Accounting and reporting for facing multiple values in meso-level hybrid organisations

Abstract

This work examines a new form of second-level hybrid, Meso-Level Hybrid Organisations (MLHOs), which do not generate an entity with a legal form or boundaries and are composed by a set of members in the organisational field, linked by multiple relationships and engaged in solving complex problems that require both public and private efforts. Our research interest is in the role that accounting and reporting systems can play in these hybrids, which do not have to comply with mandatory accounting requirements but have to respond to information pressures from their internal and external stakeholders, having different institutional logics and conflicting values and goals. By interpreting accounting and reporting as boundary objects through which value work can be enacted, the research highlights the role that accountants play in recomposing multiple values through participatory processes of designing and implementing an accounting and reporting system. A case study narrated through the discursive lens of ‘mixing, compromising and legitimising mechanisms of value creation among hybrids' shows how the design of a voluntary reporting system can, under certain conditions, strengthen an MHLO. Our findings show that a tailored accounting system can counteract the centrifugal and disruptive forces inherent in these forms of hybrid settings.