Jari Huikku, Timo Hyvönen and Janne Järvinen
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initiation of accounting information system projects. Specifically, it examines the role of the predictive analytics (PA) project…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the initiation of accounting information system projects. Specifically, it examines the role of the predictive analytics (PA) project initiator in the integration of financial and operational sales forecasts.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a field study method to address the studied phenomenon in eight Finnish companies that have recently adopted PA systems. The data are primarily based on 19 interviews in the companies and five interviews with the PA consultants.
Findings
The authors found that initiators appear to play a major role regarding the degree of integration of financial and operational sales forecasts. The initiators from an accounting function have a tendency to pay more attention to the integration than the representatives from other functions, such as operations and sales.
Practical implications
The study also makes a practical contribution to companies in showing and discussing the important role of the accounting department as an initiator of a project if the target is to achieve a tight coupling of financial and operational forecast figures, i.e., “one set of numbers”.
Originality/value
Even though companies have increasingly adopted PA systems in recent years, we still know little about how the initiation affects the design of accounting information systems overall. The central contribution of the paper, therefore, is to show that if a PA project is initiated by the accounting department, data integration becomes more likely. It contributes also to the discussion related to the appropriateness of data integration in the context of forecasting.
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Matias Laine, Janne T. Järvinen, Timo Hyvönen and Hannele Kantola
Voluntary corporate social responsibility reporting has developed into an everyday activity for many commercial organizations, and scholarly interest in these practices continues…
Abstract
Purpose
Voluntary corporate social responsibility reporting has developed into an everyday activity for many commercial organizations, and scholarly interest in these practices continues to increase. This paper focusses on one subset of these disclosures, namely the figures relating to environmental expenditures and investments published by various organizations. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the nature, role and significance of such financial environmental information. Despite their seeming accuracy and preciseness, little is known about how such financial environmental information is constructed and subsequently used in organizational settings.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative case study focussing on a Finnish energy company. The authors build the investigation primarily on 26 semi-structured interviews with employees at all organizational levels, which the authors supplement with various documentary sources. The interpretation draws on the notion of loose coupling, which the authors use as a method theory to provide a better understanding of this complex organizational practice.
Findings
The authors highlight the ambiguous and imprecise nature of the outwardly accurate figures provided by the company. The authors argue that disclosed financial environmental information is only loosely coupled with various dimensions, including the organization’s actual activities, its environmental impacts and organizational decision making.
Originality/value
The findings contrast with those of some prior research, which has considered financial environmental information highly valuable. As for broader implications, the paper discusses the accuracy of public records based on such ambiguous organizational figures.
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Timo Hyvönen, Janne Järvinen, Lasse Oulasvirta and Jukka Pellinen
This paper aims to explore the emergence of accounting shared service centers (SSCs) in the municipal sector.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the emergence of accounting shared service centers (SSCs) in the municipal sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework of this interpretative study draws on institutional entrepreneurship that highlights the importance of actors and agency for institutions and institutional change.
Findings
The paper finds that institutional entrepreneurs operate on many institutional levels simultaneously. On the organizational field level they must find groups of actors with whom they share interests. At the organizational level the institutional entrepreneurs must find and recognize critical audiences that are receptive to their agenda.
Research limitations/implications
The authors' data comprise interviews and archival data; they were not present to observe the institutional entrepreneurs in action.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the accounting literature by investigating institutional entrepreneurship at the organizational field level, which has not been much empirically researched.
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Timo Hyvönen, Janne Järvinen and Jukka Pellinen
This paper aims to analyse how cost accounting knowledge is mediated in a large multinational organisation employing a company‐wide enterprise resource planning system and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse how cost accounting knowledge is mediated in a large multinational organisation employing a company‐wide enterprise resource planning system and off‐the‐shelf activity based costing software to create a uniform profitability management system within the organisation.
Design/methodology/approach
The case analysis is informed by the theoretical notions of dis‐and re‐embedding of expert knowledge, expert systems and standards.
Findings
The results indicate that standardised cost accounting software packages may be useful not only because of their superior data processing properties and technical efficiency, but also because of their usability in overcoming resistance to change. It is suggested that software packages and some degrees of freedom in the implementation process may actually enhance actors' “blind” commitment to the system and reduce resistance to the new system.
Originality/value
It is of interest to researchers and practitioners alike how ready‐made software packages may be successfully used in implementing the changes needed in the management accounting systems of large organisations. It is also particularly interesting to find reasons why software packages seem to be so useful in driving these changes.
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Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to…
Abstract
Purpose
Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to chart progress in management accounting research using a sample of doctoral dissertations published in Finland. In particular, the study examines the range and diversity of research strategic choices in Finnish dissertations over time, including the topics and methodological and theoretical approaches chosen. The authors also briefly compare findings over time and with other progress studies.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal historical investigation was selected. All of the 80 management accounting doctoral dissertations published in Finnish business schools and departments during 1945-2015 were analysed.
Findings
The findings reveal that an expansion of doctoral education has led to an increasing diversity of research strategic choices in Finland. Different issues have been of interest at different times; so, it has been possible to cover a wide range of cost, management accounting and other topics and to use different methodological and theoretical approaches over time. Consequently, management accounting has become a rich and multifaceted field of scientific research.
