Strong structuration theory in accounting research (original) (raw)

Strong Structuration Theory and Management Accounting Research

Advances in Scientific and Applied Accounting

Strong structuration theory is a recent development in social theory that, among other attributes, makes the gap between ontological concepts and empirical research easier to negotiate. Giddens' structuration theory is a developed ontology-in-general explaining at an abstract level how structure and agency are interrelated, being a duality in which neither can exist without the other. Strong structuration is a development of structuration theory that retains duality of structure but has a greater sense of ontology-in-situ (that is, a concern with social processes and events at particular times and places) to counteract the overly abstract and philosophical nature of Giddens' work. In this essay, I set out three reasons why I believe that strong structuration theory is particularly suited to qualitative empirical research in management accounting. These are that it encourages and reminds researchers to use up to date scholarship from other disciplines in their research; that it refocuses research on agency and the intended and unintended effects that individual people have on structures; and that it encourages research design that have the intention of building new theoretical insights. A review of the small body of accounting research that has so far used strong structuration theory shows that researchers are using innovative approaches, based on Stones' (2005) and later work, to investigate the relationships between different actors and their knowledge of the contexts which they inhabit to understand why accounting is done in the way it is, and the extent to which change is possible. The next step in this area of research is to consider the concept of active agency within the theory more closely, and in particular, to examine communication in management accounting as active agency.

Asaa Strong Structuration Theory and Management Accounting Research

2017

Structuration theory: reflections on its further potential for management accounting research

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 2015

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the potential of strong structuration theory in management accounting research. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explains how the ontological perspective of strong structuration theory extends the work of Giddens and explores how the perspective overcomes a number of the limitations of existing management accounting research based on structuration theory. Findings – Strong structuration theory develops and extends the work of Giddens, providing greater insights into the role of agents, improves our understanding of the diffusion of accounting practices through organisational fields, adds to our knowledge of how artefacts are used in the production and reproduction of organisational life and improves research design. Research limitations/implications – Strong structuration theory provides clear guidance about management accounting case study research design, and suggests the potential for the accounting research community to engage more act...

Management Accounting Research and Structuration Theory: A Critical Realist Critique

2015

The paper extends the critique of structuration theory from a critical realist perspective, in particular by demonstrating how its theoretical shortcomings are manifest in management accounting research. Examining of one of the most cited structuration-based accounting studies and other more recent structuration-based accounting studies, the paper highlights what accounting researchers who have embraced a structuration lens may have ignored. It also demonstrates why accounting researchers could not get a better theoretical purchase out of structuration. We find that a critical realist account provides a far more in-depth account of budgeting changes and is likely to avoid the problems encountered in using a structuration theoretical lens. The paper has important implications for accounting researchers as it demonstrates that analytical dualism instead of duality has much better potential to offer deeper understanding of accounting changes.

Strong structuration theory and accounting information: an empirical study

Accounting, auditing & accountability, 2016

Purpose-This paper uses Strong Structuration Theory to explore the role of accounting information in New Product Development (NPD). NPD is a complex social action involving a wide range of different actors and clusters of actors. Strong Structuration Theory allows us to take a broad view of this social system in order to develop a complete picture of the clusters of actors involved, to comprehensively examine the relevant structures, both internal and external, and to understand how these are formed, reformed or modified through the actions of agents. Design/methodology/approach-A field study of the manufacturing division of a large group was conducted which explored how managers use accounting information during NPD. Examining how these managers draw upon their conjuncturally specific structures of signification, legitimation and domination, and how these are affected by their external structural conditions and their general dispositional frames of meaning, allowed the authors to develop an in-depth understanding of the managers' behaviour during NPD. Findings-These findings suggest that the managers' use of accounting information is determined as much by the subjective nature of the managers themselves as it is by the objective characteristics of the structures with which they interact. By using Stones' composite research strategy, which encourages us to conceive of internal structures as always looking outwards and external structures as always looking inwards, the findings help us to understand the 'connecting tissue' between the different elements of the quadripartite of structuration which has been lacking in previous research in the area. This understanding of the connecting tissue between structures was facilitated by the micro-analysis of six managers within a given conjuncture. Using the concept of the agent-in-focus as a tool with which to switch lenses from manager to manager acknowledged the web-like interdependencies between different processes of structuration. This allowed an exploration of the relationships between the various agents and structures. Originality/value-This study contributes to our understanding of Stones' Strong Structuration Theory at both an ontological and methodological level by operationalising Stones' model in a case study setting.

