Complementarity and contrast from different theoretical perspectives: a case study of organisational change in a public sector utility

Accounting is often depicted negatively during organisational change – as a tool of management to coerce change. This longitudinal study of a department of a public sector utility analyses the impact of accounting during organisational change using three different theoretical perspectives. The principal contribution of this paper is the way it illustrates the different insights from an empirical investigation obtained through using different theoretical " lenses ". It draws out the contrasts and complementarity that three entirely different theoretical lenses can bring to the examination of a case. Using the first framework, Laughlin's model of organisational change, the accounting system is perceived as enabling change but viewed in a favourable way. The counting that was viewed negatively was the counting of staff numbers, not dollars. A second perspective, boundary maintenance, helped explain the initial positive attitude to an accounting system as a binding structure and in maintaining the boundary of the department. The third theoretical perspective, Gidden's concept of structuration, provides two particular insights from the dimensions of domination and legitimation. Domination brings to the fore the role of accounting in control as a power device. The dimension of legitimation helps identify changes in what was considered " moral " with the changes in the organisation. As with previous research, accounting and profit can become the means of legitimising. Structuration is also useful because it explains periods of relative organisational stability punctuated by periods of change. 3 1. Introduction Accounting systems are mutable as they reflect organisational change. In turn accounting and accountants bring about change (Hopwood, 1987). Hopwood illustrates, using one case, how accounting can provide the basis for creating change and then be changed itself by the new organisational circumstances. Innes and Mitchell (1990) list organisational change as one of the catalysts for accounting change, and then comment on the impact of accounting change on the organisation. Concerned with changes in the way organisations are managed in Western countries, Ezzamel, Lilley and Willmott (1997) interviewed British workers and managers about organisational change and concluded that " accounting measures are being harnessed to implement the 'new' ways of management " (p.461). Not only was accounting transforming but accounting itself was transformed.