Towards Explaining Stability in and Around Management Accounting Systems

The aim of this longitudinal case study is to examine the reasons behind the often observed fact that accounting systems are difficult to change, despite the influence of significant market and other changes which put tremendous pressure on accounting to change. Unlike the bulk of studies on management accounting change, this study focuses on stability (continuity) and on the reasons for its existence or even necessity. The study aims to reveal how human, institutional, and economic factors become intertwined in MAS change projects, and especially in the cumulative process of change or its denial. The origins of stability and, therein, resistance in accounting systems are discussed using institutional theory and Giddens' theory of structuration