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The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Structuration theory: reflections on its further potential for management accounting research”, a paper by Coad et al.

This paper presents, discusses and challenges the critique that Coad et al. direct towards the notion of a flat and local structuration ontology in management accounting research.

This paper offers a number of reflections upon Coad et al.’s key arguments against a flat and local structuration ontology in extant accounting research. Based on the authors’ understanding of such an ontology, they also elaborate on what they believe a flat and local structuration ontology “can do” and “cannot do” for accounting research. Overall, the authors agree with Coad et al. that there is indeed an ontological divide between their different views on a flat and local ontology; a divide largely related to whether researchers have an essentialist view on social phenomena. However, the authors believe that Coad et al. exaggerate how this ontological divide has affected, and may affect, future empirical management accounting research.

This paper expands the current understanding of a flat and local structuration ontology in management accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model elaborating on the type of conditions that can inhibit (or at least temporarily hold back) “reactive conformance” in the wake of an increasing reliance on quantitative performance evaluations of academic research and researchers.

A qualitative study of a research group at a Swedish university who was recurrently exposed to quantitative performance evaluations of their research activities.

The empirical findings show how the research group under study exhibited a surprisingly high level of non-compliance and non-conformity in relation to what was deemed important and legitimate by the prevailing performance evaluations. Based on this, we identify four important qualities of pre-existing research/er ideals that seem to make them particularly resilient to an infiltration of an “academic performer ideal,” namely that they are (1) central and since-long established, (2) orthogonal to (i.e. very different from) the academic performer ideal as materialized by the performance measurement system, (3) largely shared within the research group and (4) externally legitimate. The premise is that these qualities form an important basis and motivation for not only criticizing, but also contesting, the academic performer ideal.

Extant research generally finds that the proliferation of quantitatively oriented performance evaluations within academia makes researchers adopt a new type of academic performer ideal which promotes research conformity and superficiality. This study draws upon, and adds to, an emerging literature that has begun to problematize this “reactive conformance-thesis” through identifying four qualities of pre-existing research/er ideals that can inhibit (or at least temporarily hold back) such “reactive research conformance.”

The purpose of this paper is to explore how actors subjected to public performance evaluations may “contest commensuration,” i.e. may seek to influence how such ratings and rankings will be construed among important stakeholders.

A qualitative study of press releases, and interviews with department heads, is used as a basis for the analysis.

The empirically derived taxonomy of public responses to a state-initiated performance evaluation of educational programs shows that actors may mobilize an array of commensuration management tactics so as to maintain or improve one’s relative positional status. Such tactics may have at least three different foci, namely, on the comparison object (i.e. on the new grouping of actors), the comparison dimension (i.e. the standardized format for comparison) and the comparison rate (i.e. the rate received), respectively. The authors also find that not only are threats to positional status likely to spur commensuration management tactics, but also the opportunity to exploit a good rate.

The paper augments recent research that has problematized the so-called “reactive conformance thesis” by focusing on how evaluated organizations may directly try to influence external stakeholders through public responses. The study is also one of the first that analytically disentangles how they may skillfully exploit different forms of “plasticity” that are inherent in any type of commensuration.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and theorize the type of hate-love relationship to performance measurement systems (PMSs) that individual researchers tend to develop in academia. To this end, the paper draws upon Foucault’s writings on neoliberalism to analyse PMSs as neoliberal technologies holding certain qualities that can be expected to elicit such ambivalent views.

The paper is based on a qualitative interview study of researchers from three Swedish universities, who were asked to reflect upon questions related to three overall themes, namely, what it means to be a researcher in contemporary academia, the existence and use of PMSs at their universities and if/how such PMSs affected them and their work as researchers.

The empirical findings show that the hate-love relationship can be understood in terms of how PMSs are involved in three central moments of governmentality, where each such moment of governmentality tends to elicit feelings of ambivalence among researchers due to how PMSs rely on: a restricted centrifugal mechanism, normalization rather than normation and a view of individual academics as entrepreneurs of themselves.

Existing literature has provided several important insights into how the introduction and use of PMSs in academia tend to result in both negative and positive experiences and reactions. The current paper adds to this literature through theorizing how and why PMSs may be expected to elicit such ambivalent experiences and reactions among individual researchers.

This paper aims to examine the mobilization of management accounting (MA) numbers and metrics in social interactions. The purpose is to develop a model of how and why managers perceive and mobilize (new) MA numbers/metrics in a changing way over time in situated face-to-face interactions.

An observation-based qualitative field study of a change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for our analysis.

The empirical study shows that MA numbers and metrics are essential when semi-distant managers strive to solve problems and achieve radical improvement targets, but that the ways in which existing and new metrics are perceived and mobilized during face-to-face interactions change over time. The study provides both a detailed account of the emergent nature of the transformation process and a number of mechanisms as to why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce such change.

The paper problematizes the generally held view that MA numbers and metrics primarily work as a structuring device in face-to-face interactions, and also, how the processes are constituted through which MA is transformed into such a structuring device. The paper also adds new insights to our understandings of why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce MA change.

The purpose of this paper is to present an emergent model showing the change potential inherent in the mirroring of time‐space bound metrics and numbers in management accounting (MA) and other cognitive frames.

An observation‐based qualitative field study of a change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for the analysis.

