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Article
Publication date: 14 May 2019

Ahmed Othman Rashwan Kholeif and Lisa Jack

This paper aims to use Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST) that combines Giddens’ duality and Archer’s analytical dualism to deal with the paradox of embedded agency

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to use Stones’ strong structuration theory (SST) that combines Giddens’ duality and Archer’s analytical dualism to deal with the paradox of embedded agency, focussing on resistance, in the budgeting literature. It also applies this framework to an illustrative case study that examines a failed attempt to implement performance-based budgeting (PBB) in the Egyptian Sales Tax Department (ESTD).

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have used SST as an analytical framework. Longitudinal case study data were collected from interviews, observations, discussions and documentary analysis and from publicly available reports and other media issued by the World Bank.

Findings

The SST framework identifies the circumstances in which middle managers as embedded agency have limited possibilities to change their dispositions to act and identify opportunities for emancipation in the wider social context in which they are embedded. The official explanation for the failure to implement PBB in Egypt was obstruction by middle managers. The findings of this study provide an alternative explanation to that published by the World Bank for the failure to institutionalise PBB in Egypt. It was found that the middle managers were the real supporters of PBB. Other parties and existing laws and regulations contributed to the failure of PBB.

Research limitations/implications

As a practical implication of the study, the analysis presented here offers an alternative interpretation of the failure of the Egyptian project for monitoring and evaluation to that published by the World Bank. This case and similar cases may enhance the understanding of how and when monitoring and evaluation technologies should be introduced at the global level to manage conflicts of interest between agencies and beneficiaries.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the extant management accounting literature on the use of ST in addressing the paradox of embedded agency in making or resisting structural change. It uses SST to integrate Giddens’ ST with critical realist theory, incorporating duality and dualism in a stronger model of structuration. The SST framework offers a means of analysing case studies that result from interactions and conjunctures between different groups of actors at different ontological levels. The paper also examines the issue of embedded agency in budgeting research using an illustrative case study from a developing country, Egypt.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 16 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 May 2018

David Caban

This paper aims to investigate whether all-equity firms are a heterogeneous group as it relates to agency costs when compared to a matched sample of levered firms and to…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate whether all-equity firms are a heterogeneous group as it relates to agency costs when compared to a matched sample of levered firms and to contribute toward the understanding of the “low leverage” puzzle and the motivations behind such a perplexing phenomenon.

Design/methodology/approach

Propensity score matching (PSM) is used to control for endogeneity issues common to this line of research. Because all-equity firms are self-selecting, it is not possible to conduct a true randomized study. PSM attempts to simulate a randomized study by selecting matching observations with similar propensity scores as the all-equity observations.

Findings

Agency costs are not the only explanation leading to the implementation of an all-equity capital structure. The motivation of such structure is strongly influenced by free cash flows (FCF) and growth opportunities (GO), whereby firms that have high levels FCF combined with low GO exhibit higher levels of agency costs versus their levered peers, while those that have low levels of FCF and high GO exhibit no significant difference in agency costs.

Practical implications

A better understanding of why a firm chooses such an extreme capital structure can help investors, auditors and potential future creditors in their decision-making process.

Originality/value

Most prior research treats capital structure as an exogenous variable. By applying PSM, not previously used in prior research, a new methodology is used to address the endogeneity issue related to observational studies such as this one. This paper contributes toward further understanding the perplexing “low-leverage” puzzle often discussed in the financial and accounting literature.

Details

Review of Accounting and Finance, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-7702

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 September 2019

Remigio Chingara and Jan Heystek

The purpose of this paper is to examine how principals, deputy principals, heads of departments (HoDs) and teachers as leaders exercise their agency within and through the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how principals, deputy principals, heads of departments (HoDs) and teachers as leaders exercise their agency within and through the organisational structure of their schools to improve academic quality.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study was conducted in the wider context of school-based leadership. Principals, deputy principals, HoDs and teachers selected by means of purposive sampling from six primary and secondary schools in Harare Province of Zimbabwe participated in the study.

Findings

Leaders in schools in Harare Province were found to have the capacity to use their agency within and through the organisational structure to improve pass rates. They were able to use their agency to work within the supposed rigid bureaucratic organisational structures to enable bureaucratic organisational structures, or, in participants’ views, democratic structures.

Research limitations/implications

Some limitations of the research ought to be considered. The research scope and site had its limitations. The research site was limited to a few primary and secondary schools in Harare Province (one out of ten provinces) of Zimbabwe. Although the sampling procedures were implemented to ensure good representation of participants’ views, the sampling was limited to a few schools. Owing to time and financial constraints, a larger sample could not be selected to conduct the interviews. These limitations are acknowledged, but they do not undervalue the significance of the study, as they can provide potential avenues for further research. For example, the study may be replicated in rural provinces of Zimbabwe. Such further research could help improve school leadership in Zimbabwe.

