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Article
Publication date: 15 July 2019

Henk J. ter Bogt and Robert W. Scapens

Drawing on recent research, which recognises the situated nature of accounting practices, the purpose of this paper is to extend the Burns and Scapens (B&S) framework and to…

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Abstract

Purpose

Drawing on recent research, which recognises the situated nature of accounting practices, the purpose of this paper is to extend the Burns and Scapens (B&S) framework and to illustrate its potential for studying the situated nature of management accounting practices. The extended framework distinguishes field-level institutions (which the authors term broader institutions) and institutions within the organisation (which the authors term local institutions). To extend the B&S framework the authors draw on recent debates in institutional theory, both new institutional sociology, where the focus is now on the institutional logics perspective, and old institutional economics, where there has been debate about the relationship between institutions and actions.

Design/methodology/approach

While the B&S framework focussed on institutions within the organisation, the extended framework explicitly recognises institutions which extend beyond the boundaries of the organisation. It also recognises the way in which rationality and deliberation are related to human agency, as well as the power of specific individuals and/or groups to impose new rules. To illustrate the usefulness of the extended framework the research note draws on a recent study of performance measurement in the Accounting and Finance Groups of the Universities of Groningen and Manchester.

Findings

It is argued that local institutions within the organisation combine with the broader institutions to shape the forms of situated rationality which are applied by individuals and groups within the organisation. Different groups within an organisation (e.g. engineers and accountants) can have different forms of situated rationality, and contradictions in these forms of rationality can be a source of institutional change or resistance to change within the organisation, and can explain why accounting changes can by implemented in different ways in different organisations and also in different parts of the same organisation.

Originality/value

The extended framework will be useful for studying: (1) how situated rationalities evolve within an organisation, more specifically how they are shaped by both local and broader institutions; and (2) how prevailing situated rationalities shape the responses to accounting change.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 32 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 April 2015

Melissa Archpru Akaka, Stephen L. Vargo and Hope Jensen Schau

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and cultural aspects of the context that frames service exchange to better understand how value and experience are evaluated.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and cultural aspects of the context that frames service exchange to better understand how value and experience are evaluated.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors apply a conceptual approach to develop and propose a framework for deepening the understanding of the context of market-related experiences. The authors integrate two growing streams of research – consumer culture theory and service-dominant logic – that focus on phenomenological and experiential views on value and extend the context of experience with a culturally rich, service-ecosystems view of markets.

Findings

The authors broaden the context of experience by applying a service-ecosystems perspective and identify four social and cultural factors that influence experience from this extended context – sign systems and service ecosystems; multiplicity of structure and institutions; value-in-cultural-context; and co-construction of context. Based on this, the authors point toward directions for future research.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed framework points researchers and managers toward an extended context that is reproduced through the co-creation of value and influences evaluations of experience. Empirical research is needed to provide evidence of the proposed framework and further extend the understanding of dynamic social and cultural contexts.

Practical implications

The findings of this study provide a broader scope of context and identify additional social and cultural factors for managers to consider in their efforts to enhance customer experiences.

Originality/value

Traditional views of markets limit the context of experience to firm-customer encounters or consumer-centric practices and processes. This paper extends the context of experience to consider the practices and perspectives of multiple actors and various views on value.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 26 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 September 2022

Dinushika Samanthi and Tharusha Gooneratne

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the accountant amid multiple drivers, responses of accountants and situated rationality in a multinational firm, Max-choice Lanka.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the accountant amid multiple drivers, responses of accountants and situated rationality in a multinational firm, Max-choice Lanka.

Design/methodology/approach

It adopts the single-site case study approach under the qualitative methodology and leans on institutional theory, specifically Ter Bogt and Scapens (2019) framework.

Findings

The case study findings reveal that the role of the accountant has undergone change amid local and broader institutions linked to organizational culture/norms, the influence of the parent company, global trends and technological advancements. Based on evolving situated rationalities, the contemporary accountant performs an agile role as a value-adding business partner; data scientist; strategic decision-maker; and a cross-functional team member.

Practical implications

At the practice level, identifying drivers influencing the changing role of accountants enables organizations to shape their accounting functions attuned to evolving needs by implementing appropriate strategies and recruiting competent personnel. In the realm of education, it calls for incorporating areas such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, reporting nonfinancial information and integrated accounting software to the accounting curricular and upskill students based on industry expectations catering to changing roles.

