A atuação do contador no fazer estratégico: o fenômeno da Open Strategy à luz da teoria da estruturação.

Abstract

In this research we seek to answer how the accountant is inserted in the opening of the strategic process in organizations in the light of structuring theory. In this search we used the qualitative approach and, as the analysis method, 1st and 2nd order analysis. This method consists of opening analysis categories from micro (1st order) to macro (2nd order) with the aim of theorizing the problem in figure form to visually demonstrate the research findings. The empirical evidence used in the analysis was captured from semi-structured interviews until saturation with accountants and peers chosen for convenience and opportunity in cooperatives and companies in the milk and food sector in the west of the state of Paraná. As an analysis tool, we used Atlas.TI, version n°. 9, which resulted in the marking of 824 (eight hundred and twenty-four) quotes/statements organized into 51 (fifty-one) codes, which with the refinement of the data became 37 codes, which correspond to the main themes covered by the interviewees. We categorized these themes into properties of structuring and agential action and, subsequently, organized them into subdimensions and dimensions that emerged from the analysis. The empirical evidence indicated a process of construction of the social role of the accountant as a practitioner of the strategy that comprises the (1) structuring and (2) agential dimensions. In these dimensions we find routines systematized in action properties that provide accountants with the opportunity to act in roles with low, medium and high degrees of inclusion, transparency and flexibility in the organization's strategic work. The role of accountants in the roles found in this research leads them to carry out social practices in the organization's strategic process that provide an opportunity to characterize this professional as a strategy practitioner. These are the social practices that we found in this research in the structuring dimension: (1) applying the law, (2) applying technology and (3) managing the profession. These practices comprise structuring elements of action that organize, firstly, the action of accountants in strategic action, limiting or expanding their agency power within the organization. The social practices that we find in the agential dimension are: (1) discussing results, (2) developing the strategy and (3) creating results, which correspond to the accountant's agency power in the organization's strategic actions in the action of managing information and business attributes. strategic use. The theoretical contribution of this research comprises the discussion of the accountant's role under a sociological lens conducted with Giddens' (2003) structuring theory, in which we seek to understand the accountant's role in the properties of the action and its relationship with inclusion, transparency and flexibility, postulates of Open Strategy. The practical contribution of this research is linked to providing accountants with a view of the social construction of their role in organizations in which they come to understand accounting as an area active in strategy. Based on the results of this research, we gained insights into the characterization of the accountant as a strategy practitioner with the presentation of propositions that demonstrate to accountants and researchers in the area of strategy as a practice and Open Strategy the process of transforming this agent into a strategy practitioner. We conclude from this research that the accountant goes through a process of resignifying his role in the organization, provided with the opening of the strategy in the organizations analyzed which, due to structuring elements of the action and agency power of accountants, due to the influence of inclusion, transparency and flexibility manifested in low, medium and high degrees in the strategic process, contribute to becoming a strategy practitioner