Strong structuration theory & accounting information: an empirical study

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2016

Introducing strong structuration theory for informing qualitative case studies in organization, management and accounting research

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 2007

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present a reinforced version of structuration theory, known as strong structuration theory, set out in Stones (2005) as a disciplined 2 approach to qualitative case study research in organization, management and accounting fields. This framework challenges the belief held by certain critics that structuration theory cannot be used in substantive empirical research but is only a sensitising device or analytical tool.

Understanding management accounting change using strong structuration frameworks

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2016

The purpose of the paper is to suggest a strong structuration based framework for the study of management accounting change. Design/methodology/approach A retrospective field study was designed to investigate the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on budgeting and control practices of Greek hospitality organisations. Conduct analysis addresses agents' perceptions of the changes upon themselves. Context analysis explores the changing context, and how the agents modified their in-situ control structures accordingly. The framework is demonstrated through one case study. Findings The agents in the case, triggered by the crisis, gradually come to criticise the way they practice budgeting. Their first response is to practice budgeting more normatively, but later they criticise and modify these norms. Variance management became pro-active rather than reactive. Variations in the ways agents draw upon structuresunreflectively or criticallyand on how they act to reproduce structuresroutinely or strategicallycharacterise change in management accounting practice. Agents' reasoning and conduct leading to action is local, and these local changes in conduct and context are significant in understanding management accounting change. Originality/Value This framework for studying management accounting change balances structural conditions of action, with action and interaction. It can be used to study how, why, and by whom institutionalised management accounting practices may change.

Linking Accounting, Organizations, and Institutions *

Accounting, Organizations, and Institutions, 2009

A simple proposition underpins the title of this volume and the papers collected here: that there is much to be gained by looking at the relations among accounting, organizations, and institutions. This of course begs many questions, not least what is meant by each of the three nouns that make up the title. For the moment, we shall adopt some rudimentary deWnitions without being too sensitive to nomenclature and the intellectual traditions that are attached to certain words. By accounting, we mean all those spatially and historically varying calculative practices-ranging from budgeting to fair value accounting-that allow accountants and others to describe and act on entities, processes, and persons. By organizations, we mean not only those formally constituted and bounded entities-such as Wrms, not-for-proWt, and government organizations responsible for providing services-but the plethora of less formal and less bounded associations of actors and activities, such as industry associations, inter-Wrm alliances, and even ad hoc advisory groups. And, by institutions, we mean those stabilized and legitimized ideas and groupings, together with their attendant bodies of knowledge and ways of classifying, that are taken for granted and accorded authority (more or less) by common assent. This tripartite schema leaves out much of course, and it also risks overstating the boundaries between each component and the solidity of each. 1 For instance, at what point does an organization become an institution (and vice David Cooper is pleased to acknowledge the Wnancial support of the CertiWed General Accountants of Alberta and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. 1 We also limit our focus largely to the Weld of accounting research that is represented and constituted by a number of journals, most notably Accounting, Organizations and Society, Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. That means that this chapter and volume tend to underplay the substantial contributions from research inspired by conventional economics and psychology. 3 This opportunity to reXect on the history of the discipline is also combined with a desire to remember and build on some of the classical founders. As Adler (2009) argues, 'a social science that forgets its founders is lost' (2009: 3).

Accounting as a Structuring Governance Mechanism

Journal of Accounting, Business and Management (JABM)

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on how to conceptualise structure and agency in accounting through a longitudinal exploration of the financial statements of the St. Anselm Foundry over almost a century. We argue that linkages between the firm’s information production choices, its governance structure and the socio-economic context in which it operates are better explained as a function of different interacting structural conditions, as mediated through human agency, than with agency theory alone. This argument is consistent with a proposal by Kilfoyle and Richardson (2011), but our analysis expands the demonstration of such dualism from management accounting to financial accounting.

Strong structuration theory in accounting research (original) (raw)

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