Accounting Practices and Organizational Dynamics

Accounting practices encompass the methods by which organisations record, interpret and communicate financial and non-financial information. Over recent decades, these practices have expanded from conventional bookkeeping and cost accounting towards a richer array of management accounting techniques, integrated reporting frameworks and digital-enabled performance measurement systems. Organisational dynamics refers to the patterns of interaction among individuals, teams and structures within the enterprise. The interplay between accounting practices and organisational dynamics has become a focal point for research, revealing how calculative tools not only reflect but actively shape decision making, power relations and institutional norms. Studies demonstrate that accounting artefacts can serve as boundary objects mediating between professional logics, facilitate hybrid forms of governance in public and private settings, and calibrate the balance between control and flexibility. In a global context, the adoption of advanced analytics, decentralised ledger technologies and sustainability-oriented metrics has further amplified the sociomaterial entanglement of accounting and organisational life. As firms and public bodies contend with complexity, uncertainty and stakeholder pressures, accounting practices emerge as both instruments of coordination and sites of contestation, influencing strategic change, professional identities and collective sense-making across diverse institutional environments.

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Accounting Practices and Organizational Dynamics publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in accounting practices and organizational dynamics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Management accounting: The discipline and set of practices concerned with gathering, analysing and communicating financial and non-financial information to support internal decision making and performance evaluation.

Organisational dynamics: The patterns of interaction, power relations and behavioural processes that shape how individuals and groups coordinate, adapt and evolve within an institution.

Calculative practices: The use of quantification tools, models and metrics to measure, compare and govern organisational activities, often embedding specific assumptions and values.

Institutional logic: A set of normative beliefs and rules that guide behaviour within an organisational field, shaping how actors prioritise goals and deploy accounting devices.

Knowledge template: A cognitive schema or repertoire that actors draw upon to interpret and operationalise the intersection of accounting methods and technology in organisational settings.

References

1. Serendipity and management accounting change. Meditari Accountancy Research (2023).
2. Digital technologies and accounting quantification: The emergence of two divergent knowledge templates. Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2024).
3. Accounting practices and professional power dynamics during a crisis. The British Accounting Review (2022).