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Article
Publication date: 24 June 2013

Richard D. Chenhall and Kate Senior

The purpose of this paper is to improve current evaluation designs for Indigenous Australian residential alcohol and drug treatment centres, by understanding the context of…

786

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to improve current evaluation designs for Indigenous Australian residential alcohol and drug treatment centres, by understanding the context of treatment in this modified TC context. The aim of the research is to present an analysis of the key features of treatment associated with four Indigenous Australian alcohol and drug treatment centres, as expressed by staff working in these centres.

Design/methodology/approach

Ethnographic observations were made at each site between 2008 and 2009 with the first author attending treatment groups, education sessions, staff meetings and other events. The first author conducted informal conversational discussions with all programme staff and board members. In addition, 23 staff and 15 board members participated in a semi-structured interview with an emphasis on gaining views on the essential elements of residential alcohol and drug treatment, potential barriers to effective treatment delivery and “what works” in residential treatment.

Findings

A number of key themes emerged, including the importance of the flexibility of programmes to include a wide variety of treatment approaches, the importance of culture (although defined differently) in the delivery of appropriate service, provision of safe spaces that allow for clients and staff interaction, the potential for improvement in the provision of effective client case management, the need to reduce job-related stress through staff professional development and organisational culture change and the need to address the difficulties experienced in the provision of effective aftercare.

Originality/value

Currently, there is very little evidence related to Indigenous Australian approaches to the treatment of alcohol and drug misuse. The paper contributes to the understanding of the key features of treatment delivery, as identified by staff employed in drug and alcohol residential treatment. This understanding is vital so that government agencies can provide appropriate funding to areas of need for treatment services.

Details

Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, vol. 34 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0964-1866

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 1980

D. ANDREW ROBERTS and RICHARD B. LIGHT

A survey of the current state of documentation practice in museums is presented. This concentrates on the broad themes of the practice, making comparisons with analogous library…

541

Abstract

A survey of the current state of documentation practice in museums is presented. This concentrates on the broad themes of the practice, making comparisons with analogous library procedures, where appropriate. A brief introduction to museums and their organizational framework within the United Kingdom is given. With this as background, the methods of documentation used by museums are reviewed, and a survey presented of current developments on an international and national scale.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

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Book part
Publication date: 4 October 2018

Sebastian P. L. Fourné, Daniel Guessow and Utz Schäffer

We develop and validate measurement instruments for the business partner, watchdog, and scorekeeper roles of controllers. This study addresses calls to enhance the quality of…

Abstract

We develop and validate measurement instruments for the business partner, watchdog, and scorekeeper roles of controllers. This study addresses calls to enhance the quality of survey research in management accounting by devoting more attention to scale development and especially to construct validity. By focusing on the activity sets of the controllers’ roles, we provide a theoretically and empirically grounded picture of their current roles. The measurement instruments presented in this study enable systematic research progress on controller roles, their relationships, antecedents, and performance outcomes.

Details

Performance Measurement and Management Control: The Relevance of Performance Measurement and Management Control Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-469-5

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Book part
Publication date: 23 November 2016

Basil P. Tucker and Raef Lawson

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper compares and contrasts practice-based perceptions of the research–practice gap in the United States (US) with those in Australia.

Methodology/approach

The current study extends the work of Tucker and Lowe (2014) by comparing and contrasting their Australian-based findings with evidence from a questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews with senior representatives of 18 US state and national professional accounting associations.

Findings

The extent to which academic research informs practice is perceived to be limited, despite the potential for academic research findings to make a significant contribution to management accounting practice. We find similarities as well as differences in the major obstacles to closer engagement in the US and Australia. This comparison, however, leads us to offer a more fundamental explanation of the divide between academic research and practice framed in terms of the relative benefits and costs of academics engaging with practice.

Research implications

Rather than following conventional approaches to ‘bridging the gap’ by identifying barriers to the adoption of research, we suggest that only after academics have adequate incentives to speak to practice can barriers to a more effective diffusion of their research findings be surmounted.

Originality/value

This study makes three novel contributions to the “relevance literature” in management accounting. First, it adopts a distinct theoretical vantage point to organize, analyze, and interpret empirical evidence. Second, it captures practice-based views about the nature and extent of the divide between research and practice. Third, it provides a foundational assessment of the generalizability of the gap by examining perceptions of it across two different geographic contexts.

