The influence of discourse in the change process in management accounting: a case study under the focus of the institutional theory / A influência do discurso no processo de mudança da contabilidade gerencial: um estudo de caso sob o enfoque da teoria institucional

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

Within the current corporative environment, the implementation of organizational changes has been frequent. In this process of changes, the organizational discourse, found in the formal texts produced by the high administration, eventually expresses thoughts not always accepted before being firstly questioned by the other managers and that may cause difficulties for the changing process. The presence of less coherent discourses or discourses that challenge the organizational discourse may hinder or even affect the efficacy of changes. This thesis advocates that during a changing process within the Managerial Accounting of an organization, the discourse influences the levels for institutionalizing new concepts. This study of such influence was carried out by means of the Institutional Theory under the focus of the Old Institutional Economy, having as its theoretical framework the model proposed by Burns &Scapens (2000), emphasizing the stages of codification and institutionalization, as well as the discourse model of institutionalization proposed by Phillips et al. (2004). The research method consisted of a single case study related to Caixa Econômica Federal, a large public financial institution which performs social activities (as a governmental agency for funding and exclusive administration of funds) and economical activities (as a commercial bank which competes with other institutions in the financial market), which has recently undergone a process of deep changes in its Managerial Accounting. Through an analysis of documents, followed by interviews with central administration managers and discourse analysis, the co-existence of two discourses in the organization could be detected: social discourse and economical discourse. Later, questionnaires were applied to the managers of the bank branches and the managers of products, and to the users of the Managerial Accounting System in order to verify associations between the discourses and the levels of institutionalization of the new concepts. Out of the questionnaires, 4,259 answers were obtained. The data were submitted to the following statistical treatments: descriptive analysis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Analysis of Homogeneity (Homals) and Analysis of Correspondence (ANACOR). It could be verified that there is a positive association between the concordance with the concepts of Managerial Accounting and a concordance with the economical discourse. The individuals classified as most adherent to the economical discourse are those positively associated with and between a strong or average level of institutionalization. On the other hand, those individuals adherent to the social discourse have a positive association with the weak level of institutionalization. Thus, the results suggest that the discourse influences the process for institutionalizing concepts of Managerial Accounting and corroborate the propositions of Phillips et al (2004) for a greater coherence between discourses, that concepts within texts may lead to stronger institutions, and that the existence of competition between two discourses may hinder the process of conceptual change. In face of these results one may say that the discourse, whenever placed in a process of conceptual change, must be structured according to the characteristics and beliefs of the target public, which may cause a coherent union between the exercise of the language and the operational practice and allow for an efficient transformation of the institutional site into a field of action.

ASSUNTO(S)

management accounting discourse analysis institutional theory contabilidade gerencial change process análise do discurso

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