Author(s): Elias Cerqueira, Paschoal Tadeu Russo, Juliana Ventura Amaral, Tiago Nascimento Borges Slavov
This study examined management accounting practices in a private company operating under a regulated environment in the wholesale electricity market in Brazil with respect to organizational life cycle (OLC) theory. The research strategy used was a case study in a Brazilian private company that trades Contracts for Commercialization of Energy in the Free Environment - (Contratos de Compra de Energia no Ambiente Livre - CCEAL) and is subject to the process of regulation and transaction control of electric energy conducted by the Brazilian regulatory agency. The individual case study is justified because the company that is the subject of the study—hereafter “Case” to protect its identity—is among the ten largest companies in its segment The results show how regulatory obligation (coercive isomorphism), business development, and strategy aimed at managing operational, market, and credit risks determine the use of traditional and modern management accounting artifacts. We found that growth dynamics and management style, as well as those artifacts, influenced the characteristics of organizational maturity, combining characteristics of three of the five stages of OLC theory. This indicates that the company was in the success stage with a tendency toward the survival and rejuvenation stage, signaling a departure from the characteristics of OLC theory. The research that involves economic activity recently implemented in Brazil, the commercialization of electricity in the wholesale free market, whose business dynamics signal the partial detachment of the OLC theory stages, as well as the management accounting practices recommended in the literature.