Institutional and negotiated order perspectives on cost allocations
The case of the Swedish university sector
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19447116 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sven Modell (0000-0002-5874-0189, Stockholm University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 219-251 |
| Publication date | 2006-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Accounting Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0963-8180 • E-ISSN: 1468-4497 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09638180500252144 |
| OpenAlex | W1979018506 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 58 |
A growing number of studies of the issue of cost allocations based on different institutional theories have recently emerged in the management accounting literature. These provide an alternative to efficiency-centred explanations of the evolution of cost allocation practices and have increasingly drawn attention to the roles of competing interests, power, agency and politics in the more or less continuous (re-)construction of cost allocation rules. This paper extends this literature by combining an institutional perspective with insights gleaned from the negotiated order (NO) literature, using recent developments in the Swedish university sector as an empirical illustration. This draws attention to the role of negotiations in the political regulation of costing in a highly institutionalised environment. Adopting a comparative, embedded case study design we contrast three recent attempts to re-negotiate cost allocation rules with varying outcomes. It is concluded that the role of institutional factors as well as socio-political negotiations in framing the ambiguity associated with cost allocations is important in explaining why and how change in cost allocation rules is mobilised or diverted. Especially, the NO perspective enriches institutional explanations of the stabilising role of power in this respect by drawing attention to how power relationships and coalitions of interests are formed around the specific issues at stake. This leads to a more dynamic and less atomistic conceptualisation of power and agency than in much prior research on the institutionalisation of accounting
Agency cost · Ambiguity · Corporate governance · Economics · Institutional theory · Institutionalisation · Management · Management accounting · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Public economics · Social science · Sociology · Accounting and Organizational Management · Auditing, Earnings Management, Governance · Law · Public Policy and Administration Research · Accounting · Finance
Ambiguity and choice in organizations
The hospital in modern society
Negotiations
Translating Organizational Change
Theorizing Change
Conceptualizing management accounting change
Understanding Radical Organizational Change
Case Study Research
An institutional perspective on performance measurement and management in the ‘new public sector’
Institutional Effects of Interorganizational Collaboration
The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields
Building Theories from Case Study Research
Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes
The Discovery of Grounded Theory
The Temporal Dynamics of Institutionalization
The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies
Cost allocation in Britain
Negotiated Orders and Organizational Cultures
A Review of the Current State of Negotiated Order Theory
The Evolution of Cost-based Pricing Rules in Britain
A Review of the Current State of Negotiated Order Theory
The Iron Cage Revisited
The Coupling of the Symbolic and the Technical in an Institutionalized Context
Politics and Institutionalism
Social Organization and Social Structure in Symbolic Interactionist Thought
Structural Parameters and Negotiated Orders
A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2024 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |