] Bloor | Knowledge and Social Imagery[END_REF][START_REF] Bloor | Sociology of Scientific Knowledge[END_REF][START_REF] Shapin | Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge[END_REF]. This bold move, now largely taken for granted, proved consequential in many respects. One consequence was, and remains, that it prevented SSK from pursuing descriptive inquiry into "science as a practice" (Pickering, 1992:1-8). In particular, the "lived work" at figuring out warrantable claims, conducting probative experiments or triggering novel findings, under the chosen auspices, tended to escape its empirical attention and analytic focus (ibid., pp. 5-6). The same holds for later attempts at quasi "techno-anthropological" explanation, as promoted by B. Latour against and yet in the vein of SSK (see [START_REF] Quéré | Les boîtes noires de B. Latour ou le lien social dans la machine[END_REF].

As D. Bloor acknowledged in a recent entry to a philosophy dictionary, "Sociologists have little to offer on the origin of ideas [e.g., the logic-in-use in making discoveries], but much to say about their evaluation and subsequent elaboration." [START_REF] Bloor | The sociology of knowledge[END_REF] Ethnomethodological inquiry, to cut a long story short, doesn't suggest separating the "origin of ideas" from their "evaluation and subsequent elaboration," as D. Bloor's formulation does. Indeed, such inquiry rejects the analytic separation of mental predicates (expressing an "intention," "knowledge," "belief" or "doubt") from the practices that enact, instantiate or otherwise relate to them (Watson and Coulter, 2008:11-13). Positively put, ethnomethodological inquiry aims at making explicit the "genealogical relationship between social practices and accounts of those practices" [START_REF] Lynch | Scientific practice and ordinary action: ethnomethodology and social studies of science[END_REF]1)be it in terms of mental, epistemological or other predicates. As it happens, a key study that examined the mentioned relationship in perspicuous detail was devoted to discovering work: the seminal paper by H. Garfinkel and his colleagues describing an "optically discovered pulsar" as an astronomically accountable object (more of which below). 3 Most laboratory and controversy studies were devised in the vein of SSK however, not so much for the sake of empirical 3 The key transition has been characterized as follows: "rather than trying to explain a practice in terms of underlying dispositions, abstract norms, or interests, a task for sociology would be to describe the ensemble of actions that constitute the practice. This is precisely what ethnomethodology seeks to do." (Lynch, 1992:290; emphasis added) More recently, see also Doing (2009:34). investigation, ethnographic description or social explanation alone (as if that restriction would have constituted a "failure of nerve", Hess, 2001:242), but to dismiss arguably prevalent views on science and technology ("naïve realism," "critical rationalism," "depoliticized objectivism," etc.) or, at least, to contribute to the discussion of such views through an "analytic critique of science" (Collins, 1996:240-41). 4 This critical thrustfacilitated by the "practice/predicate" disjunction as well as the "knowledge/belief" trickappears particularly prominent when it comes to the topic of discovery and discovering work.

To begin with, the "mentalistic model of discovery," where outstanding individuals are naïvely credited momentous achievements, was to be discarded and substituted by an "attributional model," where the "status as discovery" is redefined and re-explained, retrospectively, as a "function of perception by the community" [START_REF] Brannigan | Naturalistic and sociological models of the problem of scientific discovery[END_REF](Brannigan, :565, 1981:71):71). In the same vein, the common idea that "science works at discovering preexisting reality" would have to be replaced, once it had been disclosed as a popular myth, by the opposite idea according to which "representation rationalizes and thus constitutes scientific objects post hoc" (see Woolgar, 1988:55-66). More recently, B. Latour has made a moral appeal: any description of "matters of fact," whether constructivist or not, should be located in a discussion of "matters of concern," his concern of the day being (quasi-)constructivist denials of climate change and its human origin (Latour, 2004). 5 As the sampled moves suggest, an argumentative stance is cultivated with respect to social epistemology, rather than a descriptive interest in discovering work.

To refocus on description as the prime methodological objective means -at least for a start -to abandon the critical task of adjudicating between different models and modes of reasoning. Ethnomethodological inquiry, in particular, abandons the misleading competition with presumed "common sense" in favor of the descriptive analysis of practical action and practical reasoning [START_REF] Hester | Analysing Orders of Ordinary Action[END_REF]. For the detailed study of discovering work, this means inter alia to disentangle investigative relevancies, as encountered in research practice at the worksite, from their conflation with (putatively) dubious philosophy of science, as imputed and dismissed ex officio or ex cathedra. Discovering work, then, is and can be studied as a practical achievement through and throughthat is, an observable achievement "without residue" (R. Watson, personal communication), including its sometimes arguable character. 6To return to the practical achievement, in [START_REF] Garfinkel | Respecification: evidence for locally produced, naturally accountable phenomena of order*, logic, reason, meaning, method, etc. in and as of the essential haecceity of immortal ordinary society (I) an announcement of studies[END_REF] terminology, means to "re-specify" the topic of discovery, as formulated in the sociological or any other literature, and that by focusing upon its relevance in-and-to the research practices under scrutiny (at the lab bench or surgery table, in front of the computer screen, etc.). The topic focused upon, by consequence, behind the appearance of objective statements, do we now have to reveal the real objective and incontrovertible facts hidden behind the illusion of prejudices?" (Latour, 2004:227) is not restricted to "groundbreaking discoveries", around and through which history of science is made and unmade (starting with the "anomalies" of interest to [START_REF] Kuhn | The Structure of Scientific Revolutions[END_REF]. Neither is it restricted to the selective media coverage of reportedly extraordinary events. To the contrary, discovering work is examined as a constitutive and pervasive feature of the natural sciences in their mundane routine 7 .

A rationale for re-specification: Science and technology studies today

In 1981, H. Garfinkel and his colleagues published the paper titled "The Work of a Discovering Science Construed with Materials from the Optically Discovered Pulsar" [START_REF] Garfinkel | The work of a discovering science construed with materials from the optically discovered pulsar[END_REF]. The key point of the paper was to highlight the intertwined character of the locally enacted inquiry and its progressively discovered phenomenon. The decisive move, then, was not to draw an ironic contrast between research practice and scientific discourse, but to recover the former as a uniquely achieved, yet indispensable basis for the latter, in and for the examined case of astronomical observation. This unique achievement was described in its "first time through" properties, with the observational "runs" leading to the emerging phenomenon, the "optically discovered pulsar," and vice-versa. The apt analogy of a "potter's object" emphasized this mutual elaboration in its temporal course, practical enactment and instrumental adjustments, thus resulting in an "occasioned production" [START_REF] Koschmann | Optical Pulsars and Black Arrows: Discoveries as Occasioned Productions[END_REF]. This special issue returns to discovering work, qua practical achievement in situ 7 "Mundane" doesn't mean trivial (e.g., Sintonen and Kiikeri, 2004:241). Otherwise, scientific training, as examined in some papers of this special issue, would be pointless: "[research] 'practices,' after all, must be practiced." (Mody and Kaiser, 2008:383) and in vivo, as highlighted in the "pulsar paper," including a first appreciation of its current reception, thirty years on (see Bovet et al., this issue).

Our principal reason for returning to that topic, thirty years on, is the ironic gap between programmatically repeated calls for a "practice turn" in science and technology studies (STS) (e.g., [START_REF] Lynch | Scientific practice and ordinary action: ethnomethodology and social studies of science[END_REF][START_REF] Pickering | From Science as Knowledge to Science as Practice[END_REF]Schatzki et al., 2001) and the relative scarcity of effectively practice-investigating studies in the field, devoted to answering the (seemingly) prosaic question: "what are they doing?" (Sharrock and Button, 2011:225). There remains, indeed, a manifest scarcity of descriptive studies that answer that question stringently, informatively, and sociologicallythat is, by having it addressed as just how whatever "they" (this or that local staff of lab members) seem to be doing can be seen for what "it" is to them (this or that intricate task and social phenomenon)? Ethnomethodology at work, arguably, has proven the most apposite and productive in tackling the raised question (e.g., [START_REF] Lynch | Temporal order in laboratory life[END_REF]Lynch and Sharrock, 2003;Rouncefield and Tolmie, 2011). Yet it remains or has become largely absent from STS. 8 If it were all "gloom and doom", this special issue couldn't have been assembled, however. Our aim as editors, at least, was not to indulge in misplaced nostalgia but to gather recent studies in ethnomethodological perspective and to reflect upon their possible relationship(s) to STS at large (for a related initiative, see [START_REF] Lynch | Ad hoc special section on ethnomethodological studies of science, mathematics, and technical activity: Introduction[END_REF]. Therefore, we have assembled concrete exemplars of both 8 As M. Lynch concedes, "judging from submissions to this journal [Social Studies of Science] and the programs at recent Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) meetings, ethnomethodology is not much in evidence." (Lynch, 2011a:2) practice-based studies of domain-specific skills, as recently advocated by E. [START_REF] Livingston | Ethnographies of Reason[END_REF], and video-based studies of practical activities in the natural sciences, as honed by several analysts, often at the Ethnomethodology/STS interface (see, among others, [START_REF] Alač | Handling digital brains: a laboratory study of multimodal semiotic interaction in the age of computers[END_REF][START_REF] Greiffenhagen | Does Mathematics Look Certain in the Front, but Fallible in the Back?[END_REF][START_REF] Mondada | Chercheurs en interaction. Comment émergent les savoirs[END_REF].

The ensuing collection contains selected ethnomethodological studies that run against the grain of mainstream STS. The collection, we hope, should thus contribute to renewed discussion (see below). In the meantime, we may sketch the key tendencies in current STS that, in our view, contribute to move the field away from detailed investigations of research practices, potentiating thus a "practice Uturn". These tendencies may be listed as follows:

 First, the manifest abandonment of lab ethnography and its descriptive interest in "research in the making" at the worksite, as if lab work had been conclusively described (e.g., Doing 2008:291-292);  Second, the promotion of theoretical frameworks to re-present social and institutional configurations, incapacitating one's "seeing things for themselves" [START_REF] Hutchinson | Seeings Things for Themselves: Winch, Ethnography, Ethnomethodology and Social Studies[END_REF]; 9  Third, the virtually unbounded multiplication of topical fields (including governance, finance, etc.), at the seeming expense of any sustained focus on constitutive practices. 10 As unwarranted and precipitated as the retreat from lab ethnography and the related compulsions to "theorize politics" and "multiply topics" may have been, all of them have caught on and set the STS 9 Actor-Network Theory constitutes, arguably, the paradigmatic case of this tendency. 10 For an uncompromising critique of this tendency in British sociology, see [START_REF] Watson | Interpretive' Sociology in Great Britain: The State of the Art[END_REF]. agenda up to the present day, as the introduction to the current Handbook of Science and Technology Studies suggests.

After having spelled out the purpose of the Handbook11 , its editors comment upon the received contributions: "What emerged [from those contributions] is a multifaceted interest in the changing practices of knowledge production, concern with connections among science, technology, and various social institutions (the state, medicine, law, industry, and economics more generally), and urgent attention to issues of public participation, power, democracy, governance, and the evaluation of scientific knowledge.

These topics are approached with theoretical eclecticism: rather than defending pure positions, authors risked strategic crossovers and melded ideas from different intellectual domains. Normativity, relativism, and evaluation of expertise and scientific knowledge endure from previous volumes but in new ways: no longer just problems for philosophical reflection, such concerns are now posed in terms that seek collective political and social resolution." (Hackett et al., 2008:3;emphasis added) Thus the current mainstream in STS, at least in the light of this overview, takes for granted three things. First, its "multifaceted interest" in the "changing practices of knowledge production" (and so on) assumes those practices to be readily and interestingly identifiable, without the awkward detour of descriptive analysis. The focus on their "change," institutionalized "connections" and associated "issues" presupposes the problem of initial practice description to be solved by itself (to the satisfaction of the highlighted focus at least). Second, "theoretical eclecticism" is assumed to offer the most accurate appreciation, not so much of distinctive research practices (their understanding being already taken for granted), but of the various topics in terms of which those practices should be triangulated and reinterpreted ("normativity," "relativism," "evaluation of expertise," etc.). Third, "collective political and social resolution" is inscribed as an indispensable topic, if not a practical task of STS scholarship, despite (or because of?) its "multi-theoretical" bent.12 None of the three assumptions is gladly shared by ethnomethodological inquiry. To the contrary, such inquiry, at least when understood as an autonomous endeavor [START_REF] Sharrock | Autonomy among social theories. The incarnation of social structures[END_REF], may be said, and seen, to derive its rationale for respecification from a manifest and sustained lack of agreement. The principal aim of this special issue, however, is not to take a critical stance but, rather, to assemble an interesting array of case studies. These are briefly presented in the next section.13