Originality/value

This paper adds to the ongoing debate on the contemporary role of the accountant. Capitalizing on case study data, this research illuminates the influence of multiplicity of institutions, different forms and situated rationality within this changing role and extends the Ter Bogt and Scapens (2019) framework.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 September 2015

Melissa Archpru Akaka and Stephen L. Vargo

The purpose of this paper is to extend conceptually the context of service beyond service encounters and servicescapes by applying a service-ecosystem approach to context and…

6110

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to extend conceptually the context of service beyond service encounters and servicescapes by applying a service-ecosystem approach to context and experiential view on value.

Design/methodology/approach

We develop a conceptual framework of an extended service context that is based on an S-D logic, service-ecosystems view.

Findings

The service ecosystem approach proposed here contributes to the advancement of “services” marketing research by extending the context of service in two ways: its emphasis on service as the basis of all exchange allows the consideration of all instances of value-in-use, in-context, to be considered as a service experience; its conceptualization of context broadens the time/place dimensions that conventionally restrain research in service encounters and servicescapes beyond physical, social, symbolic and relational dimensions to consider the multiplicity of institutions across a wider socio-historic space.

Research limitations/implications

This paper offers a broad conceptual framework for considering an extended view of service context. Future research is needed, both conceptual and empirical, to identify more specific components of service context and how they influence evaluations of experience.

Practical implications

Extending the scope of service context draws attention to the participation of customers and other actors in the co-creation of the service context, as well as the experience. This points toward the need to consider the competences and skills of customers as well as their socio-historic perspective in the design and development of a servicescape or more specific service encounter.

Originality/value

We offer a dynamic perspective of service context to help further the reach of services marketing research by extending the context of service across a variety of exchange encounters and pointing toward institutions as a central influence on phenomenological views of experience.

Details

Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 29 no. 6/7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0887-6045

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1996

Michael Rempel

Although Niklas Luhmann refrains from an explicit treatment of power as a force of social constraint, I propose that, if partially reconstructed, his Systems Theory can illuminate…

Abstract

Although Niklas Luhmann refrains from an explicit treatment of power as a force of social constraint, I propose that, if partially reconstructed, his Systems Theory can illuminate the subject considerably. I show this by distinguishing between five elements in Luhmann's treatment of each of the following six social subsystems: the economy, politics, law, science, religion and education. The five subsystem elements are: (1) a binary code, (2) a basis of authority, (3) a language of social communication, (4) a generalized medium of communication, and (5) a social function. Whereas Luhmann assumes that each subsystem approximates autopoiesis, or self‐contained internal operation and autonomy, I assume the pervasiveness of interpenetration, whereby operations is one subsystem nonetheless affect operations in others. Subsequently, I juxtapose the reconstructed systems‐theoretic framework developed in the first half of the paper with Michel Foucault's power/knowledge framework. I conclude that the use of a reconstructed systems‐theoretic approach, based loosely on Luhmann's original theory, could greatly illuminate the specifics of power/knowledge in modern societies, to an even greater extent than Foucault does himself.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 11 January 2016

Binh P. Le

Asian Americans (AAs) are underrepresented in leadership roles in academic libraries in the USA. Instead of exploring the factors contributing to their under-representation, the…

1296

Abstract

Purpose

Asian Americans (AAs) are underrepresented in leadership roles in academic libraries in the USA. Instead of exploring the factors contributing to their under-representation, the purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring the major factors that have helped AA academic librarians, albeit small in number, to attain, maintain, and advance further into leadership positions in academic libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted to garner responses from AAs who have held or currently hold senior leadership positions in American academic libraries. In total, 12 participants participated in the study: five women and seven men. The participants included three retired deans/directors/university librarians; seven deans/directors/university librarians; one associate dean/associate director/associate university librarian; and one assistant dean/assistant director/assistant university librarian. The participants represented a multiplicity of institutions, including community colleges, Ivy League institutions, and small as well as large private and public universities.

Findings

The results of the survey revealed several important success characteristics of AA academic library leaders, including wanting to serve, willing to assume leadership roles, taking non-AA traditional career path, seeking visibility, and developing communication skills.

Originality/value

This is the first and most comprehensive study on AA academic library leaders in the USA. Its goals are to: fill a gap in the literature on AAs and academic library leadership; raise awareness about the challenges facing AAs in their efforts to attain leadership positions in US academic libraries; and highlight some characteristics of successful AA academic library leaders that aspiring AA academic leaders will want to develop.

