Management accounting and power: A contested relationship

This paper is structured in two parts. In the first part we undertake a brief discussion on the concept of power and we explore the way this concept has been regarded in several strands of literature on management accounting – the conventional, the contingency, the pluralist, the interpretive, the critical and the post-structuralist. Some of these strands – for instance, the pluralist, the critical and the post-structuralist – explicitly recognise the importance of (some conception of) power in their approach to management accounting in society and organisations. Other approaches are less explicit in that recognition or simply overlook/reject it. The second part of the paper takes sides, departing from the idea that there is a relationship between management accounting and power and proposes a framework for conceptualising that relationship. This framework attempts to bring together different dimensions/conceptions of power, and is proposed as a way to study management accounting and its change within organisations.power, management accounting, change, circuits of power

Power, ERP systems and resistance to management accounting: a case study

This paper reports an intensive longitudinal case study carried out in a Portuguese manufacturing organisation in which attempts to promote change through management accounting were made in recent years. In a first pilot visit to the organisation, two puzzling observations were made. Firstly, and particularly in the manufacturing area of the organisation, management accounting systems introduced in recent years were not being used in everyday interactions and practices. Secondly, a newly introduced ERP system was having no apparent impact on management accounting or on the work of management accountants. We found that these observations were related to issues of power. There were different and conflicting conceptions of which rules should be followed in the manufacturing area, and strategic attempts to enact those conceptions (or to resist alternative ones). This paper draws on the insights of the Circuits of Power (Clegg, 1989a) in order to explain, in theoretically informed manner, the puzzling observations in the case.

’Trust and Control in Evolving Inter-organisational Relationships: Evidence from the Aerospace Industry

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to debates about the relationship between trust and control in the governance of inter-organisational relationships. In particular, the authors focus on the question of how the relationship between trust and control shifts over time. Design/methodology/approach An in-depth case study was conducted in a company operating in the aerospace industry. The authors aim to understand this company’s practices and, at the same time, to use the case study to deepen the knowledge of the complex trust/control nexus. The authors follow the changes in the relationship between trust and control as the company restructured its supply chain, and discuss issues which it had to address in the later phases of the supply chain restructuring. Findings The paper illustrates the duality of the trust/control nexus. The authors show how the studied company coped with the complex relationships with its suppliers as collaboration increased. The authors identify particular control mechanisms that the company developed to manage such complexity, such as a supplier strategy and a relationship profile tool. Research limitations/implications The paper studies supply chain restructuring and the changing relationship of trust and control over time only from the perspective of the assembler/manufacturer which “owns”/manages the supply chain. Originality/value The authors observe a move from inter-personal trust to inter-organisational trust. Furthermore, the authors illustrate how managers can intervene to maintain and stabilise trust and ensure that trust and control do not degrade or escalate beyond desirable levels

Implementing the theory of multiple intelligences in the junior secondary school

First published in 1983, the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) struck a chord with thousands of educators across the world, providing a philosophical and structural framework that helped them make sense of and cater for the vast range of individual difference they encountered daily in their classrooms. However, while MI theory has found a ready audience amongst early childhood and primary school educators, and has been associated with a wide range of positive outcomes across a variety of educational settings, it continues to have little impact on secondary school practice. The aim of this qualitative action research project was to establish a collaborative research group of four junior secondary school teachers, who were interested in exploring MI theory and its implications for learning and teaching. In documenting their experiences, the project aimed to find out whether an MI-based programme was feasible in a junior secondary school context, and to identify the difficulties and barriers that impeded the participating teachers' endeavours to implement MI in their classrooms. The following research questions provided the focus for the project: 1. Can an MI-based approach to teaching and learning be successfully implemented in a junior secondary school programme? 2. What are the issues that secondary school teachers face when implementing MI into their classroom programmes? 3. What are the best ways to address these issues? iii A multiple case study approach provided an effective means of illustrating the individual complexity of teachers' situations, as they interacted with their students, the curriculum, their colleagues and their school environment, and was also flexible enough to accommodate the open-ended and evolving nature of the investigation. The following outcomes for teachers as a result of the MI project were noted: (a) Increased awareness and understanding of student diversity. (b) Extended teaching practice and enhanced teacher creativity. (c) Improved planning framework. (d) Teachers' beliefs about learning and intelligence were affirmed and extended. (e) Teachers experienced improved confidence in their abilities as teachers. (f) The emergence of a cohesive student-centred curriculum. (g) Improved collegiality. As a result of the project, many barriers to implementing MI theory into junior secondary school classrooms were identified, under the following categories: (a) Barriers relating to teacher culture (b) Barriers relating to management requirements (c) Barriers relating to time (d) Barriers relating to personnel (e) Barriers relating to external pressures on the school The outcomes of this project confirm findings in the research literature, which suggest that MI theory can provide a valuable philosophical and structural iv framework that helps teachers develop a greater awareness of student diversity and enhanced teaching practice, as well as the understanding that a uniform approach to teaching and learning meets the needs of too few. However, a number of entrenched structural and cultural barriers characteristic of the secondary school context were also identified, which suggest that the adoption of MI-based teaching practices on a wider scale is unlikely without an in-depth school-wide professional development initiative