Structure and agency

About: Structure and agency is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1265 publications have been published within this topic receiving 63660 citations.

Management accounting practices and efficiency in a Colombian multi-utility conglomerate

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how a state owned Colombian multiutility conglomerate has used management accounting practices to shape efficiency. We bring out the interplay between structures and agency in the process of shaping efficiency, which has enabled the company to operate as a private enterprise, taking advantage of NPM-led reforms and management accounting technologies. Design/methodology/approach - This is an interpretative case study of a Colombian multi-utility conglomerate. Data for the study are derived from interviews, nonparticipative observations and document analysis. Giddens’ structuration theory provides the theoretical approach for the study. Findings: Results show that management accounting practices have shaped efficiency in a Colombian multi-utility conglomerate, promoting the profitability criteria prevailing in private enterprises. Theoretically, the paper shows how structure and agency are embedded in shaping efficiency in an emerging economy context through management accounting practices. It does this by analysing both the broader influence of the School of Mines and multilateral development banks and the micro-situated practices of employees at the Colombian multi-utility conglomerate. The employees who have worked in the company for long periods of time have transformed the profitability criteria into a corporate value that influences their day-to-day practices. Originality/value – The paper adds to the literature that draws on structuration theory by illustrating a paradigmatic case in which agents have brought in knowledge and values to a state-owned company, and changed its ethos and practices whilst remaining under state control.

Structure and agency: Clash or complement towards quality public education within the South African legislative framework?

Abstract: In the current South African society, characterised by typical neo-liberal market-driven priorities also forced upon the education sector, the search for quality education needs careful consideration. This search has taken a prominent focus in robust academic, public, political, and school governance debates in South Africa for the past 2 decades. Officials of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) admit that, despite noteworthy efforts, it fails in providing quality education for all learners. Key stakeholders in education neglect their professional duties. This paper investigates factors related to (dominating) structure and (a lack of) agency that might be deterrents to attainment of quality education. Bureaucratic and labour structures often deny professional educators their agency. The central question is what the nature of the impact, if any, of the conflicting powers of structure and agency is on quality public education. It was found that the conflict between structure and agency often have a negative effect on the delivery of quality education but that the advantages of both structure and agency, once reconciled, might lead to the improvement of the delivery of quality education in South Africa. Keywords: agency; legislation; quality education; structure; unionism

The Vacuity of Structurelessness: Situating Agency and Structure in Exploitative and Alienated Social Relations

Abstract: Replying to Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke, this article shows how Political Marxism offers powerful conceptual tools to understand modes of production that structure historical processes as fundamentally constituted by exploitative social and political relations. I explain how structure, or rules of reproduction, should be understood as alienated social relations, which are inherent to all class societies. Understanding structure this way leaves ample space for – and makes inevitable – the consideration of agency.

Infrastructuration: On Habits, Norms and Routines as Elements of Infrastructure*

Abstract: This chapter explores examples from several different nations that show how infrastructures depend on habits, norms and routines, and how the persistence of automaticity in social systems and individuals creates its own forms of path dependence and structural inertia. My title plays on Anthony Giddens’s notion of “structuration” to evoke the mutually constructive character of agency and structure.