Structuration theory in management accounting

Abstract

This article proposes Giddens' structuration theory as a valuable framework for management accounting research to expand its domain beyond a technical focus to include social and political phenomena; it describes the theory, discusses its limitations, and presents an analysis of a longitudinal case study. The authors conclude that structuration theory is a more focused, informative, integrative, yet efficient, way to analyse how accounting systems are implicated in the construction, maintenance, and changes of the social order of an organization, than many frameworks used in previous studies. This article also speculates that Giddens' structuration theory with its key concepts of “structuration” and the “duality of structure” can be read along with Foucault's “power/knowledge” and Derrida's “deconstruction” as a post-modern genre for critical accounting research.