Is Institutional Research on Management Accounting Degenerating or Progressing? A Lakatosian Analysis*

Abstract

Adopting a Lakatosian perspective, this paper asks whether management accounting (MA) research using institutional theory can be described as a degenerative or progressive research program. Motivated by similar critical debates about the larger institutional research program in organization studies, I map the evolution of institutional research on MA with an eye to its theoretical contributions to the accounting literature as well as this larger research program. I conclude that this body of research has offered important, progressive extensions to the accounting literature and, to a lesser extent, the larger institutional research program. However, there is also evidence of many MA scholars using institutional theory in ways that produce degenerative tendencies. These degenerative tendencies are, in large part, due to the persistent proclivity of researchers to place overly one‐sided emphasis on the role of either human agency or preexisting institutions in explaining the process of (de‐)institutionalization and may, at worst, cause functionalist assumptions to be smuggled back into institutional analyses in ways that threaten the hard core of the institutional research program. I discuss how these tendencies can be rectified in future research and how institutional research on MA can be further developed.

Searching for dialogue in public sector budgeting research: the case study of the JPBAFM

“…In this regard, we encourage further studies to look into budgeting, not just as a technical and rational practice, but as a more social, political, psychological and even performative one. For example, there is still little that is known about public budgeting as an institutional practice through contemporary streams of institutional theory such as institutional logics, work and JPBAFM 35,2 entrepreneurship (Modell, 2022). Furthermore, a combination of theories seems to be demanding but also challenging (Grossi et al, 2018).…”

“…potential research voices in the field and, more importantly, their interactions. Such limitations are increasingly addressed via alternative perspectives on theory development as a co-existence of theories across fields that push research programs in their own research domains (see Lukka and Vinnari, 2014; Modell, 2022). In that sense, in order to better understand the relational nature of public budgeting research progression, it is important to go beyond procedural rigour in literature reviews (Fink, 2019; Massaro et al ., 2016) in favour of more analytical and provocative approaches (Tourish, 2020).…”

Literature reviews of qualitative accounting research: challenges and opportunities

“…This lower variability also pertains to the papers to be included in use case (ii) reviews. While empirical accounting research papers that adopt the same kind of theory may be based on various research methods, many use case (ii) literature reviews (Damayanthi and Gooneratne, 2017;Englund et al, 2011;Englund and Gerdin, 2014;Modell, 2022aModell, , 2022b are exclusively based on qualitative empirical accounting research, which does not come with the potential challenge of bridging the underlying research paradigms of the research items in the review sample.…”

“…Compared with reviews of (mostly) qualitative accounting research, we can infer that the standards in the latter field differ little from the above numbers. The critical mass for a standalone review article in accounting journals seems to start at about 30 articles, too (Damayanthi and Gooneratne, 2017; Modell, 2022a), but most such works cover larger review samples [2] of approximately 50–90 articles (Englund et al , 2011; Englund and Gerdin, 2014; Fiandrino et al , 2022; Hardies and Khalifa, 2018; Hiebl, 2018; Hopper et al , 2009; Parker and Northcott, 2016; Weigel and Hiebl, 2022), and some cover over 100 (Baldvinsdottir et al , 2011; Modell, 2022b; Ndemewah and Hiebl, 2022; Repenning et al , 2022; van der Stede et al , 2005). Methodological literature reviews of accounting research may even cover several hundred articles; however, at the same time, they usually feature a narrower focus on the applied methodological issues (Dai et al , 2019; Feldermann and Hiebl, 2020).…”

“…Reviews following use case (ii) are similar to the above example of Lukka and Vinnari (2014), who use the application of actor network theory in management accounting research to illustrate the differences between domain and method theory. Further examples of use case (ii) that have mostly focused on qualitative accounting research are reviews of the use of Gidden’s structuration theory in accounting research (Englund et al , 2011; Englund and Gerdin, 2014) and reviews of accounting research drawing on the concepts of institutional work (Modell, 2022a), institutional theory (Modell, 2022b) and institutional logics (Damayanthi and Gooneratne, 2017). These reviews all critically analyze how a certain method theory has been applied in and has contributed to the development of accounting research.…”