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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost of improving service to a motor carrier in the intermodal market. The paper further seeks to validate the existence of two dimensions of service with differing impacts on costs. The physical capacity dimension is related to the traditional view that higher quality costs more and the human performance dimension is related to the production management view that higher quality can actually save money by reducing the need for scrap and rework.

To determine the cost of improved service, a translog cost function that included variables for each of the two dimensions of service quality was estimated. Because the data were centered prior to estimation, the first-order coefficients are interpretable as elasticity of cost with respect to quality.

Results of estimation show that improvements to the physical capacity dimension lead to higher costs and improvements to the human performance have no significant impact on costs.

The major limitation of this study is that it is restricted to a single carrier and total costs were allocated according to transit time not specific costs.

Results of this study would help a carrier or other service provider determine which aspects of service to focus on in order to improve service with minimal impact on costs.

The value of this paper lies in verifying the existence of two dimensions of service and estimating how they impact costs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the complexity of the network governance setting affects accountability practices. The authors pay particular attention to the organizational characteristics that may enable a common understanding of multiple accountability relationships, or lead to problems in reconciling competing forms of accountability, thereby appearing as blame game-type behavior.

The authors conducted a case study with 31 semi-structured interviews in a Finnish health care organization (FHC) that offers basic public health care services. The organization represents a co-operative arrangement with the main city and three smaller municipalities. The FHC has faced difficulties in balancing budget constraints with the provision of statutory care to citizens. This case is analyzed with the help of theories relating to accountability, the blame game, and dialogue.

The authors found that in the FHC operating under austerity constraints, attempts to reconcile financial, professional, and democratic accountability were made but, instead of dialogue and consensus, the different stakeholder groups resorted to defensive tactics in order to protect their resources, position, or sense of professional obligation. The authors suggest that in a context of network governance, accompanied by an increasing emphasis on financial accountability, organizational practices are susceptible to conflicting accountabilities and behavior characterized in this paper as a blame game.

The study contributes to the empirical studies on accountability in the new public governance context by analyzing the complex accountability relations between stakeholder groups with different agendas. The authors suggest organizational characteristics that may exacerbate conflicts between different stakeholder groups and prevent constructive dialogue. Furthermore, the study analyzes the composition of democratic accountability within the studied organization.

Women are becoming more and more visible in family firms. They appear to be the adhesive that bonds the family together and may, therefore, help explain why some families are a key source of strength for their business while others struggle to maintain family harmony and business success. Yet, these women face many challenges in working for their family’s business. In this chapter, we offer a brief review of the literature as related to the historical perspectives in terms of CEO wives and daughters and concerns about primogeniture. We conclude with a discussion on progress and capture the experiences of women working in their family’s business.

Purpose: The current study aims to cast light on the divide between academic research in management accounting and its applicability to practice by examining, from the standpoint of nursing, how this gap is perceived and what challenges may be involved in bridging it.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The current study compares the findings of Tucker and Parker (2014) with both quantitative as well as qualitative evidence from an international sample of nursing academics.

Findings: The findings of this study point to the differing tradition and historical development in framing and addressing the research–practice gap between management accounting and nursing contexts and the rationale for practice engagement as instrumental in explaining disciplinary differences in addressing the research–practice gap.

Research Implications Despite disciplinary differences, we suggest that a closer engagement of academic research in management accounting with practice “can work,” “will work,” and “is worth it.” Central to a closer relationship with practice, however, is the need for management accounting academics to follow their nursing counterparts and understand the incentives that exist in undertaking research of relevance.

Originality/value: The current study is one of the few that has sought to look to the experience of other disciplines in bridging the gap. Moreover, to our knowledge, it is the first study in management accounting to attempt this comparison. In so doing, our findings provide a platform for further considering how management accounting researchers, and management accounting as a discipline might, in the spirit of this study’s title, “Learn from the Experience of Others.”

The aim of this study is to explore the nature of the expectations of operations managers (OMs) and the enacted roles of management accountants (MAs) and to understand how MAs construct roles around these expectations.

A qualitative design draws upon company documentation and 36 semi-structured interviews with MAs and OMs. The study uses role theory as a theoretical lens with its core concepts of role expectations, role conflict and role ambiguity. The design draws from role theory’s original development and testing to pair particular roles of MAs with particular roles of OMs in operational settings.

The findings indicate that there are a number of different forms of OMs’ expectations giving rise to role conflicts and role ambiguity for the roles of MAs. OMs’ expectations were identified as conflicting expectations, ambiguous expectations, overloaded expectations and underloaded expectations. MAs construct roles in different ways around these OMs’ expectations, including prioritising the line function, competence deployment, non-accommodation and communication. Factors moderating OMs’ expectations are also identified, including characteristics of the OM and the role of the finance manager.

The study is based on an in-depth investigation of a small number of roles of MAs paired with OMs, and no assurances can therefore be given regarding generalisability of the findings.

