| 1. |
- Abrahamsson, Gun, et al.
(författare)
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Exploiting institutional contradictions : the role of management accounting in continuous improvement implementation
- 2006
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Ingår i: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management/Emerald. - Bradford : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1176-6093 .- 1758-7654. ; 3:2, s. 126-144
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Based on an institutional perspective, this study explores the role of management accounting (MA) in promoting or impeding changes in the employees’ conceptions of shopfloor worker responsibility in a company trying to implement a Continuous Improvement (CI) working practice. Methodology/approach: We use an ethnographically inspired research method where weekly CI meetings in two workgroups were observed over a period of eight months and in-depth interviews with managers and operators were conducted regularly. Findings: The study reveals that active and skilful exploiters of inconsistencies within social arrangements may use MA as one important way of transforming a traditional vertical view of worker responsibility into a more horizontally-oriented view by: creating collective reflection and reasoned analysis of the limits of the present order; and, by visualizing and justifying an alternative model(s) of social behaviour. However, the study also shows that MA may contribute to the reinforcement of a vertical view by the use of group-level measures strictly as a one-way performance monitoring device. Research limitations/implications: Arguably, it is worthwhile to explore the existence of ‘institutional heterogeneity’ because our study highlights that ‘contradictions’ between social orders may not only nurture institutional stability, but may also be a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for institutional change.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Abrahamsson, Gun, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
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On the (re)construction of numbers and operational reality : A study of face-to-face interactions
- 2016
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Ingår i: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management/Emerald. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1176-6093 .- 1758-7654. ; 13:2, s. 159-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: This paper aims to examine the mobilization of management accounting (MA) numbers and metrics in social interactions. The purpose is to develop a model of how and why managers perceive and mobilize (new) MA numbers/metrics in a changing way over time in situated face-to-face interactions.Design/methodology/approach: An observation-based qualitative field study of a change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for our analysis.Findings: The empirical study shows that MA numbers and metrics are essential when semi-distant managers strive to solve problems and achieve radical improvement targets, but that the ways in which existing and new metrics are perceived and mobilized during face-to-face interactions change over time. The study provides both a detailed account of the emergent nature of the transformation process and a number of mechanisms as to why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce such change.Originality/value: The paper problematizes the generally held view that MA numbers and metrics primarily work as a structuring device in face-to-face interactions, and also, how the processes are constituted through which MA is transformed into such a structuring device. The paper also adds new insights to our understandings of why managers (inter-)act the way they do to produce MA change.
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| 4. |
- Abrahamsson, Gun, et al.
(författare)
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Organizational identity and management accounting change
- 2011
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Ingår i: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1368-0668 .- 1758-4205 .- 0951-3574. ; 24:3, s. 345-376
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – This paper aims to examine how and why management accounting practices are linked to an organization's identity and identity discrepancies.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative field study of a one-year change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for the analysis.Findings – The empirical study reveals how discrepancies between organizational members' perceived identity and their construed external (and desired future) image both influence and are influenced by emergent accounting practices. Empirical evidence suggests such a reciprocal relationship between accounting and identity, since accounting practices are an important means of (de)legitimizing an organization's current self-perception.Research limitations/implications – The uncovered reciprocal relationship between management accounting practices and organizational identity (discrepancies) have implications for a broader literature, including the works on how different forms of control interact as a “control package” and the discourse on potential sources of organizational identity change.Originality/value – Although it has previously been suggested that management accounting may be an important means for, as well as an outcome of, processes of identity (re)constructions in organizations, this study suggests a more complex interplay than has previously been noted in the literature. Specifically, it was found that organizational identity may for a considerable time work as a highly influential and largely unquestioned categorical imperative, signifying the boundaries of appropriate organizational action. At times, however, accounting practices may spark (re)constructions of identity discrepancies through: providing identity-inconsistent evidence; and using (new) measures in a “feed-forward” manner to explore possible ways to close such perceived discrepancies.
