Purpose – The question is addressed of how types of consequences of accounting can be identified and classified. In doing so, an analysis is conducted of consequences for Kain Nikunau (i.e. indigenous persons of Nikunau Island) that have some association with the accounting brought from the Atlantic to the Pacific by I-Matang (i.e. indigenous persons of Europe, in particular being fair-skinned).

Design/methodology/approach – We adopt an eclectic approach; use historical sources and participant-observation data; compose an analytical description of consequences of accounting for the last several generations of Kain Nikunau; and discuss the findings in order to enhance the present literature about consequences of accounting.

Findings – Human application of I-Matang accounting ideas and practices, figuring even mundanely and unobtrusively in various activities and situations (e.g. trade, mining and wage employment, Christian missions and churches, formal education, medical care and other public services, development planning and bi-lateral aid, and colonial and island government), have caused or formed conditions of possibility for wide-ranging and farreaching changes on Nikunau and to Kain Nikunau. These changes are consequences of accounting and may be classified as biological, cultural, demographic, distributional, environmental, geographic, macro- and micro-economic, organisational, political, religious, social and societal. The desirability and undesirability of these consequences are ambiguous. Identifying and classifying these consequences is an analytical inductive process requiring taking several perspectives, applying lateral thinking and examining a field of inquiry longitudinally.

Research limitations/implications – The research group did not include any Kain Nikunau. Originality/value – A niche area of accounting research has grown around the context of indigenous peoples. This paper is rare for looking at change over generations of persons with not only a biological connection but also and social one. Over and above that, the paper is unique in addressing how consequences of accounting can be identified and classified.