The review of researches of stability and change in management accounting over time

In recent years, much has been written on the nature of management accounting change,and indeed stability. Many researchers have used concepts such as rules and routines tointerpret this change and/or stability. Recent research has provided an increasingly clearpicture of what rules and routines are, as well as contributing to our understanding of theprocesses of change and stability in management accounting.Management accounting research has mainly presented rules and routines as relatedphenomena, but some conceptual work has suggested they are separable and can (andpossibly should) be considered independently when studying processes of change/stabilitywithin management accounting. However, empirical support for such work has been scarceto date. This paper uses workofQuinn, 2011, Burns and Scapens, 2000 and  Quinn, 2013 (that uses from the archival records of the Guinness company) and other researchers in an effortto establish whether rules and routines, at least in management accounting research, arebest considered separable concepts or not. The archival records are artefacts of rules androutines and thus can be used to trace the interactions of rules and routines over time. Sup-port for the notion that rules and routines should be considered separately is presented. Thefindings also portray the stable, but changing, nature of management accounting routinesover time; a point worthy of further research.