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| 2. |
- Abrahamsson, Gun, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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On the (re)construction of numbers and operational reality : A study of face-to-face interactions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management/Emerald. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1176-6093 .- 1758-7654. ; 13:2, s. 159-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: This paper aims to examine the mobilization of management accounting (MA) numbers and metrics in social interactions. The purpose is to develop a model of how and why managers perceive and mobilize (new) MA numbers/metrics in a changing way over time in situated face-to-face interactions.Design/methodology/approach: An observation-based qualitative field study of a change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for our analysis.Findings: The empirical study shows that MA numbers and metrics are essential when semi-distant managers strive to solve problems and achieve radical improvement targets, but that the ways in which existing and new metrics are perceived and mobilized during face-to-face interactions change over time. The study provides both a detailed account of the emergent nature of the transformation process and a number of mechanisms as to why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce such change.Originality/value: The paper problematizes the generally held view that MA numbers and metrics primarily work as a structuring device in face-to-face interactions, and also, how the processes are constituted through which MA is transformed into such a structuring device. The paper also adds new insights to our understandings of why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce MA change.
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| 3. |
- Beime, Kristina S., 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Giving the invisible hand a helping hand : How 'Grants Offices' work to nourish neoliberal researchers
- 2021
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Ingår i: British Educational Research Journal. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0141-1926 .- 1469-3518. ; 47:1, s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neoliberalism has become a highly dominating and taken-for-granted way of organising the university sector around the world. In the critical educational literature, this market-based rationality has been scrutinised in detail over the past decades. However, rather scant attention has been directed to how university managers and administrators, apart from setting up quasi-markets, may intervene more directly to give the invisible hand of the market a helping hand. Aiming to address this lacuna, the purpose of the current article is to develop an empirically grounded taxonomy of different types of such interventions, and to theorise them in terms of the different facets of the neoliberal milieu that they reproduce and the various forms of subjectivising work among academics that they seek to engender. We do so by means of a qualitative study of so-called 'Grants Offices' at three Swedish universities. The findings arguably add to and problematise our understanding of how neoliberal markets work in academia in three different ways. First, while extant research has noted that university managers and administrators may intervene beyond the setting up of neoliberal markets per se, our study is to our knowledge the first one that identifies and systematises a broad array of such interventions. Second, it problematises the view of neoliberal markets as a form of monolithic entity that produces a uniform competitive pressure on academics. Third, and related, it furthers our understanding of the type of subjectivity that competitive milieus are assumed to bring about.
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| 4. |
- Beime, Kristina S., 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Theorizing the subjectivizing powers of market-based technologies : Looking beyond coercion and seduction
- 2024
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Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Accounting. - : Elsevier. - 1045-2354 .- 1095-9955. ; 99
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Existing theorizations on how the proliferation of market-based technologies within universities come to foster so-called academic performer subjectivities have mainly drawn attention to their coercive and seductive powers. However, while these theorizations help explain why researchers either unwillingly adapt to, or identify with and cherish, their neoliberal ideals, they are less useful to explain recent empirical results showing that many researchers willingly comply yet are very critical of the very same ideals. Drawing upon an interview study of Swedish researchers, we address this theoretical gap in the literature by analytically disentangling three important qualities of the technologies per se, in terms of them producing performance numbers characterized by Specificness, Ongoingness, and Emptiness (SOE). These three qualities do not only have the dual power to interchangeably provoke bitter and sweet feelings, but also to foster the adoption of an academic performer subjectivity. In fact, it is precisely by provoking bittersweet feelings that these qualities break the sharp edges of pure coercion and seduction, thereby fostering a type of low-affective, yet highly persuasive form of reasoning about pros and cons of market-based technologies, which make their neoliberal ideals seem acceptable and reasonable at the end of the day.
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| 5. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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A structuration theory perspective on the interplay between strategy and accounting : Unpacking social continuity and transformation
- 2020
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Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Accounting. - : Elsevier. - 1045-2354 .- 1095-9955. ; 73, s. 1-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Anthony Giddens is generally considered one of the most prominent sociologists of moderntime. In this paper, we draw upon a micro-process case study to explore how his theory ofstructuration (ST) can be used to analyze the interplay between strategy and accounting inday-to-day-organizational life. In short, we find that strategizing and accounting shouldnot be viewed as two separate practices, but rather as two aspects ofoneand the samepractice, which form and feed each other in a recursive manner over time. Based on thesefindings, we also elaborate on how ST may be usefully applied to understand continuityand transformation of strategizing practices more generally. An overall conclusion is thatST not only provides a strong and consistent ontological framework for theorizing aboutthese practices, but also offers a rich conceptual toolbox which can be usefully appliedto better understand how and why structural continuity and change may coexist and inter-mingle in daily organizational life.
