Concluding remarks

6. Concluding remarks

This paper has focused on processes of learning and cognitive/behavioural re-definition, which agents are asked to undertake during phases of profound organisational transformation. Specifically, the aim has been to develop a theoretical framework for interpreting the role of management accounting (as well as other organisational systems), within processes of knowledge sedimentation and recall, and their intertwined constitution with the emergence of feelings of trust/distrust for change. It has been argued that the way in which the agent draws upon accounting practices during processes of individual learning is

7 In this respect, Schein suggests that “the question” should be handled empirically, so that: “if we find that certain assumptions are shared across all the units of an organization, then we can legitimately speak of on

organizational culture, even though at the same time we may find a number of discrete subcultures that have their own integrity. In fact, … with time any social unit will produce subunits that will produce subcultures as a normal process of evolution. Some of these subcultures will typically be in conflict with each other, as is often the case with higher management and unionised labour groups. Yet in spite of such conflict one will find that organizations have common assumptions that come into play when a crisis occurs or when a common enemy is found” (1992, p. 14-15). Definitely, in the NP case, the market competitors were perceived as a common enemy, and the need for change was meet with a new measurement-driven organisational knowledge.

far from being clear and requires further investigation. In view of the “biological” characteristics of agency, the tension between the sense of safety carried by cognitive schemes and behavioural regularities, and the opportunities and threats connected to processes of change, encompasses a psychological conflict which need to be illustrated in light of a multi-levelled conception of human consciousness. It is for this reason that we have built on insights from sociology of knowledge and cognitive psychology to explore the role of accounting in managing those anxieties which are likely to emerge when the individual faces

a choice between the possibility for a purposeful action and the enactment of routinized patterns of behaviour.

Interpreting processes of radical transformation requires linking the insights of individual learning with the recall of existing ‘cargoes-of-thought’. Typically, once experienced and positively assessed (i.e., validated), knowledge is then institutionalised and stored within the individual’s mental models. Nevertheless, agent’s memory is not involved just with maintenance and accumulation of knowledge. Conversely, by relying on the human capability of making the difference in social situations, existing rationales and taken-for- granted assumptions are constantly drawn upon and instantiated in agents’ patterns of behaviour. Thus, since knowledge is stored and carried both as memory traces and within organisational routine and, for this reason, applied both at cognitive and behavioural level, its ongoing reconsideration is likely to happen concurrently by means of thought and action. When crisis arises, disconfirming or unfreezing episodes create the potential motivation to learn, but they do not necessarily control the direction of the process of change. In these cases, once the individual has assessed and evaluated the possible alternatives, and the learning process has taken a particular route (confirmation/transformation), it is likely that the ‘work’ of cognitive feelings/judgements and behavioural practices/activities will develop in a mutually reinforcing way.

In view of the agent’s biological deficiencies, personality is sustained, and prevented from being swamped by (survival) anxiety, through the enactment of predictable routine. Thus, the more unconscious the ‘assessment ground’, the lower the probability that the individual will question and challenge the meanings provided by the existing practices. This is due to the actor’s emotional reactions, which is heavily influenced by the strength of trust in predictability. However, critical situations have the potential to strip away the sedimented responses of earlier processes of socialisation and destroy the certitudes provided by institutionalised routines. Thus, by setting the individual’s mental platform ‘on fire’, crises push the agent to unfreeze the existing rationales, descend the abstraction of the mechanisms of knowledge recall and open up the possibility for conscious responses. Clearly, this does not guarantee that change will occur in the desired direction, but it enhances the possibility for replacing trust in predictability with feelings of ‘trust for change’.

The outcomes of such ‘rational’ processes of cognitive transformation may vary in their extent. Both Giddens and Schein rely on Bettelheim’s findings on concentration camps to point out the deep consequences of circumstances of radical disjuncture. These situations bring about a high degree of anxiety that cannot be countenanced with the existing sense of ontological security. By eradicating the predictability (and safety) of day-to-day routines, crisis destroys the established autonomy of individuals, who consequently, open themselves to processes of redefinition. Indeed, genuine and convinced learning is always a possible outcome but, in the face of severe survival anxiety, some participants might also purposely decide for a practical defensive identification with ‘the aggressor’ (this was the interpretation of NP’s unions). Thus, when the existing knowledge and habitualised patterns of behaviour are challenged, a “new” truce needs to be re-negotiated organisationally (Scapens, 1994) and, eventually, “refrozen in the personalities of the individuals and in the norms and routines of the group” (Schein, 1992, p. 312).

In this contribution, the duality of thought and action is made explicit. Within the process of learning and transformation, the cognitive and the behavioural levels become the medium and the outcome of each other: trust for change is necessary for implementing accounting systems, and accounting is required to sustain trust for change in practice. Management accounting systems may be intentionally used to challenge the existing situation, ‘unfreeze’ the old cognitive contents and, then, enact the new credo into a set of roles, rules and routine. However, for change to remain more stable, the successful experience accumulated must be ‘refrozen’ within individuals’ mental models. As described in the paper, within NP this was achieved through a new organisaional language based on the measurement and accounting vocabulary. Such a language enabled the constitution and diffusion of a redefined sense of trust and security, by making visible the results achieved in financial and non-financial terms. As suggested by Berger and Luckmann, the “language objectivates the shared experiences and makes them available to all within the linguistic community, thus becoming both the basis and the instrument of the collective stock of knowledge” (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 85-86).

The framework developed in this paper is intended as a possible starting point for interpreting the role of accounting systems within processes of individual learning. This seems significant in times of global competition and intense environmental change, where organisations are constantly required to undertake processes of change and transformation. Described as “an intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990a, p. 64), processes of globalisation are likely to be influenced by the intertwined relationship between organisational systems and feelings of trust for change. Thus, among the other organisational practices, management accounting display the potential to facilitate the reduction of spatial and temporal factors as constraints to the development of organisations. They enable individuals to make sense of their social existence and communicate their experience across a variety of time-space places of interaction.

The theoretical perspective illustrated in this paper explores the recursive relationship which links accounting systems to the enhancement of feelings of trust for change. However, as the combined discussion on the cases of BCW and NP illustrates, the outcome of this relationship may vary according to the context in which it occurs. Thus, when both the organisations had to face a crisis, within NP, accounting practices and feelings of trust acted in a recursive mutually reinforcing way, whereas in BCW the learning loop took a mutually damaging direction. Within BCW, the existing “cargoes-of-thought” represented a mode of handling time and space by integrating the reflexive monitoring of action within the continuity of the existing organisational rationales. Thus, accounting constitution was “trapped” in a process where the company continued to build on its historical identity. This caused accounting to be perceived as part of the problem. Conversely, NP experienced the importance of linking accounting practices with trust for change within processes of individual and organisational learning. In particular, far from being legitimated by their linkages with the existing culture, new patterns of interaction were sustained by the successful experiences achieved through, and reported by, the new measurement-driven vocabulary.

Indeed, the framework illustrated in this contribution requires longitudinal field studies to be extended and further refined. Described as organisational rules, roles and routines, management accounting systems play a pivotal role within processes of learning. They are recursively implicated with the management of anxieties, they display the potential to act as devices for enabling/resisting processes of cognitive and behavioural redefinition. For these reasons, we believe that additional ethnographical research should be undertaken for exploring in depth the way in which accounting systems are constituted during processes of individual learning, as well as their role in managing the tensions between routinised and purposeful behaviour.

Individual Learning