Interactions of rules and routines: re-thinking rules
Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change
ISSN: 1832-5912
Article publication date: 2 November 2015
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the extant and arguably excessive focus on routines in management accounting research and a relative neglect of rules. It seeks to advance our understanding of how rules and routines may interact in the technology-enabled context of management accounting and control of contemporary organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors draw on, and develop, insights from extant literature and from two case studies to explore how rules and routines may interact.
Findings
The paper proposes a framework on the interactions of rules and routines across multiple dimensions. The authors adopt a wide notion of rules to include formal rules, rules as internal cognitive structures of human actors and rules technologically embedded in non-human actors. The authors argue that rules underlie and may precede routines, distinguish between repeated practices and routines and explore the role of technology in today’s management accounting practices.
Research limitations/implications
This research shows how the process of routinization and, ultimately, institutionalization of practices involves multiple dimensions of rules, as well as both human and non-human actors. With this understanding, researchers and practitioners will be better equipped to, respectively, understand nuances of management accounting change and actually achieve change in practice.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the importance of rules in the routinization and institutionalization of management accounting practices and proposes a framework which explores the interactions of rules and routines across three realms: material, action and psychological. Including a material realm, related with technologically embedded rules, in the proposed framework contributes to institutional theory by acknowledging today’s increasing role of technology in organizational life.
Keywords
Citation
Oliveira, J. and Quinn, M. (2015), "Interactions of rules and routines: re-thinking rules", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 503-526. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAOC-11-2013-0095
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited