Scribd
Upload
90 views1 page

Topic 4: "The Comparison of Manual and Automated Software Systems in Management Accounting Lucrativeness"

Burns and Scapens argue that management accounting practices can be understood as organizational routines that encode existing institutions within a company. They distinguish between formal rules outlined in documents and routines, which are informal day-to-day practices. Institutions comprise the underlying assumptions that inform both rules and routines, including management accounting practices. Institutions can constrain but also enable processes of change, such as revolutionary versus evolutionary change.

Uploaded by

Richard Rhamil Carganillo Garcia Jr.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
90 views1 page

Topic 4: "The Comparison of Manual and Automated Software Systems in Management Accounting Lucrativeness"

Burns and Scapens argue that management accounting practices can be understood as organizational routines that encode existing institutions within a company. They distinguish between formal rules outlined in documents and routines, which are informal day-to-day practices. Institutions comprise the underlying assumptions that inform both rules and routines, including management accounting practices. Institutions can constrain but also enable processes of change, such as revolutionary versus evolutionary change.

Uploaded by

Richard Rhamil Carganillo Garcia Jr.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Burns and Scapens (2000) argue that management accounting practices can be conceptualized as

organizational routines that encode the existing institutions within the organization (see also Scapens,
1994). They draw a distinction between rules and routines, whereby rules are the formal procedure
guides set out in organizational manuals and other similar documents, whereas routines are the
practices which implement those rules on a day-to-day basis – i.e. how things are actually done. They
then define institutions as the shared taken-for-granted assumptions which identify specific groups and
their appropriate activities and relationships (see also Burns et al., 2003). In other words, institutions
comprise the taken-for-granted assumptions which underpin the organizational rules and routines, and
specifically in the present context, the management accounting practices. As such, institutions can both
constrain and shape processes of change. In this respect, Burns and Scapens (2000) distinguish
revolutionary and evolutionary change (see also Nelson and Winter, 1982).

Management accounting is divided into tasks, techniques, organisation and behaviour as well as use and
perceptions.

From a functionalistic and normative perspective, the focus on tasks adopted from (1999) is natural as
tasks should define the techniques and the solution of tasks should be organised in some optimal
manner, while the use of techniques and information systems should support the solution of tasks.

Topic 4: “The Comparison of Manual and Automated Software Systems in Management Accounting;
Lucrativeness”.
Research Gap: With the advent of more advanced information systems, one would expect that these
innovative management accounting techniques could now be implemented. Behind this reasoning lies a
unidirectional relationship where the automated software systems is expected to impact or support change
in management accounting techniques.

You might also like