TIME TO MOVE ON? - Shedding new light on the sacred and secular divide debate about the use of accounting in religious organizations from an institutional logics perspective

Abstract: The literature on accounting in religious organizations has become stuck in a theoretical dead-end. For years scholars debated over the existence and adequacy of the sacred and secular divide (SASD), a concept developed by Laughlin (1988, 1990) and Booth (1993) to explain the role of accounting in religious organizations. The SASD explains the subordinated role of accounting in religious organizations with a resistance of their members against all secular influences, including accounting, in their sacred territory. The debate showed the concept's weaknesses, but researchers have not moved the understanding of accounting's actual role and what influences it much forward. In an in-depth qualitative case study of a Protestant community of males in Germany and Switzerland, the present work applies an institutional logics perspective drawing on works of institutional complexity to shed light on the factors influencing accounting and to show their implications for the SASD debate. It identifies six religious and non-religious factors that contribute to a 'frictionless' functioning of accounting. Furthermore, it provides alternative explanations to those offered by the SASD. This work underscores that the study of accounting in such organizations needs more nuanced approaches, theoretically through perspectives such as institutional logics and methodologically through interview case studies.