Digitalisation and accounting language games in organisational contexts

Daniela Ruggeri (), Antonio Leotta () and Carmela Rizza ()
Additional contact information
Daniela Ruggeri: University of Catania-corso Italia
Antonio Leotta: University of Catania-corso Italia
Carmela Rizza: University of Catania-corso Italia

Journal of Management & Governance, 2023, vol. 27, issue 3, No 6, 817-838

Abstract: Abstract The ambition of digitalisation to create centralised knowledge for all organisational actors may lead to the risk of de-contextualising that knowledge from the situation in which the information was generated, neglecting the specificities of local organisational contexts. To prevent such risk, digitalisation should promote the spread of a common language between its users who share rules and principles that lead to the same meanings. We refer to the concept of the language game to study how accounting reports receive meanings according to their use, and thereby how the use of accounting language helps in managing the specifics of organisational contexts. Considering complex organisations where different local accounting language games coexist, management accounting studies on digitalisation fail to explain how digital technology can promote the combination of those language games. The present study aims to answer the question of how digitalisation, promoting a global accounting language game, favours the combination of the accounting language games arising from local organisational contexts. This question is addressed by examining the case of the performance measurement of the new product development process in a multidivisional company. The case evidence highlights how a digital platform, promoting a corporate accounting language game for the whole organisation, favoured the combination of divisional accounting language games. The paper points out how digitalisation affects the boundaries between local and global accounting language games in the production of knowledge for decision-making. Also, the paper shows how digital technology is beneficial only when it does not compromise interactions between the different organisational contexts.

Keywords: Digitalisation; Accounting; Language game; De-contextualisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10997-022-09626-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:27:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10997-022-09626-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10997/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10997-022-09626-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management & Governance is currently edited by Lino Cinquini

More articles in Journal of Management & Governance from Springer, Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().