To Örebro University

Controllerns roll är att se till att information om resurser och resultat speglar vad som är viktigt i en verksamhet, att den når fram dit den bör och kan påverka tankar och handlingar. I dag finns controllers i alla branscher, från offentlig verksamhet till mindre företag. Controllerns arbete måste därför i allt högre grad anpassas till skiftande förutsättningar. Controllerhandboken är en heltäckande handbok i hur man kan utforma och använda ekonomistyrningen inom olika organisationer, oavsett bransch och sektor. Fokus ligger på hur bokens verktygslåda av metoder och modeller kan tillämpas på ett situationsanpassat sätt.I denna elfte upplaga finns nya kapitel om prissättning, internpriser och riskhantering. Nya författare har bidragit vid revideringen av befintliga kapitel, och de som medverkar sedan tidigare har aktualiserat sina kapitel. Redaktörernas inledningar och inramande kapitel gör att boken även går att läsa som en sammanhängande lärobok.

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.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present an emergent model showing the change potential inherent in the mirroring of time-space bound metrics and numbers in management accounting (MA) and other cognitive frames.

Design/methodology/approach - An observation-based qualitative field study of a change project in a large manufacturing company is used as the basis for the analysis.

Findings - The empirical study shows that as actors recurrently mirror time-space bound metrics/numbers in MA and other cognitive frames, three forms of ambiguity may occur. Definitional ambiguities occur as actors' extant MA frame cannot fully account for the metric as such, while representational ambiguities occur as actors perceive uncertainties as to what a particular number stands for "in reality". Operational ambiguities, finally, occur as actors perceive uncertainties as to how time-space bound numbers can be "causally" explained. In the emergent model, the paper shows how these different forms of ambiguity constitute important sources of critical and collective reflection of, and subsequent change in, both metrics and MA and other cognitive frames.

Originality/value - Through identifying and elaborating on the change potential inherent in the interplay between cognitive frames and time-space bound metrics and numbers, the study adds a partial, yet previously largely unexplored answer to the paradox of embedded agency in a MA context (i.e. how actors may change existing cognitive (MA) frames when their interpretations and actions are largely constrained and shaped by these very frames). Also, the study shows that it may not necessarily be the content of MA information per se that triggers critical reflection and structural MA change, but also the perceived ambiguities that such information use may engender.

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.

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.

The two studies reported in this thesis are about problem solving at a low organisational level in an organisational unit in a Swedish manufacturing company, which has adopted ideas of World Class Manufacturing. In the first study, we analyse, from an organisational learning perspective, the implementation of the well-known concept Continuous Improvement at shop-floor level and how management accounting may facilitate or impede improvement work. A case study was conducted in two workgroups in one production unit for about seven months. In one of the groups, management accounting facilitated improvement work with high organisational scope and, in the other group, impeded the organisational scope. Our conclusion is that management accounting may facilitate a high organisational scope by supporting the leadership style, stressing co-operation, dialog and participation, or, by the way the manager uses management accounting, make boundaries distinct between groups of employees and between departments, and therefore impede improvements with high organisational scope. In the second study, we analyse, from a rule-based behavioural perspective, how ideas of World Class Manufacturing are institutionalised in cross-functional problem solving at a low organisational level. A case study was carried out in two cross-functional weekly group meetings for about nine months. Problems raised and solutions decided followed a repeated pattern. The actors draw on instrumental rules, which can be described as technical as well as economic. We concluded that ideas of World Class Manufacturing were institutionalised as different variants of World Class Manufacturing in the different functions at a low organisational level. At the meetings, contradictory instrumental rules were activated by the functions and treated according to interaction rules. Two overall patterns of action, articulated the two main interaction rules guiding actors in how to treat contradictory ideas of World Class Manufacturing.