Title: Infused with value? Trajectories, discourses and institutional constructions in Beyond Budgeting diffusion

Authors: Herman Aksom

Addresses: Department of Innovation and Investment Management, Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Vasylkivska str., 90A, Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract: This paper explores whether Beyond Budgeting dissemination is negatively affected (that is, slowed down, restricted and/or resisted) by its diffusion channels and networks, over time replaced by accounting and financial environments and communities. Using discourse analysis I examine channels that constitute the main routes for concept's communication to potential adopters and suggest the implications for the concept's popularity, acceptance by the key audiences and rate of adoption. The use of institutional theory allowed reconstructing the process of shifts in meanings as various actors interpreted differently the same phenomenon and identify two different discourses in Beyond Budgeting diffusion - accounting and managerial. The first discourse occurred as the former aspiration to promote Beyond Budgeting as a management model or even philosophy has been replaced by a more narrow focus on accounting and financial issues which led to the situation when authority to decide whether to adopt or reject an innovation was delegated to individuals most prone to resistance and ignorance. In contrast, another discourse, found in Ukrainian academic literature reveals the persistence of former meanings assigned to Beyond Budgeting.

Keywords: institutional theory; Beyond Budgeting; diffusion; management control innovation; radical organisational change; discourse analysis; social construction of meaning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2017.084059

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2017 Vol.10 No.2, pp.199 - 225

Received: 08 Dec 2016
Accepted: 27 Jan 2017
Published online: 08 May 2017 *

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