Abstract
Purpose: This study aims to explore how managers exercise agency in strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by drawing on their knowledgeability of the strategic context. Specifically, the authors address the role of position–practice relations and irresistible causal forces in this conduct.
Design/methodology/approach: The authors examine SID-making (SIDM) practices in four case organisations operating in highly competitive markets, conducting interviews with managers at various levels and analysing company documents. Drawing on strong structuration theory, the authors show how managerial decision makers draw upon their knowledge of organisational context when exercising agency in SIDs.
Findings: The authors provide insights into how SIDM behaviour, specifically agents’ conduct, is shaped by a combination of position–practice relations and the agents’ comprehension of their organisation’s context.
Research limitations/implications: The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice.
Originality/value: The authors extend the SIDM literature by surfacing the issue of how actors’ conjuncturally-specific knowledge of external structures shapes the general dispositions they draw on in exercising agency in practice. Particularly, the authors contribute to this literature by identifying irresistible causal forces and illuminating why actors might not resist in SIDM processes, despite having the potential to do so.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 27-55 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Feb 2024 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Funding
The authors would like to thank Erkki Lassila, and Rodrigo Silva de Souza for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. In addition, the authors gratefully acknowledge comments from the participants of the 11th ENROAC conference (2017, University of Naples, Italy), MARG conference (2017, Aston Business School, UK), Management Control Association’s Strong Structuration Theory workshops (2017, University of Essex, UK, and 2018, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland), 16th New Zealand Management Accounting Conference (2022, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand) and the accounting research seminar at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). The financial support granted to the authors by the ICAEW is acknowledged with gratitude.
Keywords
- Case study
- Irresistible causal forces
- Knowledgeability
- Position–practice relation
- Strategic investment decision-making
- Strong structuration theory