To Örebro University

Anthony Giddens is generally considered one of the most prominent sociologists of moderntime. In this paper, we draw upon a micro-process case study to explore how his theory ofstructuration (ST) can be used to analyze the interplay between strategy and accounting inday-to-day-organizational life. In short, we find that strategizing and accounting shouldnot be viewed as two separate practices, but rather as two aspects ofoneand the samepractice, which form and feed each other in a recursive manner over time. Based on thesefindings, we also elaborate on how ST may be usefully applied to understand continuityand transformation of strategizing practices more generally. An overall conclusion is thatST not only provides a strong and consistent ontological framework for theorizing aboutthese practices, but also offers a rich conceptual toolbox which can be usefully appliedto better understand how and why structural continuity and change may coexist and inter-mingle in daily organizational life.

Twenty five years ago, Giddens' structuration theory (ST) was introduced into accounting research as a reaction to the history-less, apolitical and technical-efficiency focus of traditional functionalist research. A quarter of a century later, this growing stream of research consists of some 65 published papers and has become one of the dominant alternative approaches used to explore accounting as an organizational and social practice. We review this literature based on the following two research questions; (i) what are the major achievements of this literature, and in what respects has it contributed to our understanding of accounting in relation to other alternative streams of accounting research, such as those grounded in critical theory, actor-network theory (ANT), new-institutional sociology (NIS) and practice theory? and; (ii) what are the limitations of the ST strand and, considering these (and its relative strengths), how should it be advanced in the future? Overall, we find that the mobilization of ST as a general ontological framework has generated three major and largely unique contributions, namely; (i) the introduction of a duality perspective; (ii) the conceptualization of accounting as an interwoven totality comprised of structures of signification, domination and legitimation, and; (iii) an ontological basis for theorizing how, when and why socially embedded agents may produce both continuity and change in accounting practices. However, we also conclude that it is difficult to identify a particular and distinctive empirical imprint of the ST literature, and that some of the theory's 'competitive advantages' are far from fully exploited. Based on these identified strengths and weaknesses of the ST perspective, we consider an array of directions for future scholarly effort.