The aim of this paper is to investigate the implications of hybridity on organizational forms and accounting practices, management accounting expertise and tools.
This study has two motivations. First, the phenomenon of “hybridization” is growing both in the public and the private sector but, while hybrid organizations have been widely investigated, hybridity, as leitmotiv surrounding organizational forms, practices, processes and expertise has been rarely explored by management accounting studies.
Second, there is the need of management accounting studies in this field as management accounting frequently continues to focus on hierarchical relationships and vertical information flows, while lateral information flows are neglected, despite the relevance of hybrids. Instead, management accounting can enhance its role in public sector when it takes a more lateral process of information to support join actions in horizontal network and the success of these networks. Furthermore, it is a matter of fact that accounting has been continuously formed and re-formed out from other disciplines.
In particular, the first research question is to investigate how hybrid organizational structures affect accounting expertise (professionals) and management accounting (practices). In turn, the second research question is how management accounting expertise and management accounting enable hybrid organizations.
This paper particularly relies on two empirical cases of co-production in public service delivering, as a source of hybrids that has assumed increasing relevance over the last years.
The pragmatic constructivism (PC) approach informed the analysis of empirical data. According to PC, organizational actors construct their reality by integrating the following dimensions: facts, logic, communication and values. According to this framework, management accounting system has to mirror the integrated reality and constitute a valid tool to realize organizational goals, otherwise it cannot work in practice.
Findings, informed by the PC approach, show the existence of the value of hybridity surrounding organizational forms, modes of governing, and management accounting tools and professions. The value of hybridity consists in the integration of different disciplines (such as sociology, psychology and healthcare).
Specifically, our preliminary findings show that in hybrid organizations management accounting tools and the accounting professions have been hybridised by the influence of other disciplines such as sociology, psychology and healthcare that prevail over financial and accounting disciplines. In turn, it seems that hybrid accountants and tools support the hybrid practices in the case of co-production. In fact, empirical evidences show that the hybrid representation and evaluation of activities and the hybrid expertise are key elements in the revision of the hybrid organizational arrangements of co-production. On the other side, traditional management accounting tools are considered less useful for decision making.
Thus, the value of hybridity embedded in management accounting professions and practices suggests a coherence between reality and management accounting and hence the ability of management accounting to work in practice.
Findings suggests that in case of hybrid organizations, hybrid management accounting tools and hybrid professionals are recommended to enable hybrid organizations and their success and support the management of costs and performance in order to enable hybrid organizational forms and their success.
Accounting and accountability of value creation in innovative public service delivery arra
IRSPM_2018_Campanale_et_al..pdf 