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| 5. |
- Ambrutytė, Zita, 1972-
(författare)
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Management Control : Linking Strategy with Inter‐Organisational Relationships
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The alignment of strategies and control systems is believed to affect the chances for firms to successfully achieve competitive edge. Contemporary business trends like globalization, vertical disintegration, the reduction in supplier bases, the focusing of operations and outsourcing of non-core activities, have caused companies to rely increasingly on relationships with other firms. These trends strengthen the awareness of the fact that a company’s success is also built upon the contribution from other players in the total supply network. It is recognised that management control systems play an important role in the management of interdependencies between organisations; yet, there has not been much research into strategy and control systems in interorganisational relationships. The relationship between strategy and control systems in purchasing as an interface towards interorganisational relationships has not received attention in the strategy-management control literature either. Moreover, discussions on inter-organisational control seem often to be divorced from the internal process in the companies concerned.In this thesis, an attempt is made to relate strategy with intra- and inter-organisational controls. The overall purpose is to describe and analyse the effects of strategy on those management control systems used within the purchasing function and to control relationships with suppliers, and further, to propose a framework for understanding how strategy impacts purchasing management control systems and the control of inter-organisational relationships. Two research questions are developed for this purpose, i.e. to examine 1) how a business unit strategy affects management control in purchasing, and 2) how a business unit strategy affects the pattern of management control for inter-organisational relationships. The ideas behind the strategy-structure paradigm are thus extended towards understanding the effects of strategy on the use of controls in inter-organisational relationships. The fieldwork is based on twenty nine interviews with employees at two manufacturing and ten supplier companies, and the data was collected during two periods of time, i.e. 2002-2003 and 2006-2007.This thesis began with the assumption that two companies pursue different business strategies which could be classified by using Porter’s (1980) typologies. It was expected that these different strategies would result in the different use of management control systems in purchasing and in controlling relationships with suppliers. The contribution of this thesis is twofold: firstly, it establishes the pattern of the alignment of business strategy, functional strategy, functional control systems and control of interorganisational relationships, and secondly, it suggests the possible directions towards the refinement of this pattern.
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| 6. |
- Anjou, Annette, 1975-
(författare)
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Scanias framgång : Betydelsen av strategisk kongruens och integrerad styrning
- 2008
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Att förstå orsaken till långsiktiga konkurrensfördelar har länge varit en intressant forskningsansats. Trots att tidigare forskning påvisat att såväl strategisk kongruens som integrerad styrning påverkar företags konkurrenskraft positivt finns det få studier som behandlar båda dessa områden tillsammans. I denna avhandling beskrivs och analyseras strategisk kongruens och integrerad styrning på Scania. Anledningen till att Scania valts som fallföretag är att det är ett framgångsrikt företag med en avancerad tillverkningsprocess. Inom dessa företag är ofta samordningen av verksamheten komplicerad, vilket innebär att högra krav ställs på såväl strategi som styrsystem.Studien har genomförts i form av en longitudinell fallstudie och täcker studieperioden 1992 till 2006. Information har inhämtats genom intervjuer, som har genomförts med ledande befattningshavare på såväl koncernsom funktionsnivå. Vidare har internt och externt material studerats. Den teoretiska ansatsen baseras på den av Nilsson och Rapp (2005) utvecklade tentativa modellen som beskriver hur företag kan skapa strategisk kongruens och integrerad styrning på ett framgångsrikt sätt. Studiens resultat visar att den tentativa modellen var väl lämpad som analysverktyg för att ta reda på huruvida Scania har uppnått strategisk kongruens och integrerad styrning.Scania bedriver en koncernstrategi som fokuserar på företagets kärnverksamhet - tillverkning av tunga lastbilar med hjälp av företagets modulsystem. Utifrån den väl utvecklade koncernstrategin har företaget lyckats skapa såväl en affärs- som produktionsstrategi som är anpassade till varandra samt till den omgivning som företaget är verksamt inom. Scania har dessutom genom en stark företagskultur, som karaktäriseras av att en stor del av planeringen och uppföljningen sker vid tvärfunktionella möten, lyckats skapa en integrerad styrning. Företags styrsystem hänger dessutom ihop mellan de olika organisatoriska nivåerna vilket stöder implementeringen av Scanias strategier. Företagets strategier och styrsystem har förändrats under studieperioden och anpassats till förändrade förutsättningar i omgivningen. Scania har lyckats genomföra dessa förändringar på ett sådant sätt att varken den strategiska kongruensen eller den integrerade styrningen äventyrats.
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| 7. |
- Ax, Christian, et al.