The results provide an understanding of the varied nature of expectations that OMs have of MAs and mechanisms through which MAs can address these expectations. It suggests ways in which both MAs and OMs in operational settings can reduce conflicts and ambiguities.

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the expectations of OMs in relation to the roles of MAs and contributes to the literature on the roles of MAs using role theory. It shows how different forms of OMs’ expectations have related mechanisms used by MAs to navigate these expectations through role constructions.

This paper aims to organise, in a general typology, the different purposes of performance management systems and processes (PMSPs) that are discussed across the performance management literature in different functional areas.

The typology is developed based on a traditional review of the performance management literature from three types of functional areas, represented by operations and production management, management accounting and human resource management.

The cross-functional typology illustrates how the different types of purposes discussed in the literature can be organised in a hierarchical structure. In this way, the basic purpose of organisational value creation for PMSPs can be decomposed into two layers of sub-purposes, the first specifying the domain and the second outlining the specific managerial use of PMSPs.

The presented typology may help managers across different functional areas map the purposes of their PMSPs; this mapping will not only provide the basics for understanding a PMSP's potential value for an organisation but also serve as an important input for PMSP design.

The presented typology has a broader scope than existing typologies of purposes in research and, consequently, better interrelates and tracks the various types of purposes discussed across different functional areas. This contributes not only to our understanding of performance management as a cross-functional field but also to research on the use and design of PMSPs in organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which notions of space, constituted by management accounting and operations, interact, conflict and are understood by operations managers in a variety of situations within the context of iron ore mining. The authors address a dual question: How do accounting space and production space relate to each other? And what does it mean for operations managers to reside in both those spaces at once?

The paper is based on field studies at a mining company involving operations managers who experience tensions between accounting and production responsibilities and must prioritize between different courses of action to create value.

In contrast to the view that management accounting poses a problem for operations managers in production environments, the authors show how especially discursive tensions foster reflection and choice. Operations managers prioritize their actions in accordance with management accounting or operations based on how they experience and reflect upon the tensions they encounter, dominating artifacts and their experienced relation to space. Operations managers are not tied to specific spaces, but they prioritize their responsibility to management accounting or operations depending on the space to which they feel a sense of belongingness.

Drawing upon a conceptualization of tensions between management accounting and operations as a spatial phenomenon, it is possible to understand the dilemmas experienced by operations managers in a dynamic and relational way. The authors propose that viewing tensions between management accounting and production as spatial phenomena enables a novel understanding of how such tensions can create reflexivity in responsibility with operations managers.

Against the background of increasing regulation and spotlight on the tax position of MNEs, this study explores the relationship between tax and performance measurement. The paper is informed by a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in 2006 with 26 senior tax executives from 15 Silicon Valley-based companies. We also draw on documentary evidence including the relevant 10K reports and take an interpretive approach to the analysis. Many of the performance measures referred to in prior literature were employed in the companies. There was no evidence to suggest the profit centre performance measurement model is being adopted by MNEs for their tax departments. Two distinct aspects particularly exercised the interviewees, that is, the effective tax rate (ETR) and post-tax versus pre-tax performance measurement. Many interviewees did not perceive the ETR as being an appropriate measure of performance, yet they recognised its importance internally and externally. Many companies worked on the basis that there is an ‘acceptable range’ of ETRs which won’t give rise to any unwanted questions. Most interviewees shared the view that a post-tax basis of measuring performance of business units might only serve to increase tax risks, preferring instead for the in-house tax executives to remain the exclusive tax knowledge experts. This study contributes to the diversification of tax research within accounting by demonstrating how qualitative work can provide unique insights. It enhances our understanding of how performance measurement of tax might influence the tax-planning behaviour of in-house tax executives and cautions against exclusive reliance on the ETR as a measure of the effect of tax planning.

The objective of this study is to provide insights into insiders' perspectives on environmental accounting disclosures, which is relatively under-investigated. Based on insights from key managers, we provide information on company decisions and practices related to the data disclosed in annual reports. More specifically, we explore how regulation guidance affects and shapes disclosure strategies.

Drawing on the normativity framework, our research design involves a multiple-case study focusing on eight French listed firms in sensitive industries. We primarily build our investigation on the analysis of annual reports. Semi-structured interviews with 20 key managers belonging to these same firms provide interpretative explanations of the disclosed (and un-disclosed) figures.

Our main findings show that the disclosure of environmental accounting information (EAI) is still in its infancy. Weak definitions and poor guidance in regulations explain the limitations in disclosure and induce interpretative strategies depending on the type of data to be disclosed in the companies' annual reports. We document that separate logics drive environmental expenditure and environmental liability disclosures in many respects.

This study should be useful for regulators because environmental accounting standards are currently subject to change and helpful for users because of the careful consideration of disclosures.

Our research is timely and adds to the growing body of research on regulation. We document how a common regulation may lead to interpretative strategies by different actors and networks of actors, thereby contributing to shaping EAI norms.