The empirical study shows that as actors recurrently mirror time‐space bound metrics/numbers in MA and other cognitive frames, three forms of ambiguity may occur. Definitional ambiguities occur as actors' extant MA frame cannot fully account for the metric as such, while representational ambiguities occur as actors perceive uncertainties as to what a particular number stands for “in reality”. Operational ambiguities, finally, occur as actors perceive uncertainties as to how time‐space bound numbers can be “causally” explained. In the emergent model, the paper shows how these different forms of ambiguity constitute important sources of critical and collective reflection of, and subsequent change in, both metrics and MA and other cognitive frames.

Through identifying and elaborating on the change potential inherent in the interplay between cognitive frames and time‐space bound metrics and numbers, the study adds a partial, yet previously largely unexplored answer to the paradox of embedded agency in a MA context (i.e. how actors may change existing cognitive (MA) frames when their interpretations and actions are largely constrained and shaped by these very frames). Also, the study shows that it may not necessarily be the content of MA information per se that triggers critical reflection and structural MA change, but also the perceived ambiguities that such information use may engender.

This paper aims to identify specific challenges and opportunities when crafting literature reviews of qualitative accounting research. In addition, it offers potential remedies to frequent challenges when conducting such reviews.

This piece is based on recent methodological advice on conducting literature reviews and my own experience when conducting and publishing reviews that primarily cover qualitative accounting research.

The author chart three typical advantages and three typical use cases of literature reviews of qualitative accounting research, as well as the typical process steps and outputs of such reviews. Along with these process steps, The author identifies three overarching specific challenges when conducting such reviews and discusses potential remedies. Overall, this paper suggests that literature reviews of qualitative accounting research feature idiosyncratic challenges but offer specific opportunities at the same time.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first to offer advice on the specific challenges and opportunities when conducting literature reviews of qualitative accounting research.

This paper aims to examine how and why management accounting practices are linked to an organization's identity and identity discrepancies.

A qualitative field study of a one‐year change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for the analysis.

The empirical study reveals how discrepancies between organizational members' perceived identity and their construed external (and desired future) image both influence and are influenced by emergent accounting practices. Empirical evidence suggests such a reciprocal relationship between accounting and identity, since accounting practices are an important means of (de)legitimizing an organization's current self‐perception.

The uncovered reciprocal relationship between management accounting practices and organizational identity (discrepancies) have implications for a broader literature, including the works on how different forms of control interact as a “control package” and the discourse on potential sources of organizational identity change.

Although it has previously been suggested that management accounting may be an important means for, as well as an outcome of, processes of identity (re)constructions in organizations, this study suggests a more complex interplay than has previously been noted in the literature. Specifically, it was found that organizational identity may for a considerable time work as a highly influential and largely unquestioned categorical imperative, signifying the boundaries of appropriate organizational action. At times, however, accounting practices may spark (re)constructions of identity discrepancies through: providing identity‐inconsistent evidence; and using (new) measures in a “feed‐forward” manner to explore possible ways to close such perceived discrepancies.

This paper aims to examine how managers use planning meetings to coordinate their actions in light of an uncertain future. Existing literature suggests that coordination under uncertainty requires a “dynamic” approach to planning, which is often realized in the form of rolling forecasts and frequent cross-functional exchange. Not so much is known, however, about the micro-level process through which coordination is achieved. This paper suggests that a sensemaking perspective and a focus on “planning talk” are particularly helpful to understand how actors come to a shared understanding of an uncertain future, based upon which they can coordinate their actions.

This paper builds upon a qualitative case study in the Austrian production site of an international manufacturing company. Drawing on a sensemaking perspective, the paper analyses monthly held “planning meetings” in which sales and production managers discuss sales forecasts for the coming months and talk about how to align demand and supply.

The authors show how collective sensemaking unfolds in planning meetings and highlight the role that “plausibilization” of expectations, “calculative reasoning” and “filtering” of information play in this process. This case analysis also sheds light on the challenges that such a sensemaking process may be subject to. In particular, this paper finds that competing hierarchical accountabilities may influence the collective sensemaking process and render coordination more challenging.

The paper contributes to the hitherto limited management accounting and control literature on operational planning, especially its coordination function. It also extends the management accounting and control literature that draws on the concept of sensemaking. The study shows how actors involved in planning meetings create a common understanding of the current and future situation and what sensemaking mechanisms facilitate this process. In this respect, this paper is particularly interested in the role that accounting and other types of numbers can play in this context. Furthermore, it theorizes on the conditions that allow managers to overcome concerns with hierarchical accountabilities and enact socializing forms of accountability, which is often necessary to come to agreements on actions to be taken.

This paper examines the qualities of situations wherein hybrid professionals in knowledge-intensive public organizations (KIPOs) vary in their displays of conflicting institutional logics. Specifically, it examines the situations when individual researchers vary in their displays of a traditionalist academic- and an academic performer logic.

Analysis is grounded in an institutional logics perspective and founded on qualitative interviews with university researchers recurrently exposed to performance measurement and management.

The findings show that individual researchers display a traditionalist academic- and an academic performer logic in situations of lower or higher “perceived control exposure” (i.e. perceptions of (not) being exposed to “what the performance measurement system wants to/can ‘see’”). In more detail, that a traditionalist academic logic is displayed more in situations of lower “perceived control exposure” whereas an academic performer logic is displayed comparatively more in situations of higher “perceived control exposure”.

These findings add insight into when there is room for resistance to pressures to perform in accordance with increasing performance measurement and when researchers more so tend to conform. While previous research has mostly studied such matters by emphasizing variation between researchers, this study points out the importance of situations of lower or higher “perceived control exposure”. Such insight is arguably also more broadly valuable since it adds to our understanding about hybridity of professionals in KIPOs and how to design and use performance measurement systems in relation to them.