(författare)
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The Activity-based Costing (ABC) Paradox
- 2008
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Ingår i: Paper presenterat på Nordisk workshop i ekonomi- och verksamhetsstyrning 31/1-1/2 2008, Linköping.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 8. |
- Backman, Jenny, 1980-
(författare)
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An Eye for Accounting : Studies investigating judgmental effects of visual cues in accounting communication
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates judgmental effects of visual cues in accounting communication. The dissertation comprises a comprehensive summary and four empirical studies. My overall objective is to highlight the relevance of the visual to both accounting theory and practice by empirically demonstrating that, in corporate reports, visual elements juxtaposed with accounting information can significantly influence report readers’ evaluative judgments regarding corporate performance. My research aims to bring theoretical work on framing and the power of the visual into the accounting domain, focusing predominantly on the emotive power of visual imagery and color. Using experiments and complementary methods such as interviews and eye-tracking, the empirical studies demonstrate that these supplementary visual elements, despite not conveying any additional facts, can indeed influence report readers’ evaluative judgments regarding various aspects of communicated corporate performance. In line with psychology-based theoretical propositions that frames can promote different interpretations, the combined results suggest that the presentation format of accounting information does matter for evaluative judgments of corporate performance, and that information-redundant but affect-laden visual cues in accounting discourse can systematically affect stakeholder understanding. A central line of argument in this dissertation is that in an increasingly visual society, it is essential to gain a more nuanced understanding of the psychological effects of visual graphics in accounting discourse if we are to advance our understanding of accounting-related judgment and decision making. The potential judgmental effects of visuals in accounting communication has so far received little attention in accounting research or from regulators, and the display of visuals is currently not considered by general guidelines regarding corporate reporting. My overall motivation for this research is to address this incompleteness in extant accounting research and practice.
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| 9. |
- Beime, Kristina S., 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Giving the invisible hand a helping hand : How 'Grants Offices' work to nourish neoliberal researchers
- 2021
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Ingår i: British Educational Research Journal. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0141-1926 .- 1469-3518. ; 47:1, s. 1-22
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Neoliberalism has become a highly dominating and taken-for-granted way of organising the university sector around the world. In the critical educational literature, this market-based rationality has been scrutinised in detail over the past decades. However, rather scant attention has been directed to how university managers and administrators, apart from setting up quasi-markets, may intervene more directly to give the invisible hand of the market a helping hand. Aiming to address this lacuna, the purpose of the current article is to develop an empirically grounded taxonomy of different types of such interventions, and to theorise them in terms of the different facets of the neoliberal milieu that they reproduce and the various forms of subjectivising work among academics that they seek to engender. We do so by means of a qualitative study of so-called 'Grants Offices' at three Swedish universities. The findings arguably add to and problematise our understanding of how neoliberal markets work in academia in three different ways. First, while extant research has noted that university managers and administrators may intervene beyond the setting up of neoliberal markets per se, our study is to our knowledge the first one that identifies and systematises a broad array of such interventions. Second, it problematises the view of neoliberal markets as a form of monolithic entity that produces a uniform competitive pressure on academics. Third, and related, it furthers our understanding of the type of subjectivity that competitive milieus are assumed to bring about.
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| 10. |
- Beime, Kristina S., 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Theorizing the subjectivizing powers of market-based technologies : Looking beyond coercion and seduction
- 2024
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Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Accounting. - : Elsevier. - 1045-2354 .- 1095-9955. ; 99
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Existing theorizations on how the proliferation of market-based technologies within universities come to foster so-called academic performer subjectivities have mainly drawn attention to their coercive and seductive powers. However, while these theorizations help explain why researchers either unwillingly adapt to, or identify with and cherish, their neoliberal ideals, they are less useful to explain recent empirical results showing that many researchers willingly comply yet are very critical of the very same ideals. Drawing upon an interview study of Swedish researchers, we address this theoretical gap in the literature by analytically disentangling three important qualities of the technologies per se, in terms of them producing performance numbers characterized by Specificness, Ongoingness, and Emptiness (SOE). These three qualities do not only have the dual power to interchangeably provoke bitter and sweet feelings, but also to foster the adoption of an academic performer subjectivity. In fact, it is precisely by provoking bittersweet feelings that these qualities break the sharp edges of pure coercion and seduction, thereby fostering a type of low-affective, yet highly persuasive form of reasoning about pros and cons of market-based technologies, which make their neoliberal ideals seem acceptable and reasonable at the end of the day.
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