Varieties, ambivalences and consequences of re-specification: The studies in this special issue

The idea for collecting the ensuing studies in a special issue such as this goes back to a workshop titled Scientific Practice as Ordinary Action, held at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, in March 2007. The aim of the workshop was to bring together current ethnographies of lab work, devised in ethnomethodological or related perspectives. As the title of the workshop suggests, M. Lynch's seminal book provided a key inspiration, especially its invitation to proceed with "epistopical respecification," understood as an empirical inquiry into the local relevance of epistemological topics as phenomena of social order and practical import [START_REF] Lynch | Scientific practice and ordinary action: ethnomethodology and social studies of science[END_REF]. A related motive for the workshop was to discuss video-based analysis of research activities and its possible contribution to such "re-specification." A variety of papers were thus presented, ranging from an ethnographic investigation into NASA's Mars expeditions to video analysis of pointing gestures by agronomists, and fieldwork on dolphin classifications by marine biologists.

This special issue, in turn, gathers contributions that are explicitly focused on discovering work in an ethnomethodological perspective, one way or other. Some of these contributions were presented at the workshop; others were solicited subsequently from attending parties; still others, such as this introduction, were self-initiated. 14 The contributions to this special issue, in particular, deal with the following questions:

1) Just how is a [reliable discovery in and as school science] achieved? (Sherman Heckler) 2) Just how is the [surgical procedure to have a patient's ureter discovered] instructed and engaged in? (Koschmann and Zemel) 3) Just how is a [practical impossibility in mathematical reasoning discovered] as an instructive expression of its lived course (Sharrock and Anderson)? 4) Just how are [a first local spectroscopy on a complex superconductor and the 14

The workshop program is available at http://fns.unifr.ch/situatedpractices/en/. instant appraisal of its unprecedented result] jointly achieved? (Sormani) 5) Just how is the [discovery status of a thought-to-be-extinct, yet recently filmed woodpecker] established, challenged and reexamined? (Lynch) 6) Just how is a [biological ontology as the putative framework for future discoveries] routinely elaborated? (Sharrock, Randall, and Greiffenhagen) 7) Just how might the ["pulsar paper" be rediscovered as a "citation classic"] in ethnomethodology, STS and beyond? (Bovet, Carlin, and Sormani) Readers are invited to read the respective studies to have the stated questions answered in detailto have, for instance, the intricate work of elaborating a [biological ontology as the putative framework for future discoveries] specified. The formulations in square brackets, in each and every case, summarize the involved participants' concern (as suggested by Garfinkel and Sacks, 1970:352). The key aim of the collected studies, then, is to describe "just how" this manifest concern is addressed by them, respectivelythat is, through their practical enactment of recognizable, variable and yet distinctive courses of discovering work. 15In what sense, then, do the offered descriptions offer a "re-specification" of discovery as an epistemological topic and social phenomenon? There is no simple answer to this question, if only for the outlined variety of investigative practices, each of which defines "discovering work" and "discovery" in its own terms. The ambivalent character of ethnomethodological inquiry, as exemplified by this special issue, complicates matters further. 16Indeed, such inquiry may be understood in two ways at least: either as a "beginning" or an "ending" (Hutchinson et al., 2008:109-110).

When understood as a beginning, its investigations may be thought of as a "first step in the direction of a genuine sociological science, one which differentiates itself from sociology-at-large […] in being the only branch of sociology that addresses itself directly to actual and observable occurrences in and of the social order" (ibid., p. 109; emphasis added). Transcript-assisted video analysis, conducted in conversation analytic vein, can be seen as the most recent representative of this branch. Conversely, when understood as an ending, ethnomethodological inquiry renders superfluous the very "idea of 'a sociology' as the proprietary possession of a profession of investigators" (ibid., p. 110). That is to say, the topics and concerns of the profession, including the perceptive video analyst, are abandoned as topics and concerns of the profession alone. Instead, they are recovered for how they already feature, provided that they do, in "socially organized indigenous practice" (ibid.). Depending upon the "beginning" potential or "ending" power attributed to ethnomethodological inquiry, the idea of "re-specification" should be interpreted differently. Whenever its beginning potential is explored or exploited, ethnomethodological inquiry may satisfy a professional sociological demand for (more) empirical detail, as possibly relevant to a theoretical argument or practical concern (e.g., how to improve "human-computer interaction"). More importantly, however, it should allow the investigator to specify the "identifying details" of the examined practice, those details which identify the practice for those involved, while proving relevant for and attended to, by them, in its actual course. Conversely, when the ending power of ethnomethodological inquiry with respect to professional prerogatives is emphasized, then the self-instructive character of any examined line of practice should be foregrounded. It is through its autodidactic exercise and eventual mastery that the analyst gains his or her detailed understanding of its immanent, yet accountable featuresbe s/he equipped with pen and paper, a video camera, a prism or any other potentially heuristic device (see [START_REF] Livingston | Ethnographies of Reason[END_REF].

Space and time prevents us from describing the observable consequences of the indicated ambivalences on the actual investigation of discovering work. Simply, we invite readers of the ensuing studies to bear those ambivalences in mind. To do so should not only add to the appreciation of the particular outlook of each study but also contribute to revive discussion "in", "with" and "against" social studies of sciencethe multifaceted concern of this special issue.17 have been organized. The Swiss Sociological Association and its research committee "Interpretive Sociologies", as well as the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Fribourg, were instrumental to the workshop organization and are to be acknowledged accordingly. More recently, Martina Merz has kindly supported the publication of the special issue, if only by granting one of us the time required to have it assembled. The same holds for Atyabel Karla Valdovinos whose technical acumen proved of critical importance to bring the final editing to a close. Ivan Leudar is to be thanked for his patient support. The Swiss National Science Foundation is to be acknowledged for its financial aid.

H. Garfinkel examined this heuristic orientation as a routine feature of the natural sciences in everyday practicethat is, their ordinary, if not intended lack of "foregone conclusions"(Garfinkel,

2002).

The "knowledge/belief trick" (J. Lee, personal communication), where positive knowledge is defined as "accepted belief", does not undermine the mentioned continuity but elaborates and presupposes it. The trick has recently been (re-) performed as a "validity/credibility" swap (seeShapin, 2010a).

On the philosophical agenda of SSK, see[START_REF] Friedman | On the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and its Philosophical Agenda[END_REF];Shapin (1996:296-297).

His cosmopolitan lamentation, rightly or wrongly, elaborates the following question: "While we spent years trying to detect the real prejudices hidden

Research practice might not fit any philosophical ideal of (say) disembodiment, determination or disinterestedness. Yet to conclude, if ironically, from this lack of fit that research practice is "never pure" witnesses lacking disentanglement yet again, respectively sustained conflation of analysts' and practitioners' perspectives (e.g., Shapin, 2010b).

"[…] a handbook that would consolidate the field's accomplishments, welcome new scholars to enter STS, and indicate promising research pathways into the future."(Hackett et al., 2008:3)

"Reflexive" and "deconstructive" initiatives, in turn, seem to have curiously vanished (e.g.,[START_REF] Ashmore | The reflexive thesis. Wrighting the sociology of scientific knowledge[END_REF][START_REF] Merz | Deconstruction in a 'Thinking' Science: Theoretical Physicists at Work[END_REF].

For an initial ethnomethodological critique of constructivist re-descriptions of discovering work and S. Woolgar's "policy of inversion" in particular, see[START_REF] Button | A Disagreement over Agreement and Consensus in Constructionist Sociology[END_REF].

G.[START_REF] Ryle | The concept of mind[END_REF] distinction between "activity verbs" (such as looking, searching or researching) and "achievement verbs" (such as seeing, finding or discovering) allows us to raise the question, but not to answer it.

Only when seen from too far away can it be dismissed as a defensively "pure" approach.

For further discussion of the multi-prepositional relationship of ethnomethodological inquiry to its intended phenomena, including sociological, anthropological or any other type of inquiry, seeRawls (2002:19).

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements are due to many parties. First of all, we would like to thank the contributors to this special issue for their written contribution and collegial criticism. Christian Greiffenhagen, Wes Sharrock and the late Jean Widmer are to be especially acknowledged. Without them, the initial workshop, to which this special issue may be traced back, couldn't