Internal Organisational Arrangements and Engagements with Environment in Small and Medium-Sized Accounting Practices

This chapter aims to account for variation in the engagement of small and medium-sized accounting practices with their environment – sensing and seizing – by virtue of multiple organisational arrangements. Data was collected from Norwegian practices, with a final sample size of 196 respondents, and analysed using a Kruskal–Wallis test. Results indicate that dispersed governance structures, longer foresight practices and lower market size matter while engaging with the environment. The expectation of variation because of firm size was not, however, supported by the data. These results highlight that firm size does not matter per se; however, it is essential to record whether there is dispersed governance and whether there is a differentiated market, as well as how long the length of foresight practice is. This chapter provides an enhanced understanding of organisational arrangements and their role in practices to sense and seize the opportunities to act as small business advisors. The results suggest that these practices could overcome the difficulties associated with serving the customer as small business advisors by opting for certain organisational arrangements. These insights are further discussed with implications for accounting practices at the lower end of the professional field.