Automação contábil: tecnologia aplicada em contabilidade sob a ótica da Teoria Institucional.

Abstract

This research aims to study the organizational changes that the institutionalization process of accounting automation can promote in the companies. For the development of the investigation, single case study methodology was adopted, held in a medium size national family organization. The company, after an assessment process made in conjunction with an external consulting firm, which identified a number of necessary improvements to the organization´s processes, has decided to implement again you ERP system as part of its action plan. In this context, the present study sought, in the light of institutional theory and the focus of Old Institutional Economics (OIE), to understand how the structure of the organization was changed by the institutionalization of accounting automation. In parallel to the constructs of organizational changes from the perspective of the old institutional economics, this study also brought to the analysis and discussion processes, the constructs of technology, new technologies and ERP and the constructs related to the enabling and coercive technologies formalizations. The addition of these constructs have allowed the formulation of indicative questions for semi-structured interviews that aimed to collect the data needed to compare the different moments of the institutionalization process and create the basis for triangulation of information with the documents and the statements of relevant employees who took important part of the ERP implementation process. The comparisons between different moments of the institutionalization process have generated a theoric model, called accounting automation institutionalization sequential model. This model is an adaptation of the institutional theory models generally used to analyze management accounting changes, this present study provided in addition to these models, the construct of “scripts”, linking the new model also with the different accounting processes, not only with management accounting as done by the previous models. The findings of empirical research in the company can demonstrate the organizational changes triggered by the accounting automation institutionalization, and the enactment of new rules that changed the habits and routines of the organization. The details and analysis at different moments in the company (T1 and T2), allowed to observe in relation to the present study that there was still space in the organization for more automation, which could culminate, based on the employees’ opinion, in more changes in the organizational structure. It was possible to conclude therefore that automation in accounting systems may be a structural change factor in the organization, and that still a topic within the accounting research that has received little attention.