Article
Publication date: 29 June 2020

Herman Aksom and Inna Tymchenko

This essay raises a concern about the trajectory that new institutionalism has been following during the last decades, namely an emphasis on heterogeneity, change and agentic…

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Abstract

Purpose

This essay raises a concern about the trajectory that new institutionalism has been following during the last decades, namely an emphasis on heterogeneity, change and agentic behavior instead of isomorphism and conformist behavior. This is a crucial issue from the perspective of the philosophy and methodology of science since a theory that admits both change and stability as a norm has less scientific weight then a theory that predicts a prevalence of passivity and isomorphism over change and strategic behavior. The former provides explanations and predictions while the latter does not.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper offers an analysis of the nature, characteristics, functions and boundaries of institutional theories in the spirit of philosophy and methodology of science literature.

Findings

The power of the former institutional theory developed by Meyer, Rowan, DiMaggio and Powell lies in its generalization, explanation and prediction of observable and unobservable phenomena: as a typical organizational theory that puts forward directional predictions, it explains and predicts the tendency for organizations to become more similar to each other over time and express less strategic and interest-driven behavior, conforming to ever-increasing institutional pressures. A theory of isomorphism makes scientific predictions while its modern advancements do not. Drawing on Popper's idea of the limit of domains of explanation and limited domains of theories we present two propositions that may direct our attention towards the strength or weakness of institutional theories with regard to their explanations of organizational processes and behavior.

Practical implications

The paper draws implications for further theory building in institutional analysis by suggesting the nature of institutional explanations and the place of institutional change in the theoretical apparatus. Once institutional theory explains the tendency of the system towards equilibrium, there is no need to explain the origins and causes of radical change per se. Institutional isomorphism theory explains and predicts how even after radical changes organizational fields will move towards isomorphism, that is, institutional equilibrium. The task is, therefore, not to explain agency and change but to show that it is natural and inevitable processes that organizational field will return to isomorphic dynamics and move towards homogenization no matter how much radical change occurred in this field.

Originality/value

The paper discusses the practical problems with instrumental utility of institutional theories. In order to be useful any theory must clearly delineate its boundaries and offer explanations and predictions and it is only the former 1977/1983 institutional theory that satisfies these requirements while modern advancements merely offer ambiguous theoretical umbrellas that escape empirical tests. For researchers therefore it is important to recognize which theory can be applied in a given limited domain of research and which one has little or no value.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 33 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 May 2011

Harry F. Dahms

Marx's writings were the first sustained and rigorous attempt to identify and scrutinize inherent contradictions as a constitutive feature of early modern society – the society he…

Abstract

Marx's writings were the first sustained and rigorous attempt to identify and scrutinize inherent contradictions as a constitutive feature of early modern society – the society he referred to as “bourgeois” society.1 In the related literature, scholars have paid ample attention to the fact that the German term Marx used, and which had been a key concept in Hegel's philosophy of right ([1821] 1967) – bürgerliche Gesellschaft – refers to early modern society as both a society in which wealthy “burghers” are the driving force and primary decision-makers – bourgeois society – and a society of equal citizens – civil society (see especially Cohen & Arato, 1992; Riedel, 1988). The conceptual differentiation of bürgerliche Gesellschaft into bourgeois society and civil society suggests that it is not possible to discern the nature of this emergent society according to one overarching principle. Instead, it is necessary to recognize underlying contradictions as a key structuring principle. The contradictions are most conspicuous in tensions between the values of democracy (as espoused most explicitly during and by the French Revolution, in terms of liberty, equality, and fraternity/solidarity) and the imperative of a market-based economy operating according to the capitalist mode of production and foreshadowing industrialization.

Details

The Vitality Of Critical Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-798-8

Book part
Publication date: 13 August 2014

Deborah Shepherd and Christine Woods

Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer…

Abstract

Interest in academic entrepreneurship is gaining attention as pressure on academic institutions to be more entrepreneurial increases. To date, emphasis has been on the transfer and commercialisation of research with little discussion focused on the entrepreneurial potential of university teaching. Drawing on Schumpeter’s theory of entrepreneurship, in particular the combining and recombining of resources and the concept of resistance, we provide an illustrative case study of one entrepreneurial academic venture that emerged from the teaching activities of a university. We examine how this venture, the ICEHOUSE, has evolved and been sustained despite pressure from competing logics from its partnering institutions. We argue that multiple and competing logics by various stakeholder groups led to ‘resistive tension’ which has supported the growth of the organisation.

Details

Academic Entrepreneurship: Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-984-3

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Innovation Africa
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-310-5

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