Strategic management accounting & the strategising mindset : a grounded theory perspective

Abstract

This study investigates the processes of strategic management accounting and their meaning to participants in a British University context.  No study investigating current practices regarding the Higher Education sector was found.  The adopted methodology is grounded theory according to Glaser (1978, 1992, 1994, 1998, 2004), which has not been explicitly applied in recent accounting research.  The study is based on data collected in an “old”, research – a dedicated Higher Education organisation which has gone through recent structuring changes.

Participants’ stance towards strategic management accounting and what is perceived as strategic activities emerged to play an important role in the organisational context.  The core concept of the strategising mindset encapsulates the institutional, divisional and individual stances, which reflects a duality in the core, a paired opposite code.  The strategising mindset is understood as the belief system that is adopted with regard to strategic management accounting, which is divided into a bureaucratic and an entrepreneurial mindset.  The mindset and its adoption emerged to correspond to Bourdieu’s habitus, meaning that the field’s beliefs about strategic management accounting are incorporated and at the same time form the field.  The strategising mindset is set within the context of the institutional conception and the academic conception, and has been given importance by external impacts, such as the governmental funding agenda.  The perception of accounting for strategic management and performance management is according to the respective mindset, as expressed in the consequential categories of strategised management accounting and strategised performing.  However, the management accounting and financial management conception can impact upon the mindset and alter the consequences.  Vice versa the mindset can influence the management accounting conception as they have an inter-related association.

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