Seizing overflows: exploring how accounting becomes emancipatory

Purpose Through an in-depth case study, this paper aims to investigate how workplace struggles can meaningfully change management accounting practices. Design/methodology/approach This is an archival study drawing on 10 years of governmental documents, news media and a court case. The theoretical notions of framing and overflowing are used to investigate how a calculative change was introduced, problematized and reverted. Findings An initiative to increase care quality through the empowerment of care recipients led to a calculative change and to an intensification of work, which union representatives turned into a health and safety complaint. “Seizing” the overflow from the calculative change and “redirecting” it into the health and safety arena allowed the unions to draw support from the national work health and safety agency. In response, the organization rolled back the calculative change. Originality/value This paper introduces the notions of seizing and redirecting overflows. When combined with conduits of overflows, a part of Callon’s (1998) conceptual apparatus that previously has received little attention, these notions constitute a framework that helps identify conditions that make emancipatory uses of accounting and control outputs possible.