As Baxter and Chua (2008, p 226) note, we need to come to grips with what the notion of ‘practice’ entails. Ahrens and Chapman (2007) introduce Schatzki’s framework to accounting research as a useful way to understand and make sense of
‘practices’ both as a theoretical concept and empirical phenomena. However, as Baxter and Chua (ibid) note, “…much work needs to be done in conceptualizing and operationalizing these notions [of ‘integrative’ and ‘dispersed’ practices as] activities and arrays”. The same holds true with the associated theoretical concepts such as practice organization framework (‘practical understandings’, ‘rules’, ‘teleoeffective structures’, and ‘general understandings’), ‘practical intelligibility’, and the sociomaterial nature of ‘practices’ (Orlikowski, 2007, 2010b). An important methodological contribution of this thesis to practice theory literature lies in operationalizing concepts from Schatzki’s ontology. I have demonstrated the
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relevance and usefulness of Schatzki’s ‘site’ ontology concepts to understand empirical phenomena (in my case accounting and other [calculative] practices in PE).
With this focus hopefully something new has been learnt about accounting and investment evaluation practices in the PE industry [please refer to Section 6.2 for the contributions of this study]. I hope the phenomenological character of Schatzki’s concepts has made the complex phenomena of PE seem less complex to the readers.
In the following, I summarize the relevance and usefulness of Schatzki’s concepts for studying accounting and other organizational phenomena:
(1) Accounting scholars have repeatedly emphasised the importance and value of studying how accounting relates to and [re]engages with various other organizational practices (Ahrens, 2010; Baxter & Chua, 2008; Jứrgensen &
Messner, 2010; Miller, 1998; Whittington, 2011). My research examined the role of accounting and associated/allied calculative practices in PE in order to consider these intersections with other organizational practices in a complex financial services setting. Schatzki’s ‘site’ ontology has proved to be a useful framework to consider these intersections and interrelations. Concepts such as
‘teleological structures’ and ‘constitution’, encourage us to go beyond the outside appearances or labels of the practices and look at the ‘integrative’
projects and tasks and their ‘teleologies’. For example, we saw (Chapter 3) how some routine and fundamental accounting practices constitute the
‘teleological structures’ of client service practices in PE firms and in turn contribute to the survival and success of PE firms as client service is a key success factor for the GPs in the industry. Moreover, in Chapter 3, we saw how the concept of ‘dispersed’ and ‘integrative’ practices help us to understand and appreciate the complex intertwining of accounting and other PE practices. With these concepts, I could note that the ‘situated functionality’ of accounting is ‘prefigured’ by its ‘dispersed’ nature.
(2) Sandberg and Tsoukas (2011) have argued for the development of what they call ‘practical rationality theories’ that capture essential aspects of the logic of practice and demonstrate the way in which organizational and other social practices are ‘constituted’ and enacted. Sandberg and Tsoukas note that theorists such as Schatzki, Taylor, Dreyfus and Polt have developed useful
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concepts for undertaking such theorizing (ibid, p 339). As noted in Section 2 of Chapter 2, Schatzki’s concept of ‘practical intelligibility’ focuses on what it makes sense to someone to do. By using the concept ‘practical intelligibility’, the thesis also provided some insight into the factors that influence or are taken into account while evaluating investment opportunities in PE. We saw (in Chapter 4) that the same factor (for example, quality of the management team) can take different significance depending on the type of opportunity under evaluation. While evaluating a primaries opportunity, the due diligence teams assign high importance to the background and quality of the management team and other such qualitative factors. On the other hand, while evaluating a secondaries opportunity, the due diligence teams assign high[er]
importance to the quality of the assets in the portfolio and relatively low[er]
importance to the quality of the management team. So I noted that the extent to which the investment opportunity consists of a ‘blind pool’ commitment
‘prefigures’ [by facilitating or limiting] the performance of numerical/quantitative analysis in the evaluation/due diligence of investment opportunities. In the process, we got to understand that how an encountered aspect makes sense to the investment professional depends also on the context of the investment proposal under evaluation.
(3) Sandberg and Dall'Alba (2009) note that it is important for us to understand and provide a close analysis of how organizational practices are constituted in their enactment and performance over time. Schatzki’s concepts of
‘constitution’ and ‘practice memory’84 are particularly helpful in understanding the performance of practices over a longitudinal timeframe. For example, in the case of DG, we saw that the continuation of practice organizations such as ‘teleologies’, alteration of ‘projects’ and ‘tasks’ within the ‘teleological structure’ and the shaping of ‘practical intelligibilities’ was secured and sustained through a complex web of [inter]actions and entities.
The ‘teleological structure’ and the shaping of ‘practical intelligibilities’ was secured partly through the interactions/discussions and debates at the investment management meetings, partly through the day to day interactions in
84 As defined earlier in Chapter 4 (Section 4.8), ‘practice memory’ is the continuation of practice organizations (i.e., ‘practical understandings’, ‘rules’, ‘teleoaffective structures’, and
‘general understandings’) over time.
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the due diligence teams, and also with the help of material artefacts such as the investment memorandum template and the MS Excel spreadsheets.
While I have been appreciative of the positive aspects of Schatzki’s ‘site’ ontology framework, I have also chosen to be critical of some of the theoretical concepts which are poorly defined and/or underdeveloped (see for e.g., my comments on ‘general understanding’ concept in the discussion section of Chapter 3 and my comments on the role of objects in Chapters 4 and 5). I have also made an effort to contribute by seeking to clarify these aspects (Section 4.2 in Chapter 3 and in Chapter 5 respectively) which I will summarize and review in the next section along with other contributions which this thesis has made.