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The purpose of this paper is to deepen the countervailing relationship between control and innovation in knowledge-intensive complex organizations. It adopts a middle range theory perspective (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2013) to explore how control systems and innovation dynamics interact and shape each other in the contexts of high complexity and intensive knowledge creation.

The paper employs single case study of a research-intensive biotech network located in Southern Italy, focusing on the change in the management accounting practices fostered by evolving environmental conditions and regulations that the network has faced in recent years.

The paper finds out how successful organizational changes are facilitated by the implementation of innovative control devices, favoring informal collaborative relationships, which in turn contribute to further innovate and to share knowledge and capabilities within the organization.

The findings are relevant to all organizations involved in complex processes of co-production of knowledge and innovation. They allow for unpacking the “black box” of the interplay between innovation and control, which is becoming increasingly central to these organizations and to policy makers.

The value of the study lies in its ability to depict how contrasting and molding forces in control systems and innovation dynamics contribute to re-shape a complex organizational setting. The study offers a newer perspective of analysis to interpret the role of control systems in innovative networks, thus contributing to the growing academic debate on the antecedents and facilitators of knowledge sharing and knowledge integration.

This paper aims to understand how training programs fostering discourses centred on individuals’ identity construction may turn resistance into a generative and enabling force to elicit more relationally and negotiated solutions of change.

The study used Foucault’s conceptualisation of “regimes of truth” to show how even potentially resistant public managers may generatively contribute to change processes if given the chance to restate the macro discourses of the hegemonic new public management movement at their own micro level. It relied upon an ethnographic approach based on verbal interviews, photo-elicitation, DiSC behavioural tests and observation of 29 Italian public managers participating in a training course.

The findings allow us to unveil how helping public managers to think about their self-identity in new ways enabled them to approach changing processes differently turning their resistance efforts into a generative force.

The paper offers a noteworthy contribution to the literature on public sector change by examining neglected issues relating to the identity of change agents and the implications of their multiple roles. It presents an alternative to the deterministic view of resistance as impeding or dysfunctionally shaping change under the new public management approach. This has important implications for both practice and policymaking.

This study explores the reactions of different categories of actors within a university setting (academics, administrative staff, governance members, and students) to implementing performance management system (PMS) changes. The paper aims to understand how these actors dealt with PMS change by discursively reconstructing their roles and positions at institutional and individual levels.

The authors use Foucault's (1972/1989) conceptualisation of regimes of truths to analyse the case of an Italian university. Interviews with individual actors took place in the period 2012–2020. The data were contextualised with other data from publicly available reports, internal documents, and archival material.

The paper identifies the challenges actors face dealing with contrasting discourses and draws attention to the paradoxical changes triggering resistance. However, the findings show that when circumstances allow a generative resistance, dissent can be progressively replaced with a commitment on the part of actors, achieving alignment with organisational strategy.

The study challenges the commonly held view of resistance as a dysfunctional force that impedes change. It emphasises the importance of focusing on actors to make resistance a generative force shaping change towards more negotiated and agreed positions. This has implications for academics and practitioners seeking to implement PMSs.

This study aims to understand how Big Data foster a greater acceptance of performance management systems (PMS) discourses in health care.

This paper focusses on the case of head and neck cancer treatment and prevention and benefits from the analysis of archival sources and 19 interviews with physicians in the field. It uses the framework of the Middle Range theory (MRT) to understand whether, in the case of head and neck cancer, Big Data may favour the enactment of PMS discourses in health care, in turn benefiting from any improvement in PMS.

This study setting unveils the changing pathway known as reorientation through boundary management. Medical professionals internalized and even mobilized PMS discourses, showing the premises for evolutionary changes in the future, when the current limitations will be dealt with.

This paper offers new theoretical, practical and policymaking insights into how new technologies can foster positive PMS discourses among actors who usually resist them. This value also extends to different fields and contexts.

This study aims to ascertain the intentions of risk managers to use artificial intelligence in performing their tasks by examining the factors affecting their motivation.

The study employs an integrated theoretical framework that merges the third version of the technology acceptance model 3 (TAM3) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) based on the application of the structural equation model with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) estimation on data gathered through a Likert-based questionnaire disseminated among Italian risk managers. The survey reached 782 people working as risk professionals, but only 208 provided full responses. The final response rate was 26.59%.

The findings show that social influence, perception of external control and risk perception are the main predictors of risk professionals' intention to use artificial intelligence. Moreover, performance expectancy (PE) and effort expectancy (EE) of risk professionals in relation to technology implementation and use also appear to be reasonably reliable predictors.

Thus, the study offers a precious contribution to the debate on the impact of automation and disruptive technologies in the risk management domain. It complements extant studies by tapping into cultural issues surrounding risk management and focuses on the mostly overlooked dimension of individuals.

Yet, thanks to its quite novel theoretical approach; it also extends the field of studies on artificial intelligence acceptance by offering fresh insights into the perceptions of risk professionals and valuable practical and policymaking implications.

In the last few decades, the effectiveness of the evaluation of human resources and their performances has become a crucial theme in the debates of the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyze key design characteristics of performance management system (PMS) that may be effectively adopted and deployed by management to enable the assessment for a health system improvement.

