| 1. |
- Härström, Malin, 1990-
(författare)
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Understanding management accounting when "institutions matter" : a multimethod approach
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis departs from a need to map extant research on management accounting (MA) drawing on institutional theorizing, due to unnecessary confusion and unclarity within. Four ‘areas of confusion’ are reviewed, i.e. MA as a concept, modelling of workings of and reasons for agency, MA’s role in social accounts and sources of (i.e. propellers of) MA practice to make it similar or different in time and space. The resulting maps contribute in an aggregate sense to overview but also add some ways of clustering insights as well as dimensions to these maps which are previously not pursued in institutionalist MA research in these ways or forms.Subsequently, empirical research in academia into consequences of increasing performance measurement of research(ers) enabled essay-specific contributions but also a closer look at how MA is reproduced in different situations (i.e. MA-situations). More generally put, this led to inquiring into when and why/i.e. in which MA-situations, traditionalist professional- and/or performer structures are reproduced by agents subjected to management control pressure. Thence, this thesis concludes and contributes with insights about three dimensions of perceived control exposure in/as MA-situation. First, as to what it is about MA (PMSs) that tends to be associated with high perceived exposure and associated reproduction of performer structures. Second, as to how MA (PMSs) can visualize aspects of the work processes of controlled in different ways and thus inform intra-individual variation in reproduction of both structures. Finally, as to how PMSs can help (re)construct professional values with resulting ambivalent perceptions of them – and how such insight adds to what we know about unpredictability of MA practices.Further, this thesis overall is perhaps best referred to as adopting an emergent multimethod approach. It approaches how to understand MA when ‘institutions matter’ both through an extensive literature review but also through qualitative and quantitative empirical research (by using semi-structured interviews as well as a survey).
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| 2. |
- Song, Han-Suck, 1968-
(författare)
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Essays on risk and housing
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- There is a series of different types of risk on the housing market and related industries. The six papers in this doctoral dissertation are about a number of the many dimensions of risk management on the housing market. The main message of this thesis is that it should be possible for different actors in the housing market to improve risk management. Indeed, the last years’ financial turmoil has revealed that it should not only be possible, but also necessary, to improve risk management at all levels of the economy: at household, corporate, regional, national and international level. Although the complexity of the environment in which we live and act makes it very difficult to predict and quantify risk, the development of risk management techniques should make it possible to better indentify, and reduce risk. The first paper provides a systematic overview of a wide selection of methods or strategies used in different countries to expand but also to maintain home ownership among low income households. The second paper further discusses mortgage and home equity insurance instruments discussed in the first paper. This paper also discusses how a rental insurance policy, as an alternative to traditional rent regulation, may be constructed. Paper 3 develops a formula that might be used in order to value the rental insurance option discussed in paper 2. The fourth paper focuses on the housing building sector by discussing potential benefits of strategic alliances that the different actors in the housing construction market may establish in order to pool resources and manage development risks. The challenge of constructing reliable home price indexes has attracted scholars for many years. Paper 5 develops monthly quality-adjusted price indexes for condominiums (housing cooperative apartments) based on a unique dataset covering sales in the whole of Stockholm municipality from January 2005 to June 2009. Finally paper 6 pays attention to the large increase in housing cooperative conversions sine the 1990s, by deriving a closed-form valuation formula that might be used to value the embedded option an owner of a multi-family rental property has to sell it to a housing cooperative.
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| 3. |
- 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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| 4. |
- Curry, Amanda
(författare)
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Management Accounting Above and Under Ground : Field Studies of Operations Managers’ Everyday Work
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns operations managers who are required to adhere to both management accounting and operational concerns in their everyday operational work. The question addressed in this thesis is how management accounting is implicated in the everyday operational work of operations managers and their team members in production environments. The purpose is to explore management accounting practices in the everyday work of operations managers and their team members in production environments, and to theorize about their practices at the intersection of management accounting and operations. The research process drew upon ethnographic ideas and included travels back and forth between theory and practice at a mining company. This thesis shows that operations managers use management accounting in an analytical manner when they draw upon management accounting frames of reference to organize and mobilize action in their everyday operational work. An analytical use of management accounting suggests that management accounting extends beyond accounting departments and meeting rooms at operational levels and reaches out to the shop-floor and the mines. In such settings, operations managers are found doing accounting when they alternate between management accounting and operational frames of reference to interpret, construct and talk accounting in their everyday operational work. Management accounting enables operations managers to make sense of operational situations, and to gain and exert agency in their operational work. The results indicate that management accounting becomes a ‘way of doing things’ in everyday operational work via mimetic mechanisms. At times, operations managers are required to abide by management accounting in their everyday operational work via coercive mechanisms. The first conclusion is that management accounting is implicated in the everyday operational work of operations managers and their team members through its presence as a frame of reference. Operations managers do not always need to rely on accounting artefacts to mobilize action. Rather, they can rely on their developed management accounting knowledge. The second conclusion is that management accounting is implicated in the everyday work of operations managers and their team members through its presence as a practice. Management accounting influences operational routines and activities, which enables operations managers and their team members to handle the intersection between management accounting and operations by developing ways of practicing management accounting in everyday operational work. One contribution to the accounting practice literature is presenting how operations managers are shown to engage in management accounting, thereby making it a practice in their everyday work. Another contribution to the literature on the intersection between management accounting and operations is showing that operations managers gain agency via management accounting in their everyday work, which helps them navigate between management accounting and operational concerns.