Research limitations/implications
While this analysis is limited to doctoral research in Finland, the results should be relevant in advancing the understanding of the development of management accounting research.
Practical implications
Overall, the findings support the view that there have been, and continue to be, many ways to conduct innovative research in the field of management accounting.
Social implications
Dissertation research in this field has been extensive and vital enough to educate new generations of academics, guarantee continuity of the subject as an academic discipline and make management accounting a significant academic field of research.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to current research on management accounting change by an analysis of a sample of doctoral dissertations.
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Antti Ylä-Kujala, Salla Marttonen-Arola and Timo Kärri
The role of management control is frequently emphasized in connection with inter-organizational relationships and value networks. For example, boundary-spanning cost and…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of management control is frequently emphasized in connection with inter-organizational relationships and value networks. For example, boundary-spanning cost and accounting control techniques have been studied in multifaceted empirical settings. The prevalence of such techniques is, however, currently unknown in conjunction with companies’ interests to increase inter-organizational integration in general. Additionally, also the nexus between the internal state of cost management and the company’s willingness to develop inter-organizational relationships requires further investigation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on an extensive survey that was responded to by more than 1,500 CEOs and CFOs from large, medium-sized and small Finnish enterprises in a variety of industries. As the authors chose the mixed-methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study.
Findings
The findings suggest that companies can be allocated to five clusters: “the cost experts,” “the trustful,” “the holdouts,” “the trailblazers” and “the uncertain”. When the networking-oriented clusters, “the trustful” and “the trailblazers” are combined, the authors can conclude that 40 percent of the studied companies are interested in increasing inter-organizational integration. However, only 7 percent have boundary-spanning techniques in use. There is also a correlation between interest in integrating and developing cost management.
Research limitations/implications
This paper contains several theoretical implications, although further research, e.g. comparative studies, is required to verify the findings. The scarcity of managerial implications can be regarded as a limitation.
Originality/value
This paper fills several untapped research gaps by studying inter-organizational integration in the cost management context from multiple, complementary perspectives with a particularly large set of data.
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Despite existing life cycle costing (LCC) method descriptions and practicable suggestions for conducting LCC analyses, no systematic analyses on actual implementations of LCC…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite existing life cycle costing (LCC) method descriptions and practicable suggestions for conducting LCC analyses, no systematic analyses on actual implementations of LCC methods exist. This paper aims to review reports on LCC applications to provide an overview of LCC uses and implementation feasibility.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of LCC cases reported in academic and practitioner literature. Case reports were compared against one another and against the defining articles in the field.
Findings
Most of the reported LCC applications were far from ideal. Compared to the methods suggested in the literature many of the case study applications: covered fewer parts of the whole life cycle, estimated the costs on a lower level of detail, used cost estimation methods based on expert opinion rather than statistical methods, and were content with deterministic estimates of life cycle costs instead of using sensitivity analyses.
Research limitations/implications
This review is limited to reported LCC applications only. Further research is encouraged in the form of a field‐based multiple‐case study to reveal context‐specific dimensions of LCC analysis and implementation challenges in more detail.
Practical implications
This review highlights the difficulty of conducting a reliable LCC analysis, and points out typical problems that should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the LCC analysis.
Originality/value
First systematic analysis of LCC applications that gives directions for further research on the LCC concept.
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Alastair W. Watson, Babak Taheri, Steven Glasgow and Kevin D. O’Gorman
Augmenting employees’ commitment is of important interest to hospitality managers, particularly in the branded restaurant industry where the workforce is often transient. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Augmenting employees’ commitment is of important interest to hospitality managers, particularly in the branded restaurant industry where the workforce is often transient. This paper aims to identify and analyse if levels of personal motivation and flow are drivers of commitment, and if the relationship between the variables is moderated by length of service, age and gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is a large-scale empirical investigation of hospitality staff in the UK branded restaurants through 1,133 survey responses, measuring levels of personal motivation, flow and commitment, as well as the moderating effects of multi-group differences among age, gender and length of service. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used for analysis of data.
Findings
Using PLS-SEM found personal motivation to be important in determining employees’ level of flow and, in turn, employees’ commitment. Using multi group analysis, results revealed that relationship among personal motivation, flow and commitment played superior role for older employees and working for a long time in a hospitality organisation than those younger and working less than five years. No significant differences between male and female staff are found.
Research limitations/implications
Through finding flow and personal motivations to be drivers of commitment, branded restaurant practitioners can focus on emphasising these elements in their employees to increase commitment. Further, part-time roles are often taken by people likely to be non-committal in their job needs, e.g. students funding their studies. By focussing on extending lengths of service to meet the optimum years identified, managers can fortify their businesses.
Originality/value
The paper is one of few large-scale quantitative studies to examine personal motivation, flow and commitment in the context of UK branded restaurants. It identifies that employees exhibit higher levels of commitment through intrinsic values over time, and establishes relationships between the constructs of flow, personal motivation and commitment.