25 Years of Giddens in accounting research: Achievements, limitations
and the future
Twenty five years ago, Giddens’ structuration theory (ST) was introduced into accounting
research as a reaction to the history-less, apolitical and technical-efficiency focus of traditional
functionalist research. A quarter of a century later, this growing stream of research
consists of some 65 published papers and has become one of the dominant alternative
approaches used to explore accounting as an organizational and social practice. We review
this literature based on the following two research questions; (i) what are the major
achievements of this literature, and in what respects has it contributed to our understanding
of accounting in relation to other alternative streams of accounting research, such as
those grounded in critical theory, actor-network theory (ANT), new-institutional sociology
(NIS) and practice theory? and; (ii) what are the limitations of the ST strand and, considering
these (and its relative strengths), how should it be advanced in the future? Overall,
we find that the mobilization of ST as a general ontological framework has generated three
major and largely unique contributions, namely; (i) the introduction of a duality perspective;
(ii) the conceptualization of accounting as an interwoven totality comprised of structures
of signification, domination and legitimation, and; (iii) an ontological basis for
theorizing how, when and why socially embedded agents may produce both continuity
and change in accounting practices. However, we also conclude that it is difficult to identify
a particular and distinctive empirical imprint of the ST literature, and that some of the theory’s
‘competitive advantages’ are far from fully exploited. Based on these identified
strengths and weaknesses of the ST perspective, we consider an array of directions for
future scholarly effort