Because of their complexity and principle-based nature, the creation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) engendered significant uncertainty that modified the order of things within large accounting firms. This motivated them to establish Professional Practice Function (PPF) units to try to ensure a credible degree of consistency in applying IFRS across a wide range of financial reports at the international level. We study backstage dynamics surrounding a PPF national unit in one of the Big Four firms. We focus on the rise of the PPF as an expert-based control device within the firm, and the role PPF members play as knowledge brokers to interpret IFRS. Our investigation is carried out through ethnographic fieldwork supplemented by interviews with PPF members and field auditors. The analysis brings forward some of the organizational dynamics surrounding PPF members' efforts to establish their credibility as intermediaries both hierarchically, between administrative partners and field auditors, and epistemically, between the unifying logic of IFRS and auditees' financial reporting specifics. Ultimately, our analysis points to the role of the PPF as a gatekeeping or internal control device that mediates between different pools of knowledge to monitor the firm's reputation risk against IFRS implementation challenges. From a legal perspective, our ethnography documents how accounting “law” is made at the firm level and how PPF members strive for consistency – in spite of significant epistemological and organizational challenges. Our ethnography also shows that complex IFRS interpretation issues are not resolved through one person's judgment; instead, the firm's structure surrounding the PPF allows for the constitution of inter-individual judgment that transcends national, sectoral, and (sometimes) organizational boundaries. Finally, we see one important contribution of our work as helping reveal the limits of large conceptual categories such as “auditors”, which tend to downplay the dynamics of convoluted practice relationships.

由于其复杂性和基于原则的性质，国际财务报告准则 (IFRS) 的创建产生了重大的不确定性，从而改变了大型会计师事务所内部的秩序。这促使他们建立专业实践职能 (PPF) 部门，以确保在国际层面的广泛财务报告中应用 IFRS 时具有可信程度的一致性。我们研究了四大公司之一的 PPF 国家部门的后台动态。我们关注 PPF 作为公司内基于专家的控制设备的兴起，以及 PPF 成员作为知识经纪人在解释 IFRS 方面所扮演的角色。我们的调查是通过民族志实地考察进行的，并辅以对 PPF 成员和实地审计员的采访。该分析提出了围绕 PPF 成员在行政合作伙伴和现场审计师之间以及在 IFRS 的统一逻辑和被审计方的财务报告细节之间在层次结构上建立其作为中介的信誉的一些组织动态。最终，我们的分析指出了 PPF 作为守门人或内部控制设备的作用，它在不同的知识库之间进行调解，以监控公司声誉风险以应对 IFRS 实施挑战。从法律的角度来看，我们的民族志记录了会计“法律”是如何在公司层面制定的，以及 PPF 成员如何努力保持一致性——尽管存在重大的认识论和组织挑战。我们的民族志还表明，复杂的 IFRS 解释问题不是通过一个人的判断来解决的；相反，围绕 PPF 的公司结构允许构成超越国家、部门和（有时）组织边界的个人间判断。最后，我们认为我们的工作的一项重要贡献是帮助揭示大型概念类别（例如“审计员”）的局限性，这些类别往往会淡化错综复杂的实践关系的动态。