BMAC620 - ph.d. i økonomistyring - NTNU Handelshøyskolen
Ph.d.-program
Ph.d.-program
Ph.d.-program
Managing by Numbers - Actor Based Approaches to the Study of Accounting
Course Code: | BMAC620 |
Course level: | PhD in Management accounting and control |
Course responsible: | Professor Gudrun Baldvinsdottir |
ECTS credits: | 7,5 |
Semester: | Autumn 2013 / Spring 2014 |
Teaching language: | English |
Previous knowledge, requirements and recommendations: |
Introductory courses in management accounting and control at graduate level |
PhD-students are invited to attend the course “Management by numbers – Actor based approaches to the study of accounting”, equivalent to 7.5 ECTS points. The course is organised by Trondheim Business School in co-operation with Copenhagen Business School, Gothenburg Research Institute and Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences.
Course objective
The objective of the course is to introduce the students to two theoretical strands that have in common their focus on the actor. One is a well-established perspective, Actor Network Theory, which has become popular amongst management accounting researchers. The other one is an emerging approach, the Pragmatic constructivist theory. Both theories are advanced and need concentrated efforts to be comfortable with. This course offers ‘a way in’ to the theories. This is done by discussing their core concepts, methods, limitations, criticisms and their possible application to management accounting.
Expected learning outcomes
Knowledge
After the course, students will have
- Knowledge of two advanced theoretical strands and their use within management accounting research.
- Means to critically address their core concepts, methods, limitations and criticism.
Skills
After the course, students will have skills to
- Critically asses and discuss different theoretical strands used in management accounting research.
- Detect underlying theoretical assumptions of management accounting research.
- Relate their own research interest to relevant research and theories.
Competence
After the course , students will be able to
- Relate own research interest to the management research community.
- Communicate and debate their own research results both in writing and by oral discussions.
- Constructively assess and communicate criticism to other researchers.
Course content
Pragmatic constructivist theory
The pragmatic constructivist theory takes as its point of departure the question, ‘Under what conditions do activities function and lead to success in a social context?’ A key inspiration for the pragmatic constructivist theory is Pierre Bourdieu’s work on constructivist structuralism. Businesses do not function by themselves due to mechanical or natural laws; business processes do not relate or run by making a decision and pressing a button. Rather, the operating causalities must be constructed in an effective, non-fictional way. The research on pragmatic constructivism emphasizes the role of the actor - as controller, manager, entrepreneur, or agent etc. - in the construction of organized reality. Reality is considered as the relationship between the (individual and collective) actors and the world in which they operates. These relations are not given by nature, they are constructed; and the construction may function successfully or it may be hampered by fictive and illusionary elements, due to missing or faulty actor-world relations
Pragmatic constructivism offers a schema outlining sufficient conditions for creating effective “construct causality”. Construct causality means that for endeavours to be fulfilled, i.e. causally affect the desired outcome, there must be an integration of four dimensions involved in the endeavour. Accordingly, looking for the conditions for construct causality directly calls for a pragmatic constructivist perspective because its theory of integration specifically addresses the question of conditions for successfully functioning practice. As businesses, societies and human lives are based on ‘construct causality’, the clarification of conditions for construct causality is a necessary field for further research.
Actor-Network-Theory
Actor-Network Theory is a theory approach that has its origins in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Michel Callon and Bruno Latour published their first articles in the field of Science of Technology Studies. In these articles they basically suggested new theoretical and methodological ways of studying technological innovations. Like pragmatic constructivist theory, ANT also emphasizes the importance of “actors” in complex relations. However, in contrast, the term actor becomes defined in a broader sense by including the significance of non-human actors, like material technologies, instruments, inscriptions (texts), tools, etc. building on semiotics.
ANT is a theory that offers new concepts but also use notions from within anthropology, (economic) sociology and political science that are further developed and placed within the universe of ANT. ANT is critical to many theories in the social sciences, in particular structural sociology, and offers its own views on what power is, how the concept of identity can be understood, how we can understand culture and how to understand uncertainty. In the end all of these concepts are used to understand what it means to realize grand visions, like the construction of new metros, airports, or other visions like using BSC or ABC for control purposes, new strategies within a company, etc.
In the accounting literature some authors blend ANT with other theoretical traditions like New Institutional Theory or Governmentality. We also discuss the various criticisms being directed towards it. Some academics are explicitly critical to ANT, whether being based in economics or sociology. We see some principal-agency theorists being critical as well as some more traditional social constructivists.
Study activities and learning methods
There will be lectures together with a mandatory individual assignment. The course is organised as three times two days intensive sessions. Individual studies are required in advance of each meeting. In the first session the students will be introduced to pragmatic constructivist theory and to Actor- Network- Theory. The second part of the first meeting is dedicated to the pragmatic constructivist theory. The second meeting will be dedicated to Actor Network Theory. Both first and second meeting will discuss the ontological grounds each perspective offers and link it to various elements of a project through problem analysis and theoretical argumentation. Both the first and second meeting will include group work and trouble shouting sessions. At the third session, each participant will present their own paper where their own projects can be related to one of the theoretical strands discussed in the course.
Course literature
There is no single text for this course. The seminars will be based on pre-distributed readings consisting of research articles published in international research journals as well as book chapters where either Pragmatic constructivist theory or Actor-Network-Theory is used. An indicative bibliography is as follows:
A. Pragmatic Constructivist Approach
Burkert, M., Lueg, R., 2013, Differences in the sophistication of Value-based Management – The role of top executives, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 24 No. 1.
Jakobsen, M., Johanson I-L and Nørreklit H., 2011, An Actor’s Approach to Management – conceptual framework and company practices (Eds.), DJOEF.
Laughlin, R., 2010, A comment on “Towards a paradigmatic foundation for accounting practice”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6.
Mattimoe, R. and Seal, W. 2011, Pricing in a service sector context: accounting and marketing logics in the hotel industry, European Accounting Review, Vol. 20, No. 2.
Mitchell M., Nielsen L.B., Nørreklit H. and Nørreklit L. Scoring Strategic Performance – A Pragmatic Constructivist Approach to Strategic Performance Measurement. Journal of Management and Governance. Forthcoming 2013.
Nørreklit H., Nørreklit L. and Mitchell F., 2007, Theoretical Conditions for Validity in Accounting Performance Measurement, In Andy Neely (ed.), Business Performance Measurement, Cambridge University Press.
Nørreklit H., Nørreklit L., and Israelsen P., 2006, Validity of Management Control Topoi? Towards Constructivist Pragmatism, Management Accounting Research. Vol. 17, No. 1.
Nørreklit H., Nørreklit L., and Mitchell F., 2010, Paradigms and pragmatic constructivism – a reply Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6.
Nørreklit H., Nørreklit L., and Mitchell F., 2010. Towards a paradigmatic foundations of accounting practice. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. Vol. 23, No. 6.
Nørreklit L., Mitchell F., Nørreklit H. and Bjørnenak T., 2012, The Rise of the Balanced Scorecard! Relevance Regained? Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change Vol.8, No 4.
Nørreklit, L., 2011, Actors and reality: a conceptual framework for creative governance. An Actor's Approach to Management Conceptual framework and company practices. red. Morten Jakobsen; Inga-Lill Johansson; Hanne Nørreklit. Djøf. Jurist- og Økonomforbundet, p. 7-38.
Seal, W., 2012, Some proposals for impactful management control research, Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 228 – 244.
B. Actor-Network-Theory
Callon, M. and Latour, B. (1981). Unscrewing the big Leviathan: How actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel, Advances in social theory and methodology – towards an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies (pp. 277-303). Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Latour, B. Technology is society made durable. In J. Law, A sociology of monsters - Eassays on power, technology and domination. 1991: 103-131
Callon M. Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In: Law J, editors. Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? London: Routledge; 1986. p. 196-233.
Callon M. An essay on framing and overflowing: Economic externalities revisited by sociology. In: Callon M, editors. The laws of the market. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers/Sociological Review; 1998. p. 244-269.
Callon, M. 2007. What does it mean to say that economics is performative? In: D. MacKenzie, F. Muniesa and L. Siu, eds. Do Economists make markets? Princeton, pp. 311-357.
Justesen L, Mouritsen J. Effects of actor-network theory in accounting research. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 2011;24(2):161-193.
Christensen M, Skærbæk P. Consultancy outputs and the purification of accounting technologies. Accounting, Organizations and Society 2010;35(5):524-545.
Briers, M. and Chua, W. F. (2001). The role of actor-networks and boundary objects in management accounting change: a field study of an implementation of activity-based costing, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 26, 237-269.
Skærbæk, P. and Tryggestad, K. 2010. The role of accounting devices in performing strategy. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 35, 108-124.
Tryggestad, K. 2005. Technological strategy as macro-actor: How humanness might be made of steel. In: Barbara Czarniawska and Tor Hernes (eds.) Actor-network theory and organizing (Malmø: Liber and Copenhagen Business School Press), pp.31-49.
Christensen, M. and Skærbæk, P. (2007). Framing and overflowing of public sector accountability innovations – a comparative study of reporting practices, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 101-132.
Skærbæk, P. (2009). Public sector auditor identities in making efficiency auditable: The National Audit Office of Denmark as independent auditor and modernizer. Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 34, No. 8, pp. 971-987
Form of assessment – individual term paper
In the final paper (approximately 7000 words) each individual student should relate their own research project to one of the two research views presented and discussed in the course. Each participant should provide a 10-15 page summary of their project and present to the other participants. The paper should 1) provide a theoretical analysis of concepts potentially relevant to their research project and 2) compare the project with the scientific goals and problems with either pragmatic constructivist theory or actor network theory. The paper should also include an analysis of the probability of meeting the scientific criteria of the chosen theoretical strand. The paper will be evaluated by the course lectures. Certificate of completion will be sent to those successfully completing all requirements, including full attendance and submission of required assignments
Examination/Grading scale
Active participation through presentations and discussions in the seminars is required. This may take the form of discussions of papers, in-class presentations and team-based work. Participants should obtain a passing grade on the final paper relating their own research project to the course literature and hereby demonstrate sound judgment and high degree of independent thinking.
Use of examiners
All examination will be conducted by the lectures responsible for teaching the course.
Requirements for re-sit examinations and improving grades
Opportunity according to HiST rules.
Lectures
- Gudrun Baldvinsdottir, Professor Trondheim Business School
- Peter Skærbæk, Professor Copenhagen Business School/Trondheim Business School
Guest lectures:
- Lennart Nörreklit, Professor Ålborg University
- Hanne Nörreklit, Professor Århus University
- Kjell Tryggestad, Ass. Professor Copenhagen Business School.
The course is conducted in English
Meetings – time schedule
The course meetings begin at 13:15 on the first day, and end at 15:00 the second day.
The course meetings are scheduled during fall 2013 and spring 2014.
First meeting: Gothenburg, 3-4 October, 2013
Second meeting: Copenhagen, 9 - 10 December, 2013
Third meeting: Trondheim, 6-7 February, 2014
Locations:
- Gothenburg Research Institute, Övre Fogelbergsgatan 6, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden;
- Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3, DK-2000 Frederiksberg. Denmark.
- Trondheim Business School, Trondheim, Norway, Jonsvannsveien 82, NO-7050 Trondheim, Norge.
Costs
Course participants are responsible for their own travel costs and overnight arrangements.