The making and remaking of organization context
- 1 September 2004
- journal article
- Published by Emerald in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
- Vol. 17 (4), 506-542
- https://doi.org/10.1108/09513570410554542
Abstract
Institutional theory is becoming one of the dominant theoretical perspectives in organization theory and is increasingly being applied in accounting research to study the practice of accounting in organizations. However, most institutional theory research has adequately theorized neither the institutionalization process through which change takes place nor the socio‐political context of the institutional formations. We propose a social theory based framework for grounding and expanding institutional theory to more fully articulate institutionalization processes. Specifically, we incorporate institutional theory and structuration theory and draw on the work of Max Weber in developing a framework of the context and the processes associated with creating, adopting and discarding institutional practices. We propose that the expanded framework depicts the socio‐economic and political context better and more directly addresses the dynamics of enacting, embedding and changing organizational features and processes. Expanding the focus of the institutional theory based accounting research can facilitate a more comprehensive representation of accounting as the object of institutional practices as well as provide a better articulation of the role of accounting in the institutionalization process.Keywords
This publication has 69 references indexed in Scilit:
- WHITHER GOEST THOU? SEEKING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATION THEORY INTO THE NEW MILLENIUM.Academy of Management Proceedings, 1999
- Why shared meanings have no place in structuration theory: A reply to scapens and macintoshAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1996
- Structure and agency in management accounting research: A response to Boland's interpretive actAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1996
- The imagery and reality of peer review in the U.S.: Insights from institutional theoryAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1996
- Actions speak louder than words: An institutional perspective on the Securities and Exchange CommissionAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1994
- An institutional theory perspective on the DRG framework, case-mix accounting systems and health-care organizationsAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1993
- Sampling and the abstraction of knowledge in the auditing profession: An extended institutional theory perspectiveAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1993
- Accounting as a legitimating institutionAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1987
- Rational, rationalizing, and reifying uses of accounting data in organizationsAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1987
- Accounting systems and systems of accountability — understanding accounting practices in their organisational contextsAccounting, Organizations and Society, 1985