Pragmatic Constructivism and Inter-Organisational Decision Making

Abstract

This paper is about the use of management accounting information for inter organizational decision making. We propose that the framework outlined by Nørreklit et al. (2017) is suitable for the study of this topic and to contribute to inter organisational decision making literature. There is a need for developing inter-organisational decision-making models (Dekker, 2016) and making such models match the complexities of practical reality (Nørreklit et al, 2017). This reality involves a high degree of information uncertainty and a coalition of decision participants. Drawing on Pragmatic Paradigm (Nørreklit et al 2006, 2007; Nørreklit 2011; Nørreklit, 2017) Nørreklit et al (2017) outline a framework for the study of organisational decision making by employing the case study research method. These authors use the conceptual fundamentals of Pragmatic Constructivism whose main components of reality construction are: 1. Actorship and authorship 2.Four dimensions of reality (facts, possibilities, values and communication) 3. Constructing causality to integrate the four dimensions above Integrative learning theory of truth - knowledge about reality construction 4. The paper discusses proposes broad research areas for each component above. It then focuses on to the first component of 'actorship and authorship'. It explains the main stages that constitute to co-authoring process. It continues to identify potential areas for research with clear intended contribution for both theory of inter-organisational decision making and practice of boundary spanners. The paper concludes that the use of the pragmatic constructivist framework could provide an appropriate tool to show that actorship and co-authorship are essential elements of inter organizational decision making and they need to be studied further.