The adoption of management accounting at university: the presence of internal cleavages in a contradictory institutional demands context

Different institutional pressures imposed for many years the deployment of management accounting in French universities. However, these pressures seem contradictory to the purpose of the tool and its role in the funds granting. Given these contradictions and internal conflicts that management accounting can lead, this article aims to analyse how its adoption is influenced by allocation strategies of stakeholder groups. Based on a new institutional approach, the article seeks to address this issue from the study of a French institution which has developed a full costs tool. The results reveal cleavages in actors' representations about the tool and a compromise on its adoption. These cleavages are explained by disparities in the resources allocation, reallocation strategies and for reasons linked to the history of the institution, its governance, the availabilities of resources and the administrative staff's status.