This study explores the risks and consequences of the reliance on visualizations in performance measurement for the sake of the simplicity and actionability of performance information. Despite the mounting interest in the visual aspects of accounting, little is known about what can happen when visuals are so embedded in organizations that they become a key semiotic resource for communicating performance measurement information. Theoretically, we draw from multimodality research to unpack how different semiotic modes (i.e., visuals, text, and numbers) interact in organizational meaning-making. To explore these issues, we conducted a study of the visual practices of one of the largest infrastructure megaprojects in the UK. The paper makes two contributions. Our first contribution consists of qualifying what we call the lure of the visual: A seemingly paradoxical process whereby the increasing ubiquity and reliance on visuals in an organization induces the trivialization of performance measurement visualizations and limits the communicative opportunities they offer to users. In so doing, we offer a substantive qualification of the risks and consequences of visual approaches to performance measurement. Our second contribution to the accounting literature is the theorization of how multiple semiotic modes can interact in performance measurement. We theorize three multimodal relationships between visuals, numbers, and text that shed new light on how performance measurement artifacts generate meaning in organizations.

为了性能信息的简单性和可操作性，本研究探讨了在性能测量中依赖可视化的风险和后果。尽管人们对会计的视觉方面的兴趣与日俱增，但对于当视觉如此嵌入组织以成为传达绩效衡量信息的关键符号资源时会发生什么知之甚少。从理论上讲，我们从多模态研究中汲取灵感，以揭示不同的符号模式（即视觉、文本和数字）如何在组织意义构建中相互作用。为了探讨这些问题，我们对英国最大的基础设施大型项目之一的视觉实践进行了研究。这篇论文有两个贡献。我们的第一个贡献包括限定我们所说的视觉的诱惑：一个看似矛盾的过程，在这个过程中，组织中对视觉的日益普及和依赖导致绩效测量可视化变得微不足道，并限制了它们为用户提供的交流机会。通过这样做，我们提供了对绩效衡量视觉方法的风险和后果的实质性资格。我们对会计文献的第二个贡献是对多种符号模式如何在绩效衡量中相互作用的理论化。我们对视觉、数字和文本之间的三种多模式关系进行了理论化，这些关系为绩效测量工件如何在组织中产生意义提供了新的思路。