STUDYING THE DIALECTICS BETWEEN AND WITHIN MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

Abstract

This paper examines how management philosophy and management accounting are linked to each other through practice. We argue in this paper that management philosophy and management accounting are mutually constitutive to each other in a dialectic manner. We base these findings on a detailed field study of management accounting practices in a research site, a consulting arm offshoot of the planning office in a manufacturing company, that is staffed by highly reflexive practitioners. Drawing upon Giddens’ structuration theory and new institutional theory, we analyzed the way that intrinsic contradictions at the institutional realm are reflected upon and handled in practice. This in turn creates routines that mediate the fundamental contradictions. In particular, we examined the impacts of two fundamental contradictions that exist at the level of management philosophy: romanticism vs realism, and familism vs marketism.These contradictory philosophies influence the way in which formal management accounting systems (hereafter FMAS) are designed. These contradictions result in the structures of responsibility and accountability being fused with a seemingly incompatible mix of management philosophy. Even with these inconsistencies the FMAS is a part of the taken-for-granted reality of management accounting practice. At the practice level the conflicts and tensions within management accounting practice are coped with and in turn become routines when they are replicated over time and space. Our study suggests that dialectic tensions are ubiquitous in organizations. This gives an organization many opportunities to evolve their own sets of coping mechanisms that in turn result in the organization having a unique character. Thus no one organization will conform to a prescribed set of characteristics.