Details

Advances in Management Accounting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-972-5

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Article
Publication date: 18 November 2013

Basil Tucker and Helen Thorne

This paper aims to provide insights into how organizational performance in a prior period may influence the nature of control subsequently used by senior not-for-profit (NFP…

3236

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to provide insights into how organizational performance in a prior period may influence the nature of control subsequently used by senior not-for-profit (NFP) managers.

Design/methodology/approach

This investigation is based on data collected from semi-structured interviews of CEOs and senior executives in 32 Australian NFPs.

Findings

Although performance has a considerable influence on the subsequent use of control, the findings point to a broad conceptualisation of performance as it is perceived to apply within a NFP context. Moreover, the roles of formal management control systems and informal control are quite distinct, with the latter predominating in responding to prior performance.

Originality/value

Despite recognition in the management accounting literature of the likely influence of organizational performance in previous periods on control, empirical studies investigating organizational performance as an antecedent to the use of control have been surprisingly limited. The current study directly responds to this gap in our knowledge, and also, to prior calls for the need for more management control research into the NFP sector. This contribution is important in view of the considerable economic and social impact of this sector in most Western economies, coupled with the increasing recognition of the importance of both performance and control within this sector.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 10 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

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Book part
Publication date: 4 October 2018

Antonio Davila, Mahendra Gupta and Richard J. Palmer

Internal control mechanisms are fundamental to organizational governance; particularly, to the agency relationship associated with decentralization of decision rights. Management…

Abstract

Internal control mechanisms are fundamental to organizational governance; particularly, to the agency relationship associated with decentralization of decision rights. Management accounting and organizational literatures provide conflicting predictions on the association between decentralization and internal controls, with some research arguing that internal controls be tightened to mitigate the risks associated with greater decentralization of decision rights while other work avers that tighter internal controls defeat the purposes of decentralization. In this chapter, we argue that managers choose these two organizational design variables jointly. Capitalizing on a unique database of control practices in the purchasing and payment process within the procurement function, this chapter examines the relationship between control tightness – a critical characteristic of internal controls – and decentralization. Using a simultaneous equation model, the study finds that decentralization and internal control design are endogenously determined. Tight control is negatively associated with the level of decentralization, while decentralization has a positive effect on the tightness of control. These results reconcile the apparently contradictory results relating these two variables. The chapter also finds that decentralization and tight control mechanisms operate both independently and synergistically to improve performance.

Details

Performance Measurement and Management Control: The Relevance of Performance Measurement and Management Control Research
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-469-5

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Book part
Publication date: 3 July 2017

Martin Schmidt

This paper analyzes what factors drive a company’s decision to align financial and management accounting policies as a measure of integration of management accounting and…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper analyzes what factors drive a company’s decision to align financial and management accounting policies as a measure of integration of management accounting and financial accounting at the highest hierarchy levels of a company.

Methodology/approach

Research hypotheses for six different determinants are developed: company size, number of operating segments and subsidiaries, internationality of the business, business strategy, company life cycle stage, and leverage. The hypotheses are tested using International Financial Reporting Standards 8 (IFRS 8) segment report data from a large sample of 175 German publicly listed companies.

Findings

A higher internationality of the business causes companies to choose a lower degree of integration. Companies with a prospector (defender) strategy choose a lower (higher) degree of integration. Companies in later life cycle stages and with higher leverage choose a lower degree of integration as well. Company size does not impact integration.

Practical implications

Companies have to decide whether, and to what extent, to integrate financial and management accounting and align the two sets of accounting policies. German companies have traditionally kept the two sets separate. As the research reported in this paper sheds light on when companies do not consider integration to be beneficial, it is useful for practitioners.

Originality/value

The legal reporting requirements in Germany as well as German accounting traditions make the German setting particularly suited for examining the integration of management accounting and financial accounting. Using the number of adjustments to financial accounting policies made for management accounting purposes is a novel approach, and the number of adjustments is a more fine-grained measure of integration at the highest hierarchy levels of a company than the measures used in prior literature.

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Article
Publication date: 15 December 2022

Bruno Cohanier and Charles Richard Baker

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of paternalism as a long-term component of a management control system (MCS) in a multi-national business enterprise.

