Situated Functionality of Management Accounting Tools within Operational Practices: A Field Study of Physicians Drawing on Casemix
Posted: 10 Sep 2011 Last revised: 10 Jun 2013
Date Written: September 9, 2011
Abstract
This paper aims to study the use of management accounting tools for the pursuit of practitioners’ specific intentions. Specifically we aim to investigate how non-accountants enact the situated functionality (Ahrens & Chapman, 2007) of management accounting tools in their operational practice. This question is investigated through a detailed case study on the enactment of casemix situated functionality by physicians in a French Hospital. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Schatzki (2002), we identify that this is done over time and takes the shape of a trajectory of management accounting tools and practice transformations. We find that the same way as rules, teleoaffective structures and understandings are properties of practice, situated functionality is a property of the relation between tool and practices. This relation is recursive and then evolves as tool and practice alter their contours.
Keywords: Situated Functionality Enactment, Management Accounting Tools, Casemix
JEL Classification: M40, M49
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation