| 1. |
- Cäker, Mikael, 1972, et al.
(författare)
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Management control in public sector Joint Ventures
- 2011
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Ingår i: Management Accounting Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 1044-5005 .- 1096-1224. ; 22:4, s. 330-348
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cooperation among public sector organizations (PSOs) is increasingly important in the management of resources in welfare systems. A Joint Venture (JV) is an organization form that enables PSOs to cooperate with each other in order to achieve economies of scale. However, JVs contain interrelated horizontal and vertical control relationships (between the owners and between the owners and the JV Company) that complicate their control. The first aim of this paper is to map the dynamics in vertical and horizontal control packages in municipal JVs and to describe the relational factors that affect them. Based on three case studies we conclude that vertical control packages are affected by: goodwill trust and competence trust; parent differences in management style and size in combination with control competence; parent diversification (low relatedness between the JV's activity and the parents’ other activities); and the horizontal control package (e.g., rules for parent interaction and distribution of work). Horizontal control packages are affected by: goodwill trust, system trust and calculative trust; parent differences in size; and efforts to achieve equality. The second aim of the paper is to contribute to the discussion on the relationship between trust and control. We observed that trust is potentially unaffected by the introduction of formal controls. We also found that trust has an inverted “crowding out” effect on control. A high ambition to maintain trust leads to underdeveloped formal controls. In addition, we found that the ambition to preserve trust may inhibit the realisation of economies of scale.
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| 2. |
- Johansson, Tobias, et al.
(författare)
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Governing cooperation hazards of outsourced municipal low contractibility transactions : An exploratory configuration approach
- 2011
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Ingår i: Management Accounting Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 1044-5005 .- 1096-1224. ; 22:4, s. 292-312
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increasingly, public sector organizations (PSOs) outsource the delivering of important welfare services. This gives rise to important questions of how PSOs can control their suppliers. The purpose of this paper is to show how PSOs manage cooperation hazards of low contractibility transactions, i.e., activities expected to be difficult to govern. The paper applies a taxonomic configuration approach which means we apply a holistic view on the governance of suppliers and search for internally congruent governance packages that also are adapted to the context of the transactions. Three theoretically meaningful and qualitative different configurations appear in the empirical material. We find indications of the importance of internal congruence in governance packages in order to effectively deal with cooperation hazards and that the intensity in and types of controls in inter-organizational relationships are affected by the amount of cooperation hazards. A conflict between a relational and a market-based governance package in one of the configurations is argued to be the main driver behind lower expectations about positive behaviour from suppliers
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| 3. |
- Johansson, Tobias, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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The appropriateness of tight budget control in public sector organizations facing budget turbulence
- 2014
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Ingår i: Management Accounting Research. - : Elsevier. - 1044-5005 .- 1096-1224. ; 25:4, s. 271-283
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the public sector, budget deviations are an important performance dimension. Because of political and institutional pressures, it is crucial that public sector organizations neither overspend, nor underspend. Budget deviations actualize the issue of tight budget control. In this article we hypothesize that when public sector organizations face budget turbulence, the implementation of tight budget control is a functional response that increases the likelihood of meeting budget targets. Our study, combining survey and archival data from 196 Swedish municipalities, confirms our hypothesis. If budget turbulence is substantial, public sector organizations benefit from tight budget control as they seek to control budget deviations, but if turbulence is only marginal, they can conduct activities in the same manner as last year and additional direction from tight controls has no effect on budget deviations. A more general contribution of the paper is the evaluation of the effect of environment and tight budgetary control fit on budgetary performance.
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| 4. |
- Johansson, Tobias, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Why is research on management accounting change not explicitly evolutionary? : Taking the next step in the conceptualisation of management accounting change
- 2009
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Ingår i: Management Accounting Research. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 1044-5005 .- 1096-1224. ; 20:2, s. 146-162
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article we discuss the evolutionary foundation of the OIE-guided management accounting change research building on the framework of [Scapens R.W. 1994. Never mind the gap: towards an institutional perspective on management accounting practice. Management Accounting Research, 5, 301–321.] and [Burns, J. and Scapens, R.W., 2000. Conceptualizing management accounting change: an institutional framework. Management Accounting Research, 11, 3–25.]. We argue that research on management accounting change should be based on evolutionary theory, but that the full potential of evolutionary theory has not yet been described or used in management accounting research. The conceptualisation and understanding of management accounting change can be improved and expanded if the evolutionary approach is developed beyond the general belief that it describes only small and gradual, often slow, changes. In this article we show that an evolutionary perspective on management accounting change implies that management accounting’s development is explained as the interaction between the evolutionary sub processes of retention (inheritance), variation and selection. Thus, both continuity and change are seen as evolutionary outcomes. These processes follow the cumulative causality that Charles Darwin proposed and Thorstein Veblen applied to the social sciences. Such a comprehensive theory, here labelled Universal Darwinism, must, however, be given substance with supporting details.
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