486

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of paternalism as a long-term component of a management control system (MCS) in a multi-national business enterprise.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a historical methodology involving the collection and evaluation of both primary and secondary data. Annual reports of Michelin (2009–2021) were also analysed to trace the evolution of the MCS towards corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Findings

This research traces the evolution of Michelin's Paternalistic MCS from “Traditional Paternalism” to “Welfare Paternalism”, “Managerial Paternalism” and “Libertarian Paternalism” thereby leading the way to CSR. The findings indicate that the evolution of the MCS revealed “Managerial Paternalism” as a specific type of paternalism and an important component of the “Personnel and Cultural Controls” (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2018, p. 95) at Michelin.

Research limitations/implications

Many multi-national companies began as family-owned and controlled firms (e.g. Ford, Toyota, Fiat, Renault, Tata) and they often employed paternalistic MCSs during their early development (Newby, 1977; Perrot, 1979; Colli, 2003). Such MCSs have been seen as being anachronistic and are often abandoned as the family-owned enterprise grows into a multi-national company (Casson and Cox, 1993; McKinlay et al., 2010). The research challenges this assertion and demonstrates how aspects of a paternalistic MCS can survive in a multi-national business enterprise.

Practical implications

With respect to practical implications, this research shows that paternalism can still be a component of an MCS in a multi-national enterprise.

Originality/value

Using a historical approach, this research addresses a gap in the prior literature regarding the variations and persistence of paternalism in companies. In the case of Michelin, the authors investigate the evolution of its paternalistic MCS from a traditional form to an emphasis on CSR.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 36 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 1996

Chee W. Chow, Richard Nen‐Chen Hwang and Y. Robert Lin

In the current era of intensifying global competition, much attention has been focused on how companies need to change their structures and processes, or more broadly…

185

Abstract

In the current era of intensifying global competition, much attention has been focused on how companies need to change their structures and processes, or more broadly, organizational cultures, to remain competitive in this environment. Three recent studies have examined the nature of accounting firms' organizational cultures. Soeters and Schreuder (1988) and Pratt, Mohrweis and Beaulieu (1993) tested the degree to which accounting firms are able to transfer their home‐country or ganizational cultures to their foreign operations, while Pratt and Beaulieu (1992) analyzed the organizational culture of U.S. accounting firms operating in their home country. An implicit premise of these prior studies is that an accounting firm's organizational culture is an important determinant of its economic success. Thus, Pratt and Beaulieu (1992) hypothesized that organizational culture would vary with such variables as accounting firm size and functional area. Yet none of these prior studies has directly studied the nature of these firms’ external environments to which they were presumably responding. Nor have they directly measured the fit between these firms' organizational cultures and the external environment, or the effect of this fit on firm performance. The current study extends the empirical investigation to these assumed linkages. Data were collected from a sample of accounting firms operating in an important Pacific Rim participant in the global economy — Taiwan. The results are consistent with the fit between organizational culture and the environment being an important determinant of firm performance.

Details

Asian Review of Accounting, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1321-7348

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Article
Publication date: 1 February 1996

David Goodwin and Sirirat Sethapokin

This paper re‐examines an earlier research outcome which concluded that budgetary role ambiguity intervenes in the budgetary participation ‐ job satisfaction relationship. In this…

308

Abstract

This paper re‐examines an earlier research outcome which concluded that budgetary role ambiguity intervenes in the budgetary participation ‐ job satisfaction relationship. In this study, it is argued that this outcome will not occur in a high power distance cultural setting where managers have a high expectation of participation in decision making. Given the formality often associated with participation in such a setting, it was not expected that budgetary role ambiguity would intervene in the relationship. Path analysis was used to analyse the data which was gathered in Thailand. The results of the analysis support the theoretical expectations. The relationship of budgetary role conflict and job satisfaction is also explored in the paper. It is argued that, in a nation where a female is traditionally of a lower status than a male, the role conflict experienced by a female manager will be negatively and significantly related to job satisfaction. This outcome was not expected for male managers. Again, me results support the theoretical expectations. The paper concludes with a number of ideas for future research in this topic.

Details

Asian Review of Accounting, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1321-7348

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