Accounting for Institutional Work: A Critical Review

Abstract

This paper offers a review of a rapidly growing body of accounting research, using the concept of institutional work, with an eye to whether and how it has addressed key criticisms levied at this strand of institutional theory. Four sets of criticism of the institutional work perspective, pivoting on its emphasis on such work as an institutionally embedded multi-level phenomenon, the intentions behind institutional work, the relationship between habitual and reflexive agency and its conception of power, are identified. Insofar as accounting research using the concept of institutional work has addressed such criticisms, it has mainly been confined to those emerging within institutional theory whilst much less attention has been paid to criticisms raised by critical management scholars who are less sympathetic to institutional theory. Drawing on recent advances in critical sociology, I advance a framework that addresses these criticisms. In doing so, I discuss the possibilities of imbuing research on institutional work with innate concerns with radical social critique and emancipation. This contributes to a refined understanding of institutional work as a source of change and stability and provides a platform for turning institutional accounting research into a politically engaged research program underpinned by critical intent.

Keywords:

• Accounting
• Embeddedness
• Emancipation
• Institutional work
• Power
• Reflexivity

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of the paper have been presented at the 9th Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research on Accounting (APIRA) conference, Auckland (2019) and research seminars at Alliance Manchester Business School, Copenhagen Business School, ESSEC, Linnéaus University, Monash University and Turku School of Economics. The paper has benefitted from constructive feedback from Carlos Larrinaga and the two EAR reviewers. Additional constructive comments on earlier drafts were provided by Oana Apostol, Terhi Chakhovich, Tom Lawrence, Bernard Leca, Kari Lukka, Tim Neerup Themsen, Jan Pfister, Matteo Ronzani, Peter Skærbæk, Eija Vinnari and the authors of several of the papers under review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental Research Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the Taylor & Francis website, doi:10.1080/09638180.2020.1820354.

Appendix A. Thematic overview of accounting research using the concept of institutional work.

Appendix B. Summary of the review of accounting research using the concept of institutional work.

Notes

1 Institutional entrepreneurship has been defined as the agency involved in initiating change that diverges from extant institutions (Battilana et al., 2009) and, as such, it signifies a somewhat narrower conception of agency than that embodied in institutional work. Research on institutional entrepreneurship has also been criticised for attaching too much weight to individual agency at the expense of collective agency and for neglecting the institutionally embedded nature of human agency (Battilana et al., 2009: Garud et al., 2007; Weik, 2011).

2 For instance, in reviewing early empirical research on institutional work even propagators of this perspective, such as Lawrence et al. (2013), noted its tendency to foreground the actor-centric aspects of such work (see also Zilber, 2013).

3 Reflexivity is fundamentally an individual-level phenomenon, that can be defined as the ability of human beings to consciously deliberate on their practices in relation to the institutional context in which they are embedded (Archer, 2007; Suddaby et al., 2016), although it can also accumulate into more collective deliberations.

4 The twelve journals are Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Accounting and Business Research, Accounting, Organizations and Society, British Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, European Accounting Review, Financial Accountability and Management, Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Management Accounting Research and Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management.