Enterprise Resource Planning and a contest to limit the role of management accountants: A strong structuration perspective

Abstract The implementation and use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems raise fundamental questions about the role of management accountants in an organisation. The case studied here, involving an attempt to establish an ERP system in an organisation funded by both the European Union (EU) and the Egyptian government, is an exploration of conflicting beliefs about the role of management accountants. Elements of strong structuration theory (a reinforced version of Giddens’ structuration theory) are used to analyse how the contest over the role of the management accountant in a new organisation was played out during the partially successful attempt to establish ERP in conjunction with a system that was felt to better support the requirements of the EU for performance-based budgeting. Despite the forward-looking dispositions of key actors within the organisation and from the EU, the role of the management accountant here became compressed to the traditional one of cost information collector and provider.

[1]  Peter Booth,et al.  The Impacts of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems on Accounting Practice – The Australian Experience , 2000 .

[2]  S. Uddin,et al.  Public sector reforms and the public interest: A case study of accounting control changes and performance monitoring in a Ghanaian state‐owned enterprise , 2005 .

[3]  Murrell G. Shields.  E-Business and ERP: Rapid Implementation and Project Planning , 2001 .

[4]  Teemu Malmi,et al.  Moderate impact of ERPS on management accounting: a lag or permanent outcome? , 2002 .

[5]  L. Jack.  Accounting, post-productivism and corporate power in UK food and agriculture , 2007 .

[6]  A. Giddens.  The Constitution of Society , 1985 .

[7]  T. Edwards,et al.  Book Review: Developments Toward the Operationalization of Structuration Theory , 2006 .

[8]  Jody Zall Kusak,et al.  Building a performance-based monitoring and evaluation system: The challenges facing developing countries , 2001 .

[9]  P. Berger,et al.  The Social Construction of Reality , 1966 .

[10]  Chris Westrup,et al.  Making ERPs work: accountants and the introduction of ERP systems , 2005, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[11]  Christopher S. Chapman,et al.  Not because they are new: Developing the contribution of enterprise resource planning systems to management control research , 2005 .

[12]  Heba El Sayed,et al.  Journal of Enterprise Information Management ERPs and accountants ' expertise : the construction of relevance , 2016 .

[13]  Bernard Pierce,et al.  Management accounting information and the needs of managers:Perceptions of managers and accountants compared , 2003 .

[14]  R. Scapens,et al.  Accounting and Financial Control in a Socialist Enterprise: A Case Study from Algeria , 1989 .

[15]  Pamela S. Tolbert,et al.  Institutionalization and Structuration: Studying the Links between Action and Institution , 1997 .

[16]  Robert W. Scapens,et al.  SAP: integrated information systems and the implications for management accountants , 1998 .

[17]  A. Bhimani,et al.  Management accounting : evolution not revolution , 1989 .

[18]  A. O. R. Kholeif,et al.  Introducing strong structuration theory for informing qualitative case studies in organization, management and accounting research , 2007 .

[19]  Trevor Hopper,et al.  A 'time' space odyssey': Management control systems in two multinational organisations , 2005 .

[20]  John Burns,et al.  Management accounting change , 2001 .

[21]  Ariela Caglio,et al.  Enterprise Resource Planning systems and accountants: towards hybridization? , 2003 .

[22]  H. Yazdifar,et al.  Management accounting change and the changing roles of management accountants: a comparative analysis between dependent and independent organizations , 2005 .

[23]  E. Shils.  The Constitution Of Society , 1982 .

[24]  Sia Siew Kien,et al.  Enterprise resource planning: cultural fits and misfits: is ERP a universal solution? , 2000, CACM.

[25]  Zhenyu Huang,et al.  ERP implementation issues in advanced and developing countries , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[26]  L. Jack.  Stocks of knowledge, simplification and unintended consequences: the persistence of post-war accounting practices in UK agriculture , 2005 .

[27]  M. Archer,et al.  Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach , 1997 .

[28]  Lynne Conrad,et al.  A structuration analysis of accounting systems and systems of accountability in the privatised gas industry , 2005 .

[29]  Jan Mouritsen,et al.  Enterprise resource planning systems, management control and the quest for integration , 2005 .

[30]  C. Read,et al.  The CFO as Business Integrator , 2003 .

[31]  Rob Stones,et al.  Sociological Reasoning: Towards a Past-Modern Sociology , 1996 .

[32]  Robert W. Scapens,et al.  ERP systems and management accounting change: opportunities or impacts? A research note , 2003 .

[33]  Pall Rikhardsson,et al.  Identifying the impacts of enterprise system implementation and use: Examples from Denmark , 2006, Int. J. Account. Inf. Syst..

[34]  Tony Tinker,et al.  Politics of managing: the dialectic of control , 2003 .

[35]  T. Davenport.  Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system. , 1998, Harvard business review.

[36]  Markus Granlund,et al.  Towards explaining stability in and around management accounting systems , 2001 .

[37]  S. Klingebiel,et al.  Programme financing and public budgets: new instruments and starting-points of development policy , 2005 .

[38]  John Roberts,et al.  Accounting and control: a case study of resistance to accounting change , 1993 .

[39]  P. A. Collier.  The Impact of Information Technology on the Management Accountant , 1984 .

[40]  Robert W. Scapens,et al.  STRUCTURATION THEORY IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING. , 1990 .

[41]  Sven Modell,et al.  Institutional perspectives on cost allocations: integration and extension , 2002 .

[42]  Marinos Themistocleous,et al.  ERP and application integration: Exploratory survey , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[43]  R. Whittington.  PUTTING GIDDENS INTO ACTION: SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND MANAGERIAL AGENCY , 1992 .

[44]  Ben Light,et al.  ERP and best of breed: a comparative analysis , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[45]  Chris Westrup,et al.  Egypt and ICTs: How ICTs bring national initiatives, global organizations and local companies together , 2003, Inf. Technol. People.

[46]  Julia Melkers,et al.  Implementing PBB: Conflicting Views of Success , 2000 .

[47]  A. Hopwood,et al.  Research and current issues in management accounting , 1986 .

[48]  Sia Siew Kien,et al.  An institutional perspective on sources of ERP package-organisation misalignments , 2004, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[49]  A. Pinsonneault,et al.  Challenges in Conducting Empirical Work Using Structuration Theory: Learning from IT Research , 2005 .