Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how actors subjected to public performance evaluations may “contest commensuration,” i.e. may seek to influence how such ratings and rankings will be construed among important stakeholders.

Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative study of press releases, and interviews with department heads, is used as a basis for the analysis.

Findings: The empirically derived taxonomy of public responses to a state-initiated performance evaluation of educational programs shows that actors may mobilize an array of commensuration management tactics so as to maintain or improve one’s relative positional status. Such tactics may have at least three different foci, namely, on the comparison object (i.e. on the new grouping of actors), the comparison dimension (i.e. the standardized format for comparison) and the comparison rate (i.e. the rate received), respectively. The authors also find that not only are threats to positional status likely to spur commensuration management tactics, but also the opportunity to exploit a good rate.

Originality/value: The paper augments recent research that has problematized the so-called “reactive conformance thesis” by focusing on how evaluated organizations may directly try to influence external stakeholders through public responses. The study is also one of the first that analytically disentangles how they may skillfully exploit different forms of “plasticity” that are inherent in any type of commensuration.

Critical educational literature suggests that an increased reliance upon performative technologies is currently transforming the very foundations from which teacher subjectivities are constructed. Arguably though, the number of studies pointing to this risk or tendency is considerably larger than the ones theorising why this should be the case. Further, in those cases where the relationship between performative technologies and teacher subjectivities is theorised, the psychological mechanisms that the technologies appeal to are seldom brought to the fore. Based on this, the purpose of this article is to theorise the psychological mechanisms that performative technologies appeal to and work through, by means of identifying, systematising and elaborating extant understandings of such mechanisms in the critical educational literature. The results are presented in the form of a conceptual framework (referred to as the CMIS-framework) which suggests that one and the same performative technology may play many different roles, where each such role appeals to and works through a particular psychological mechanism. Importantly, depending on the type of psychological mechanism that is appealed to, the CMIS-framework suggests that this will lead to teachers (un)- consciously conducting particular forms of subjectivising work upon themselves, here referred to as compliance, mirroring, identification and self-realisation (CMIS).

Integrating recent theorizing on complementarity and situational strength with management control system (MCS) theory, we investigate how, why and under what circumstances companies may beneficially combine results control and two value-based controls (the use of belief systems and employee socialization practices) to handle the goal alignment problem that typically arises when managing company-level profitability. Drawing upon a survey of MCS practices in 103 strategic business units within the largest companies in Sweden, we find that the use of socialization practices reinforces the marginal return of results control, and vice versa. We also find that higher levels of environmental unpredictability both strengthen this synergetic effect, and reveal a similar complementarity effect of the simultaneous use of results control and the belief system. Our study thus contributes to the MCS literature by showing that; (i) results control may beneficially interact with two important, yet largely unexplored value-based controls, (ii) situational strength theory is highly useful for analytically disentangling the (dis)abilities of these controls in terms of them conveying clarity, consequentiality, consistency and constraint, respectively, and; (iii) the extent to which these controls convey non-overlapping, yet complementary abilities to address the goal alignment problem (required to produce synergetic effects on company-level profitability) is dependent on environmental context.

In recent years there has been a large and growing stream of management accounting research focusing on the theoretical puzzle often referred to as the paradox of embedded agency. That is, how can embedded agents come to (un-)intentionally change social structures when their interpretations, intentions, and rationalities are all shaped by these very structures? As a means of addressing this paradox we elaborate on how six qualities of social structures may work as sources of embedded agency, namely their Generality, Inadequacy, Ambiguity, Multiplicity, Embeddedness, and Reflexivity. This so-called GIAMER framework is then used to analytically disentangle common ways of explaining the paradox within the management accounting area and to propose ideas for future research. We close the editorial by presenting the three papers included in this Special Issue.

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 provide a commentary on “Structuration theory: reflections on its further potential for management accounting research”, a paper by Coad et al.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents, discusses and challenges the critique that Coad et al. direct towards the notion of a flat and local structuration ontology in management accounting research.

Findings: This paper offers a number of reflections upon Coad et al.’s key arguments against a flat and local structuration ontology in extant accounting research. Based on the authors’ understanding of such an ontology, they also elaborate on what they believe a flat and local structuration ontology “can do” and “cannot do” for accounting research. Overall, the authors agree with Coad et al. that there is indeed an ontological divide between their different views on a flat and local ontology; a divide largely related to whether researchers have an essentialist view on social phenomena. However, the authors believe that Coad et al.exaggerate how this ontological divide has affected, and may affect, future empirical management accounting research.

Originality/value: This paper expands the current understanding of a flat and local structuration ontology in management accounting research.

Performance measurement systems (PMSs) are generally regarded to serve the needs of top managers. However, a growing literature has started to explore what it takes for these systems to be(come) enabling also for those whose performance is being measured. In this paper, we build on and add to this literature by providing ethnographic insights into how and why a group of middle-managers transformed a set of performance measures, initially developed as monitoring devices for top management, into a so-called enabling PMS. Regarding how this came about, we elaborate on how actors mobilised two different forms of mental models of the operations (specific and generalised), and a set of number-to-number tactics, as important means in their development work. Regarding the why-question, we identify a high evaluation pressure from top management, in combination with recurrent reconstructions of the existing mental models of operations, as important conditions that worked to initiate, fuel, and, eventually, cease the process.

Ever since Giddens’ structuration theory (ST) was introduced into the accounting literature some 25 years ago, it has strengthened its position as one of the major schools of thought used to explore accounting as organizational, social and political phenomena. The purpose of this study is to review how ST has been applied, and can be applied, in this sizeable literature. Overall, the review of some 65 published papers, suggests that not only has ST contributed to challenge the assumptions of ‘inherent and functional’ features of accounting systems per se characterizing mainstream research, but also to develop other alternative theoretical perspectives. However, our review also suggests several limitations. These include that the accounting community has not really worked as a collective to develop a structurationist understanding of accounting practices, and that most researchers remain largely uncritical to ST as a theory. We also find that accounting scholars have not yet developed a mutual understanding of how to interpret ST (i.e. there are conceptual unclarities and even inconsistencies), or how to apply ST methodologically in empirical research. Based on these limitations, and the identification of a number of ‘black spots’ in the literature, we suggest several directions for future scholarly effort.

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.