This paper falls under the field of studies that focuses on the design and implementation of PMS in the healthcare sector. This research adopted a qualitative approach across the case study method to understand the role of different contextual factors and their impact upon the design of PMS. Mainly drawing on previous studies on the Italian regional health systems, a target region has been selected for these purposes.

As a result, the new PMS was effectively working and was structured with a balanced focus on the region and the single healthcare organizations. The need for improving the information systems within the healthcare organizations was strongly emphasized. The crucial element of the new PMS was the transparency about the assessment procedures.

This paper contributes to the debate on factors that can influence the design of PMS in healthcare. Relying on a contingent approach, the authors put forward the need of a more comprehensive and integrated frameworks encompassing organic conception of PMSs, as well as of the interdependencies among their components.

This paper aims to investigate the factors influencing chief executive officers’ (CEOs') intentions to implement cloud technology in Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The study proposes a model that integrates the theoretical construct of the technology acceptance model (TAM) with a classification of perceived benefits and risks related to cloud computing. The study employs a structural equation modeling approach to analyze data gathered through a Likert scale-based survey.

The findings indicate that risk perception has a strong negative effect on the intention to introduce cloud technology in firms. This effect is partially offset by the perceived ease of use of the technology.

The study provides a new theoretical framework that integrates the TAM and a classification of perceived risks to provide a clear view of management's cognitive processes during technological change. Moreover, the results show the main factors influencing decisions regarding the implementation of cloud computing in firms in light of the perception of risks. Finally, this study provides interesting findings for cloud service providers (CSPs) about their customers' decision-making processes.

This study aims to present an overview of topics addressed in the papers appearing in this AAAJ special issue: Blockchain in accounting, accountability and assurance.

The authors present a review focussing on the papers published in this special issue. The authors imported the eight accepted papers into NVivo, coding them according to the research topics posed in the call for papers. Then, the authors conducted an in vivo coding for the emerging themes found in the papers.

Blockchain is a multifaced topic with multiple implications for accounting, auditing and accountability, the accounting professions, and governance. However, blockchain is still a developing topic. Blockchain research traditionally has four stages. More recently, a new research stage deserving more investigation is emerging based on the interaction of blockchain with other technological developments such as virtual reality and the metaverse.

The review not only uncovers and systematises the multiple implications of blockchain for accounting research. It also unveils the dark side of blockchain, focusing on the technology's negative environmental and social implications. Last, the authors highlight why accounting research should more extensively examine contemporary issues.

This study aims to investigate whether the characteristics of the chief financial officer (CFO) have an impact on the intensity of the corporate research and development (R&D) investment.

Based on hand-collected data for the CFOs of a sample of the largest European listed companies for the period 2013–2016, this study uses regression analyses to test empirically the association of CFO education, CFO gender and CFO age with R&D investment intensity.

The presence of female CFOs, CFOs with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree and older CFOs is positively associated with the intensity of R&D investment.

This study relies on some observable characteristics of CFOs and focuses on large listed companies.

The results of this study may help investors, stakeholders and practitioners to understand better which type of CFO characteristics are more likely to result in higher firm-level R&D investment intensity.

This study offers the first insights into the impact of CFOs, as the most prominent C-suite executives, on the level of corporate investments in R&D activity.

This paper aims to understand the main challenges connected with accountability issues across multiple layers of the metaverse, to identify whether and how any techwashing is taking place and to discuss implications for accounting research.

To develop the research, the authors refer to a critical dialogic accountability framework, operationalized in the current paper by leveraging the perspectives of accountability as virtues and as mechanisms (Bovens, 2010). The authors discuss who is accountable to whom, for what and in what manner in a relatively unregulated and unaccountable world, through the layers of virtual reality introduced by MacKenzie et al. (2013) and Llewellyn (2007). Methodologically, the study concentrates on 32 start-ups working in the metaverse selected from the Crunchbase database and relies on interviews, direct observation in the field and white paper reports analyzed by means of NVivo coding.

The findings show how metaverse creators deal with accountability as a virtue and accountability as a mechanism. Companies who operate metaverses primarily consider accountability in the virtual-physical domain, which focuses on developing the necessary internal and external architecture to enable a particular metaverse to function. Metaverse companies also emphasize the virtual-agential dimension that concentrates on onboarding, engaging with and incentivizing individuals in virtual worlds. There is an emphasis on outlining the virtues or standards that metaverse companies aspire to, but there is very little detail provided. Similarly, there are uneven and limited discussions of the mechanisms that can support accountability in most layers of a virtual world.

The analysis raises significant questions about the purpose, scope and use of metaverses, which are still a relatively unregulated and unaccountable world. The paper advances the idea that the current creators of metaverses are “techwashing” their projects, providing a utopian ideal of what their universes will look like but obfuscating the realities of their ventures in tech jargon that few people are likely to understand. Therefore, meaning and truth at all levels of the real and virtual worlds remain unaddressed, with implications to be explored in terms of legitimacy and trust of metaverses and the interests that shape them.

This paper is one of the first to address the issue of accountability in metaverses. It advances an analytical framework to guide future accounting and accountability research into virtual worlds.