Practical implications

Principals, deputy principals, HoDs and teachers as leaders can exercise their agency in the structure of their schools to improve academic quality, expressed as and measured by pass rates. School leaders who have a positive attitude and requisite experience are able to change the rigid bureaucratic structures of their schools to enable bureaucratic structures, which are similar to democratic structures.

Originality/value

This paper provides a critical perspective on how leaders exercise their agency in the context of the organisational structure of their schools to improve academic quality.

Details

International Journal of Educational Management, vol. 33 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-354X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 August 2009

Madeleine Leonard

Childhood is often defined in contrast to adulthood. Each becomes meaningfully linked so that it is difficult to understand what childhood is without looking at adulthood or vice…

Abstract

Childhood is often defined in contrast to adulthood. Each becomes meaningfully linked so that it is difficult to understand what childhood is without looking at adulthood or vice versa. Each becomes what the other is not. In a similar vein, structure and agency are often characterised in contrast to each other. The meaning of each becomes dependent on the meaning of the concept which it is set against. Hence, structure becomes defined as ‘constraint while agency becomes defined as freedom, structure is regarded as static while agency is regarded as active; structure becomes defined as collective while agency becomes defined as individual’ (Hays, 1994, p. 57). This way of conceptualising structure and agency often underplays the interconnections between the two. Up until the 1980s, children were primarily considered within developmental psychology and functionalist socialisation frameworks. The former presented childhood as a natural and universal phase of human life with adulthood being seen as the logical endpoint of childhood. The latter adopting teleological frameworks viewed childhood as a preparation for adulthood and focused in particular on the importance of socialisation in reproducing stable adult personalities. In both approaches, children were considered mainly in terms of presumed future outcomes. In breaking with these approaches, the ‘new sociology of childhood’ sought to emphasise children's agency and to consider children's lives in the here and now rather than as future projects. This has resulted in a plethora of qualitative studies that highlight children's position as active agents. Indeed, in developing a new paradigm for the sociology of childhood, Prout and James (1997) specifically recommend ethnography as a preferred method for uncovering and understanding children's daily lives. This has led Qvortrup (1999, p. 3) to express concern that the ‘adherents of the agency approach are gaining the upper hand’. Qvortrup warns that researchers also need to employ structural approaches to fully understand and illuminate the broader landscape of childhood. He reminds us that childhood is a particular and distinctive form of every society's social structure. Rather than a transient phase, it is a permanent social category shaped by macro forces. While of course children practice agency throughout their childhood and ethnographic studies have been crucial in challenging adults’ conceptions of children as irrational, immature and so on, nonetheless, Qvortrup argues that these studies have been less useful in illuminating the position of childhood in macro societal structures. These wider societal forces position children as a minority group conditioned by resilient power relations based on generation, and they have been relatively immune from children's individual or collective agency. In other words, children act as agents under specific structural conditions. Of course, this does not render children's agency as meaningless. Like adults, children actively produce certain forms of social structure, while simultaneously, social structures produce certain types of childhood (see the chapter by Qvortrup, this volume). Hence, structures are enabling as well as constraining (Giddens, 1984). Indeed over the past two decades, adults are becoming increasingly aware of childhood as a structural form and of the durability of power differentials between adults and children and are increasingly working with children to develop a rights-based agenda to further their collective interests. This could be seen as an example of the collective agency of children although it also illustrates how this agency takes place against a backdrop where existing hierarchies between adults and children structure the conditions under which children practice their agency. One could question whether participating in these recurring forms of social interaction make children agents (Hays, 1994, p. 63).

Details

Structural, Historical, and Comparative Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-732-1

Book part
Publication date: 5 July 2005

Martijn Konings

Over the last decades, the social sciences have become increasingly concerned with the role of the state and the politics of institutional restructuring. Within mainstream…

Abstract

Over the last decades, the social sciences have become increasingly concerned with the role of the state and the politics of institutional restructuring. Within mainstream political science this has led to the development of a “state-centered” research program that emphasizes the autonomy of institutions. Marxist theory, however, has continued to adhere to a “society-centered” perspective, seeking to combine an ability to account for institutional change with the analysis of more structural social and economic forces. After some introductory comments that frame the problematic within which the paper is situated (Section 1), I discuss in Section 2 three of the most important recent Marxist attempts to construe the relation between socio-economic imperatives and political institutions. My argument is that Marxists’ attempts to relativize the autonomy of state institutions are too often still based on the postulation of an unexplained structural moment. This leaves them vulnerable to institutionalist claims concerning the autonomous nature of institutions. Section 3 proposes a different way of thinking the role of institutions in capitalist society. This approach breaks with a causalist, structuralist mode of explanation and relies on a more hermeneutic understanding of the role of institutions. I will shift the problematic to the relation between institutions and agency, arguing for a more pragmatist understanding of the role of institutions and an agency-based understanding of the formation of socio-economic imperatives. Section 4 concludes with some thoughts on the prospects held out, as well as the challenges faced, by the approach proposed in this paper.

