Giddens’ structuration theory and its implications for management accounting research

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to briefly review the pillars and the rationale of Giddens’ theory of structuration, and offer a snapshot of the impact of these ideas on research in management accounting. Conceptualised as a way of making sense of social life, structuration theory represents a sensitizing device for researchers, which has be drawn upon “in a selective way in thinking about research questions or interpreting findings” (Giddens, Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age, 1991). In the following pages the duality of structure, the modalities of structuration, the concept of double positioning, the theory of the subject as well as concepts such as ontological security, routines or trust will be reviewed as essential elements of a vocabulary originally framed within Giddens’ The constitution of society (1984). The essay ends sketching the work of Macintosh and Scapens (Management accounting and control systems—an organisational and behavioural approach, 1990), who broke new ground to interpret management accounting systems in light of structuration theory terms and concepts, as well as some of the more recent works in accounting that have built on Giddens’ latest ideas on the The Consequences of Modernity (1990).