Some conceptualisations on rules and routines in management accounting

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2011

Authors

João Oliveira (Author) FEP; Martin Quinn (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: ENROAC - 8th Conference

8th Conference of the European Network for Research in Organisational & Accounting Change (ENROAC)

Lisboa: ISCTE – IUL, 1 a 3 Junho 2011

Scientific classification

FOS: Social sciences > Economics and Business

CORDIS: Social sciences > Economics

Other information

Resumo (PT): This paper reports on some findings from two case studies of organisational and accounting change, including large-scale information systems implementations. In particular, rules and routines in the context of management accounting are explored based on some data emerging from the cases. Burns and Scapens (2000) contributed a framework which describes the process by which management accounting practices may become taken-for-granted, or put another way, institutionalised. Burns and Scapens (2000) describe how rules and routines interact over time to create and maintain seemingly stable and enduring management accounting practices. Both cases described in this paper set out using Burns and Scapens’ work as an initial springboard to inform our interpretations of the processes of management accounting change. On our journey through the cases, we both separately encountered some vulnerability in the conceptualisations of rules and routines, as guided by Burns and Scapens (2000). In Oliveira (2010), a three-year case study of a long-term process of organisational change at RuleCo highlighted how rules, accepted and enacted by organisational actors, were crucial to a far reaching change process. The case conceptualised rules beyond merely formal rules as defined by the organisational actors with the formal authority to legislate them. In addition, it also reinforced the notion that rules may not even have such a formal dimension and that distinctions between formal and informal rules are illusory (Hodgson, 2006). Instead, the RuleCo case found explanatory usefulness in Clegg’s (1989) concepts of rules of meaning and rules of membership. Rules of meaning refer to the ways actors make sense of the world, events, others and themselves. They shape the way actors’ knowledge is constructed. In turn, rules of membership refer to what actors believe to be appropriate behaviours. The desire to adopt such behaviours (by enacting accepted rules of membership) stems from the actors’ status of members of certain groups – or, more fundamentally, from the actors’ ambitions to be included, accepted, retained and promoted as members in those groups (Munro, 1999). Therefore, the case supported that rules may become internalised and a part of actors’ cognitive structures – in line with the long-standing Parsonian stream of institutional theory focusing on internalisation and which partly underpins Burns and Scapens’ (2000) framework. The insights from RuleCo led to the development of an OIE model of rule-based action, which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, and without even considering this model, the RuleCo case analysis presented in this paper contributes to outlining paths for future developments of Burns and Scapens (2000), as regards possible – alternative or overlapping – conceptualisations about rules in OIE. (...)

Abstract (EN): This paper reports on some findings from two case studies of organisational and accounting change, including large-scale information systems implementations. In particular, rules and routines in the context of management accounting are explored based on some data emerging from the cases. Burns and Scapens (2000) contributed a framework which describes the process by which management accounting practices may become taken-for-granted, or put another way, institutionalised. Burns and Scapens (2000) describe how rules and routines interact over time to create and maintain seemingly stable and enduring management accounting practices. Both cases described in this paper set out using Burns and Scapens’ work as an initial springboard to inform our interpretations of the processes of management accounting change. On our journey through the cases, we both separately encountered some vulnerability in the conceptualisations of rules and routines, as guided by Burns and Scapens (2000). In Oliveira (2010), a three-year case study of a long-term process of organisational change at RuleCo highlighted how rules, accepted and enacted by organisational actors, were crucial to a far reaching change process. The case conceptualised rules beyond merely formal rules as defined by the organisational actors with the formal authority to legislate them. In addition, it also reinforced the notion that rules may not even have such a formal dimension and that distinctions between formal and informal rules are illusory (Hodgson, 2006). Instead, the RuleCo case found explanatory usefulness in Clegg’s (1989) concepts of rules of meaning and rules of membership. Rules of meaning refer to the ways actors make sense of the world, events, others and themselves. They shape the way actors’ knowledge is constructed. In turn, rules of membership refer to what actors believe to be appropriate behaviours. The desire to adopt such behaviours (by enacting accepted rules of membership) stems from the actors’ status of members of certain groups – or, more fundamentally, from the actors’ ambitions to be included, accepted, retained and promoted as members in those groups (Munro, 1999). Therefore, the case supported that rules may become internalised and a part of actors’ cognitive structures – in line with the long-standing Parsonian stream of institutional theory focusing on internalisation and which partly underpins Burns and Scapens’ (2000) framework. The insights from RuleCo led to the development of an OIE model of rule-based action, which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, and without even considering this model, the RuleCo case analysis presented in this paper contributes to outlining paths for future developments of Burns and Scapens (2000), as regards possible – alternative or overlapping – conceptualisations about rules in OIE. (...)

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

Notes: Ata distribuída em formato eletrónico.