Details

The Capitalist State and Its Economy: Democracy in Socialism
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-176-7

Book part
Publication date: 25 July 2008

Julie M. Hite

Dyadic multi-dimensionality informs the variation that exists within and between network ties and suggests that ties are not all the same and not all equally strategic. This…

Abstract

Dyadic multi-dimensionality informs the variation that exists within and between network ties and suggests that ties are not all the same and not all equally strategic. This chapter presents a model of dyadic evolution grounded in dyadic multi-dimensionality and framed within actor-level, dyadic-level, endogenous, and exogenous contexts. These contexts generate both strategic catalysts that motivate network action and bounded agency that may constrain such network action. Assuming the need to navigate within bounded agency, the model highlights three strategic processes that demonstrate how dyadic multi-dimensionality underlies the evolution of strategic network ties.

Details

Network Strategy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1442-3

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2003

Eugene A. Paoline and John J. Sloan

Descriptive analyses of campus police agencies reveal that agencies’ tactical and operational features are similar to those found in municipal agencies. The problem is that none…

1382

Abstract

Descriptive analyses of campus police agencies reveal that agencies’ tactical and operational features are similar to those found in municipal agencies. The problem is that none of these studies have examined, using multivariate models, the structural characteristics of these organizations. Using LEMAS data collected in 1995, this study answered two main questions: what are the organizational characteristics of campus police agencies; and what factors, both internal and external, explain variation in the structural dimensions of the agencies. The results indicated that campus police agencies possess the same structural characteristics of municipal police agencies identified by 40 years of police organizational research, and internal agency characteristics were most important in explaining variation in the organizations’ structural dimensions. The degree to which campus agencies have adopted organizational structures that are similar to those of municipal police is discussed and framed within an institutional perspective.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1999

William A. Jackson

Dualism ‐ the division of an object of study into separate, paired elements ‐ is widespread in economic and social theorising: key examples are the divisions between agency and

2248

Abstract

Dualism ‐ the division of an object of study into separate, paired elements ‐ is widespread in economic and social theorising: key examples are the divisions between agency and structure, the individual and society, mind and body, values and facts, and knowledge and practice. In recent years, dualism has been criticised as exaggerating conceptual divisions and promoting an oversimplified, reductive outlook. A possible alternative to dualism is the notion of duality, derived from Giddens’s structuration theory, whereby the two elements are interdependent and no longer separate or opposed, although they remain conceptually distinct. This paper argues that duality, if handled carefully, can provide a superior framework to dualism for dealing with the complexity of economic and social institutions. Its main attraction is not its twofold character, which might profitably be relaxed where appropriate, but its ability to envisage a thoroughgoing interdependence of conceptually distinct elements.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 July 2014

Ranjay Gulati and Sameer B. Srivastava

We propose a framework of constrained agency grounded in the actors’ resources and motivations within their structurally constrained context. Structural positions influence the…

Abstract

We propose a framework of constrained agency grounded in the actors’ resources and motivations within their structurally constrained context. Structural positions influence the resources available to actors and color the motivations that shape their actions. Resources equip actors to exert agency, while motivations propel them to do so. We derive a typology of network actions and illustrate how the form of constrained agency through which a particular network action is taken can affect actors’ ensuing structural positions and the nature of the constraints they subsequently face. Our conceptualization of constrained agency identifies new sources of endogenous change in network structure.

Details

Contemporary Perspectives on Organizational Social Networks
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-751-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 July 2023

Marcelo S. Isidório and Magali Reis

This research aimed to analyze the interactions of “pre-adolescent” students in the classroom through relationships sustained by structure, agency, and power exercises based on…

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the interactions of “pre-adolescent” students in the classroom through relationships sustained by structure, agency, and power exercises based on Anthony Giddens’ Theory of Structuring.1 A qualitative research approach was used with the characteristic of a case study in a municipal public school in the city of Itabira (MG), Brazil. As procedures for recording the evidence, we used the application of a questionnaire, observation of the classroom and listening to students and teachers in a class of the sixth year of elementary school II during the 2017 school year. The results indicated that the vision of “pre-adolescence” marked by biological and psychological changes remains institutionalized for school professionals. The students demonstrated the need for the teacher to use his teaching authority to set limits in the classroom, however, this exercise of agency-power by the teacher must be negotiated and mediated by the participation of “pre-adolescents.” In view of this procedural context, “pre-adolescent” students cannot be held responsible for the instability of the interactive process in the classroom if the historical and social context through which these students pass is not considered in comparison to the institutionalized characteristics solidified through the process, time, and space by the school and/or some of its representatives (teachers).

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