Sten Jönsson

Designing semi-confusing information systems for organizations in changing environments

Organizations have many stabilizers but quite often lack proper destabilizers. They establish fixed repertoires of behavior programs over time, and many grow too rigid and insensitive to environmental changes. Drifting into changing environments, they react with delayed and improper responses.

CATS, RATS, AND EARS: Making the case for ethnographic accounting research

In this paper we argue that ethnographic or interpretive accounting research studies (EARS), which have been marginalized by critical accounting theory studies (CATS) and rational accounting theory studies (RATS), are a valuable way to understand the way accounting works in actual organizational settings. The problem of researching trust and its relation to accounting is used as an example where EARS seems to hold the edge over both CATS and RATS. The paper describes three main types of EARS—cognitive anthropology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology, briefly describes a classical ethnographic study and an accounting example of each type. It then sets up a conversational debate between EARS, CATS, and RATS in order to bring out their major points of disagreement and concurrence. The paper concludes by speculating that some sort of rapprochment might be worked out whereby EARS will be induced to work more closely to current theoretical discourses and that CATS and RATS will pay more attention to the stories and beliefs of real live actors in actual organizational settings. The result could be a sort of critical ethnography. The big challenge seems to be to find out whether trust and accounting are phenomena on different levels of analysis that can be studied (following Wittgenstein) as figure and ground, or whether they are mutually constitutive and thus something we should not talk about—at least until we know more. We conclude that one valuable way to proceed is a research strategy whereby field narratives are produced along classical ethnographic lines and then used to interrogate, reinterpret, and perhaps revise reigning critical accounting studies.

There and Back Again: Doing Interventionist Research in Management Accounting

Abstract Interventionist research is not unobtrusive since the researcher deliberately seeks to make an impact on the world in order to gain knowledge. In this Chapter we examine the fundamental nature of interventionist research in management accounting, its philosophical anchoring, variations, and forms of output. We also give brief illustrations. The distinguishing character of this kind of research is the need for the researcher to cross the border between the etic (outsider) and the emic (insider) perspectives—there and back again. This shift between differing logics provides opportunities for new insights since the researcher wants to achieve solutions that work in the field and come back with evidence of theoretical significance.

Relate management accounting research to managerial work

Abstract This article argues that management accounting research should be more aligned with managerial work. Managers work with words. This means that managerial conversation and the use of accounting information in such conversation should be studied. Methodology is developing rapidly in other areas of social science where a “linguistic turn” has made an impact. Managerial work, characterised by “brevity, variety, and fragmentation,” provides the context in which accounting information is used. Management is thus described as a co-operative game where communication is central to attention direction as well as problem solving. An illustration is given of the kind of studies deemed necessary for management accounting research to progress towards managerial relevance.

LIFE WITH A SUB-CONTRACTOR: NEW TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING.

The kind of new technology that has been installed in advanced industrial production at an increasing rateover the last few years sets a new stage for the development of management accounting. Flex ...

Budgetary behaviour in local government -- A case study over 3 years

Abstract A case study of budgetary behaviour over three years revealed behaviour characterised by a confrontation between central and local actors during the first years of stagnating income. During the following year, this confrontation changed into disillusionment with the “unrealistic” expenditure limits. The general level of inflation also contributed to a refusal by the actors to take responsibility for the budget. In the final year mistrust of the whole budgeting procedure changed the focus of attention to a reorganization of the budgeting procedure. Budgeting was again fairly undramatic, but the procedural change did nothing to solve the underlying financial problems which the actors were in the process of discovering when the case study ended. Although Wildavskys (1975) framework was found useful in explaining the observed behaviour, the context of the budgetary process was also found to be of critical importance.

Role making for accounting while the state is watching

Abstract If culture is seen as a way of life that remains viable by “inculcating in its constituent individuals the cultural bias that justifies it” (Thompson, M., Ellis, R. & Wildavsky, A., Cultural Theory (1990)) then one would expect to find differences in accounting norms between countries that could be explained by reference to cultural traits. Holding the culture variable fixed and comparing the development of accounting norms in different accounting areas could give clues as to what aspects of the cultural context are relevant to accounting regulation. Definitions of the situation, and the kind of arguments used by actors in trying to persuade colleagues about the benefits of a certain type of regulation, could be culturally based. The regulation of three areas of accounting (municipal, financial and management accounting) in Sweden was studied over a period comprising this century to investigate these themes. State intervention, most likely in times of disorder may, it seems, be avoided or minimized through intensified debate and the formulation of accounting norms. When a messenger exists who shows that a solution is possible, together with an association of individuals and a representative expertise that form a sounding board for the debate, accounting finds a role through regulation. Academics arrive late to legitimize already accepted principles. Given an acceptable norm, compliance can be expected in due time. The state may grow stronger by not intervening.

Accounting for improvement: Action research on local management support

Abstract This paper reports on two longitudinal field studies of attempts to transform front line operational units (cost centers) into centers of trust that actively use operational and accounting information to achieve improvement. In most large organizations, management control tools are remnants from an earlier Taylorist era in which coordination was achieved by central plan. This form of coordination is based on the assumption that all relevant information can be transported to the top of the organization. When this assumption is no longer valid, due to the accumulation of unique operational knowledge at the base of the organization, decentralization of control is undertaken. The differentiation that follows cannot be handled properly be central systems built on standardization of information. The next step is the establishment of a management control dialogue in which the operational units are trusted, responsible partners. In this dialogue, trust serves as a medium that opens the group to assume a learning attitude. This can be achieved through support for local self-management arrangements.

Interventionism – an approach for the future?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to address the distinctive problems of interventionist research that originate from intervention in ongoing practices as opposed to the experiments design of a theory-relevant context. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is an essay, based on arguments of mapping closely and understanding the work environment of the managers under study, and of re-framing (or re-education) practices. Findings - The paper finds that the intervention is valued in terms of improved practice, as well as theoretical contribution. Research limitations/implications - Learning theories (organizational and individual) should be included in the toolbox as well as methods of observing ongoing practices. Practical implications - Interventionist research changes the way organizations think about how they organize their work (the appellate case); learning theory impacts work organization very concretely. Originality/value - Management itself is intervention in organizational work practices, intervention in management practices will be something akin to Argyris

Accounting and business economics traditions in Sweden

In this paper, it is argued that Swedish accounting research as well as business economics is rooted in practice. Standards for good practice have traditionally been developed in committees set up in a corporatist institutional setting. This tradition carried over with the definite shift from a German to an American influence on accounting as well as business economics in the 1960s. Since then there has been a marked dominance of behaviourally oriented research in business economics as well as in accounting. A pragmatic view prevails.