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| 6. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Contesting conformity : how and why academics may oppose the conforming influences of intra-organizational performance evaluations
- 2020
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Ingår i: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1368-0668 .- 1758-4205. ; 33:5, s. 913-938
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model elaborating on the type of conditions that can inhibit (or at least temporarily hold back) "reactive conformance" in the wake of an increasing reliance on quantitative performance evaluations of academic research and researchers.Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative study of a research group at a Swedish university who was recurrently exposed to quantitative performance evaluations of their research activities.Findings: The empirical findings show how the research group under study exhibited a surprisingly high level of non-compliance and non-conformity in relation to what was deemed important and legitimate by the prevailing performance evaluations. Based on this, we identify four important qualities of pre-existing research/er ideals that seem to make them particularly resilient to an infiltration of an "academic performer ideal," namely that they are (1) central and since-long established, (2) orthogonal to (i.e. very different from) the academic performer ideal as materialized by the performance measurement system, (3) largely shared within the research group and (4) externally legitimate. The premise is that these qualities form an important basis and motivation for not only criticizing, but also contesting, the academic performer ideal.Originality/value: Extant research generally finds that the proliferation of quantitatively oriented performance evaluations within academia makes researchers adopt a new type of academic performer ideal which promotes research conformity and superficiality. This study draws upon, and adds to, an emerging literature that has begun to problematize this "reactive conformance-thesis" through identifying four qualities of pre-existing research/er ideals that can inhibit (or at least temporarily hold back) such "reactive research conformance."
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| 7. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Developing Enabling Performance Measurement Systems : On the Interplay Between Numbers and Operational Knowledge
- 2015
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Ingår i: The European Accounting Review. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0963-8180 .- 1468-4497. ; 24:2, s. 277-303
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Performance measurement systems (PMSs) are generally regarded to serve the needs of top managers. However, a growing literature has started to explore what it takes for these systems to be(come) enabling also for those whose performance is being measured. In this paper, we build on and add to this literature by providing ethnographic insights into how and why a group of middle-managers transformed a set of performance measures, initially developed as monitoring devices for top management, into a so-called enabling PMS. Regarding how this came about, we elaborate on how actors mobilised two different forms of mental models of the operations (specific and generalised), and a set of number-to-number tactics, as important means in their development work. Regarding the why-question, we identify a high evaluation pressure from top management, in combination with recurrent reconstructions of the existing mental models of operations, as important conditions that worked to initiate, fuel, and, eventually, cease the process.
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| 8. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Management accounting and the paradox of embedded agency : A framework for analyzing sources of structural change
- 2018
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Ingår i: Management Accounting Research. - : Elsevier. - 1044-5005 .- 1096-1224. ; 38, s. 1-11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In recent years there has been a large and growing stream of management accounting research focusing on the theoretical puzzle often referred to as the paradox of embedded agency. That is, how can embedded agents come to (un-)intentionally change social structures when their interpretations, intentions, and rationalities are all shaped by these very structures? As a means of addressing this paradox we elaborate on how six qualities of social structures may work as sources of embedded agency, namely their Generality, Inadequacy, Ambiguity, Multiplicity, Embeddedness, and Reflexivity. This so-called GIAMER framework is then used to analytically disentangle common ways of explaining the paradox within the management accounting area and to propose ideas for future research. We close the editorial by presenting the three papers included in this Special Issue.
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| 9. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Performative technologies and teacher subjectivities : A conceptual framework
- 2019
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Ingår i: British Educational Research Journal. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0141-1926 .- 1469-3518. ; 45:3, s. 502-517
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon performative technologies is currently transforming the very foundations from which teacher subjectivities are constructed. Arguably though, the number of studies pointing to this risk or tendency is considerably larger than the ones theorising why this should be the case. Further, in those cases where the relationship between performative technologies and teacher subjectivities is theorised, the psychological mechanisms that the technologies appeal to are seldom brought to the fore. Based on this, the purpose of this article is to theorise the psychological mechanisms that performative technologies appeal to and work through, by means of identifying, systematising and elaborating extant understandings of such mechanisms in the critical educational literature. The results are presented in the form of a conceptual framework (referred to as the CMIS-framework) which suggests that one and the same performative technology may play many different roles, where each such role appeals to and works through a particular psychological mechanism. Importantly, depending on the type of psychological mechanism that is appealed to, the CMIS-framework suggests that this will lead to teachers (un)- consciously conducting particular forms of subjectivising work upon themselves, here referred to as compliance, mirroring, identification and self-realisation (CMIS).
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| 10. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Structuration theory in accounting research : applications and applicability
- 2014
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Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Accounting. - : Elsevier BV. - 1045-2354 .- 1095-9955. ; 25:2, s. 162-180
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ever since Giddens’ structuration theory (ST) was introduced into the accounting literature some 25 years ago, it has strengthened its position as one of the major schools of thought used to explore accounting as organizational, social and political phenomena. The purpose of this study is to review how ST has been applied, and can be applied, in this sizeable literature. Overall, the review of some 65 published papers, suggests that not only has ST contributed to challenge the assumptions of ‘inherent and functional’ features of accounting systems per se characterizing mainstream research, but also to develop other alternative theoretical perspectives. However, our review also suggests several limitations. These include that the accounting community has not really worked as a collective to develop a structurationist understanding of accounting practices, and that most researchers remain largely uncritical to ST as a theory. We also find that accounting scholars have not yet developed a mutual understanding of how to interpret ST (i.e. there are conceptual unclarities and even inconsistencies), or how to apply ST methodologically in empirical research. Based on these limitations, and the identification of a number of ‘black spots’ in the literature, we suggest several directions for future scholarly effort.
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