Article review of “Professional hybridization among management accountants”: a note

Article review of “Professional hybridization among management accountants”: a note

 

How to present this article in Harvard reference format?

Fried, A., Rasmussen, J., Ottosson, M. and Nehler, H., 2026. Professional hybridization among management accountants: Navigating paradoxical tensions in environmental sustainability. Management Accounting Research, 68, p.100958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2025.100958

 

What are the key research issues the article wants to address?

The article aims to address several key research issues related to the professional hybridization of management accountants in the context of environmental sustainability:

1.    Limitations of Existing Perspectives: Prior research mainly examines management accountants’ professional hybridization as an individual transformation of roles and identities. This focus neglects the broader social context and the dynamic nature of management accounting work, especially when integrating environmental sustainability demands.

2.    Integration of Environmental Sustainability: How management accountants incorporate environmental sustainability demands into their work and the tensions that arise from this integration, given that sustainability brings new and sometimes conflicting expectations compared to traditional financial roles.

3.    Paradoxical Tensions: The study explores the paradoxical tensions management accountants face, specifically:

• The sustainability–profit paradox, which involves balancing environmental sustainability goals with traditional profit-oriented business objectives.
• The engineer–accountant profession paradox, reflecting tensions between management accountants and engineers, who have differing professional roles and identities related to sustainability challenges.

4.    Navigating Paradoxes: Identifying how management accountants experience and navigate these paradoxes in practice, including the strategies or response patterns they adopt.

5.    Socially Embedded Nature of Hybridization: Demonstrating that professional hybridization is not just an individual-level change, but a socially embedded phenomenon influenced by organizational and interprofessional paradoxical tensions.

Overall, the research investigates how environmental sustainability reshapes the professional role and identity of management accountants and contributes to understanding their agency in managing these complex tensions within organizations.

 

Describe two main theories employed in this article.

The article employs two main theories to frame its analysis:

1.    Professional Hybridization Theory: This theory relates to the evolving roles and identities of management accountants as they increasingly engage with sustainability-related work. Traditional views often treat the role and identity of management accountants as static and individual-centered (e.g., "bean counter" vs. "business partner"). However, the article critiques this methodological individualism and proposes viewing professional hybridization as a socially embedded, dynamic process shaped by broader organizational, societal, and multi-professional contexts. This approach highlights the tensions and paradoxes that arise when management accountants navigate competing demands, such as balancing financial responsibilities with sustainability goals.

2.    Paradox Theory: Paradox theory is utilized as the analytical framework to understand the contradictory yet interrelated tensions management accountants face in sustainability management accounting. Paradoxes are defined as logical but opposing elements that persist over time within organizational contexts (e.g., tensions between control and flexibility, or sustainability and profitability). The theory distinguishes paradoxical tensions as emotional and cognitive challenges experienced by individuals coping with these contradictions. It also provides a lens to analyze how actors (management accountants) navigate and respond to these tensions—whether through balancing (integrating conflicting demands) or imbalancing (favoring one demand over another) response patterns.

Together, these theories enable the article to examine the complexity of management accountants' roles in sustainability-related practices, emphasizing both the structural-social embeddedness of the profession and the dynamic, ongoing negotiation of paradoxical tensions in their work.

 

Highlight 2 main primary findings reported in this article.

Two main primary findings reported in the article are:

1.    Identification of Two Central Paradoxes in Sustainability Management Accounting: The study reveals two key paradoxes that management accountants encounter when integrating environmental sustainability demands into their work:

• The sustainability–profit paradox, which reflects tensions between pursuing long-term environmental sustainability goals and short-term profit objectives. This paradox originates from external pressures such as regulations and stakeholder demands as well as internal business imperatives, and cascades across organizational levels affecting the professional identity and role of management accountants.
• The engineer–accountant profession paradox, which is nested within the sustainability–profit paradox and concerns the contrasting identities, roles, and expectations between engineers and management accountants. This tension arises from their different professional logics, social positioning, and the need for collaboration to achieve sustainability and profit goals.