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| 5. |
- Englund, Hans, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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The Neoliberal University and Its Effects on Academic Researchers : Survey Evidence from Sweden
- 2023
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Ingår i: Universities under Neoliberalism. - : Routledge. - 9781032159294 - 9781003246367 ; , s. 86-109
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Neoliberalism has emerged as a key concept for understanding how contemporary universities around the world are organized and managed. As a rationality of government, this political-economic ideology is grounded in the belief that human activities in general, and educational ones in particular, are best orchestrated when left to the rationality of the market. The authors discusses how extant research within several scientific fields such as accounting, management, sociology and higher education has provided a number of important insights into the unintended and largely detrimental effects that such a market-based rationality of government has tended to bring about in contemporary universities. Notwithstanding the many important insights generated in this literature though, extant research is according to the authors mostly based on smaller sample studies, which raises the question of whether they are generalizable to a larger sample of academics. Related to this, there is a lack of cross-sectional evidence of the extent to which Swedish universities and researchers display the same type of effects as described in the international literature. Also, the authors claim we know fairly little about whether these alleged effects are universal in character or differ between different categories of academics. After all, recent findings suggest that certain groups of researchers, not least junior researchers and/or women, may be even more negatively affected by the increasing reliance on market-based controls. Based on this, and drawing upon evidence from a survey among a large number of researchers at Swedish universities, the aim of this chapter is to more systematically map out the effects of market-based controls on research(er) quality, autonomy and innovation, motivation and stress, and furthermore, explore the extent to which these alleged effects are more prevalent among junior researchers and women, respectively. In brief, the authors present empirical evidence suggesting that today's reliance on neoliberally oriented forms of governance is perceived as negatively affecting research quality, academic freedom and stress. They also show that these negative effects are generally perceived to be more accentuated among junior academics and women as opposed to men and academics holding senior positions.
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| 6. |
- Gerdin, Jonas, Professor, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Vertical, horizontal, and self control in academia : Survey evidence on their diverging effects on perceived researcher autonomy and identity
- 2022
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Ingår i: The British Accounting Review. - : Elsevier. - 0890-8389 .- 1095-8347. ; 54:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Foucault-oriented research has since long argued that the proliferation of performance measurement systems (PMSs) within academia threatens perceived researcher autonomy and identity through normalization and stigmatization of deviants. The theoretical model developed in this study nuances these claims by suggesting that effects of PMSs will differ depending on whether they are enacted as important for superiors (vertical control), colleagues (horizontal control), the researchers themselves (self control), and how they are constructed by these very systems. Overall, the structural equation modelling analyses conducted on questionnaire data from some 700 Swedish researchers strongly confirm the model developed. Specifically, they show that PMSs enacted as a vertical form of control indeed threatens perceived autonomy and identity, and that horizontal control in the form of publish and peer pressure among colleagues works as a mediating mechanism which strengthens these effects. However, our analyses also show that when PMSs are enacted as important means of self control, this in fact increases perceptions of autonomy and reduces feelings of identity threat. We also find that the extent to which these systems construct researchers as high-performing is an important antecedent explaining how come they can be enacted in so different ways, and the effects thereof.
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| 7. |
- Seger, Karin, 1975-
(författare)
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Institutional Logics and Accounting Professionals : The case of K2 and K3
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Accounting firms have long been considered a ‘black box’ in the literature, but over the last two decades or so, a growing body of literature has emerged which points to how the accounting profession may be seen as a profession in transformation, one in which the underlying logic of their work has gone from emphasizing professional values to one in which commercial values constitute the main rules of the game.This thesis draws upon and add to this literature as it directs attention to how co-existing and potentially conflicting institutional logics enable and constrain accounting professionals, in practice and over time. To allow this, I have conducted a qualitative and processual study of the process of converting the existing financial accounting practices for small limited companies in Sweden through new standards - K2 and K3. The scientific purpose has been to generate a micro-oriented and processual modelling of how accounting professionals influence and shape accounting practices in small limited companies, and to identify and theorize on the type of institutional logics underlying their work. My empirical findings show that the professionals influence and shape accounting practices by proposing and proclaiming suitable solutions, and by pre-packaging and marketing these as definite solutions. They also show that the construction of such solutions involves long and complex processes, during which the professionals interpret and judge different alternatives before marketing them to their clients. And from the institutional logics perspective, they show that the process may be understood as one in which the professionals mainly try to live up to professional rather than commercial expectations.Based on these findings, a number of contributions to the literature are identified, relating to how accounting professionals are enabled and constrained by the professional logic, how the effects of logics are highly non-deterministic, and how a single logic may generate tensions within itself even though it is predominant and not in conflict with other logics.
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| 8. |
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