Changes in accounting and financial information system in a Spanish electricity company: A new institutional theory analysis

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of an intensive case study that investigated changes in the accounting and financial information system of a large Spanish electricity company (Sevillana). Sevillana was acquired by the Endesa Group upon the deregulation of the Spanish electricity sector (SES). Drawing on data from multiple sources including interviews, observations, discussions and documents, the paper aims to theorize the change in the accounting and financial information system. An integrated accounting and financial information system was imposed by the Endesa head office on Sevillana and other Endesa subsidiaries to support organizational changes designed in response to regulatory requirements. The institutional senvironment also interacted with market forces and intra-organizational power relations to either directly or indirectly influence the changes in the accounting and financial information system. Given the interplay between these forces, the paper draws on and extends the New Institutional Sociology (NIS) theory [DiMaggio, P.J., Powell, W.W., 1983. The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. Am. Sociol. Rev. 48, 147–160; Powell, W.W., DiMaggio, P.J., 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. The University of Chicago Press, pp. 183-203] to understand the dynamics of the change.