2.    Identification of Four Response Patterns for Navigating Paradoxical Tensions: Management accountants adopt four distinct response patterns when facing these paradoxical tensions, differentiated by their activity and the organizational context:

• Passively imbalancing: Organizations have rigid accounting systems that exclude sustainability considerations, resulting in management accountants focusing solely on financial performance and ignoring environmental aspects.
• Passively balancing: Minor incorporation of sustainability into accounting occurs, with limited reference to environmental issues and occasional reporting upon request.
• Actively imbalancing: Management accountants resist sustainability tasks, asserting that such concerns belong to engineers, maintaining financial focus.
• Actively balancing: Management accountants integrate both financial and environmental performance considerations, reconciling conflicting objectives, collaborating across professions, and strategically incorporating sustainability into management accounting procedures and roles. These patterns illustrate how the professional hybridization of management accountants is shaped by structural organizational dynamics and individual agency in response to tensions [T3, Table 2].

 

Describe 3 main claims of the article in terms of Toulmin's model of argument.

Using Toulmin's model of argument (which comprises Claim, Data/Grounds, Warrant, Backing, Qualifier, and Rebuttal), three main claims from the article can be described as follows:

1.    Claim 1: Management accountants experience paradoxical tensions arising from conflicting demands of environmental sustainability and short-term profit, as well as from differing professional identities between accountants and engineers.

• Data/Grounds: Interviews and empirical data from energy-intensive companies show increased external pressures (regulations, stakeholder demands) and internal business demands for sustainability; also, evidence of role conflicts and tensions between engineers and management accountants.
• Warrant: When organizations face contradictory but interrelated demands, paradoxical tensions emerge that affect actors' roles and identities.
• Backing: Theoretical foundations of paradox theory and prior research on organizational paradoxes and professional identities (e.g., Smith and Lewis (2011), Jarzabkowski et al. (2013), Gilbert et al. (2018)).
• Qualifier: These tensions are particularly pronounced in organizations dealing with sustainability transitions and complex stakeholder environments.
• Rebuttal: Some organizations or individuals may not experience such tensions due to differing contexts or rigid management accounting systems.

2.    Claim 2: Management accountants use varied response patterns (active/passive and balancing/imbalancing), which result in different degrees of professional hybridization between financial and sustainability roles.

• Data/Grounds: Coding of empirical responses revealed four patterns—passively imbalancing, passively balancing, actively imbalancing, and actively balancing—that shape management accounting practices and identities.
• Warrant: The way individuals and organizations respond to paradoxical tensions shapes professional roles and hybridization.
• Backing: Literature on responses to paradox (Putnam et al., 2016; Jarzabkowski et al., 2013) and studies on professional identity and agency.
• Qualifier: Response patterns are influenced by organizational inertia, structure, and cultural dynamics and may vary over time.
• Rebuttal: Not all individuals or organizations fit neatly into these response patterns; responses can be fluid or context-dependent.

3.    Claim 3: Successful professional hybridization of management accountants depends on their social embeddedness within multidisciplinary teams and broader organizational transformations that enable integrating sustainability and financial performance considerations.

• Data/Grounds: Examples and analysis show that hybrid identity and sustainability integration emerge when multiprofessional collaboration is marked by entrepreneurial spirit and when organizations structurally transform accounting processes to explicitly include sustainability.
• Warrant: Social embeddedness and organizational support are essential for reconciliation of competing demands and development of hybrid professional identities.
• Backing: Paradox theory insights (Smith and Lewis, 2011; Jarzabkowski et al., 2013), organizational identity research, and empirical findings from the study.
• Qualifier: This integration is often a gradual and context-specific process requiring alignment across levels (macro, meso, micro).
• Rebuttal: Without such embeddedness or structural change, management accountants may remain professionally fragmented or preserving traditional roles.

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