Kalle Kraus

This paper deals with the nature of product development and the impact of accounting practices on such developments. Through an in-depth case study at ABB Robotics we extend Dubois and Araujo’s (2006) work on distributed product development. We find that distributed product development encompasses a mix of hierarchical and collective systems integration, planning and improvising. We thereby contribute to the emerging literature on distributed product development by highlighting the combinations of the hierarchical view (c.f. Brusoni et al, 2001) and the interactive view (c.f. Dubois and Araujo, 2006) We also show how a financial logic, captured through target costing, influences many of the pragmatic decisions concerning technical and organisational interfaces in distributed product development processes. We therefore argue that the literature on distributed product development could be extended by making the financial logic explicit and treating it on the same level as the technica...

Det finns en mangd fallstudier som beskriver hur balanserade styrkort (BSC) har utformats och anvands en kort tid efter inforandet. Det finns aven storre enkatundersokningar som visar att BSC ar spritt i foretag och organisationer. Det ar inte ovanligt att mer an 50 % av de tillfragade foretagen har infort eller planerar att infora BSC. For att ge en fordjupad bild av spridningen av BSC och vilken roll BSC har i foretagens koncernstyrning har en intervjustudie genomforts av sjutton stora svenska foretag. En person har intervjuats i varje foretag, i de flesta fall ror det sig om foretagets ekonomidirektor. Studien visar att flera foretag arbetar med BSC men dess roll i koncernstyrningen ar begransad. Koncernstyrningen ar finansiellt fokuserad, vilket tar sig uttryck i att styrningen domineras av finansiella matt, standarder satts ofta enbart for de finansiella matten och beloningssystemen baseras i stor utstrackning pa finansiella matt.

Controllerns roll ar att se till att information om resurser och resultat speglar vad som ar viktigt i en verksamhet, att den nar fram dit den bor och kan paverka tankar och handlingar. I dag finns controllers i alla branscher, fran offentlig verksamhet till mindre foretag. Controllerns arbete maste darfor i allt hogre grad anpassas till skiftande forutsattningar. Controllerhandboken ar en heltackande handbok i hur man kan utforma och anvanda ekonomistyrningen inom olika organisationer, oavsett bransch och sektor. Fokus ligger pa hur bokens verktygslada av metoder och modeller kan tillampas pa ett situationsanpassat satt.I denna elfte upplaga finns nya kapitel om prissattning, internpriser och riskhantering. Nya forfattare har bidragit vid revideringen av befintliga kapitel, och de som medverkar sedan tidigare har aktualiserat sina kapitel. Redaktorernas inledningar och inramande kapitel gor att boken aven gar att lasa som en sammanhangande larobok.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the role of management controls in managing heterogeneous interests during extreme situations. Design/methodology/approach Through interviews and observations, the authors analyse the Swedish Migration Agency’s management controls and study routines during the peak of the European Migrant Crisis. Findings Prior to the crisis, the strategy used by the employees was to mediate between two interests (labelled legal security and empathy) to create a workable compromise. During the crisis, however, the authors observed filtering in the form of the previous hierarchical ordering of interests was further strengthened as the employees increasingly relied on just a single interest (the interest which they previously had deemed to be the most important) at the expense of the other interest. The findings suggest that behavioural and social controls helped such filtering; social controls helped certain employees to filter the empathy interest as more important...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of “the” accounting entity, demonstrating how it is a contestable socio-political construction informed by a nexus of market, state and community actors. Design/methodology/approach A case study method is utilised to follow debate relating to Swedish football clubs’ responsibility for the payment/non-payment of policing costs between 1999 and 2014. The case study uses documentary and interview data, focusing on one of the high-risk Stockholm clubs. Findings The paper makes four main contributions: first, demonstrating how the accounting entity is a changeable and contestable construction; second, outlining how distinctions informing contests about the accounting arena are materialised through accounting calculations and other devices; third, showing the importance of community in a coordinated sense in mediating accounting practices; and fourth, contributing to the literature on accounting and sport, highlighting the i...

Purpose This paper aims to analyse how a multinational organisation uses technocratic and socio-ideological controls to manage tensions arising when integrating its international subsidiaries. Design/methodology/approach Through interviews and company documentation, the authors analyse how a global German family business firm integrates its international subsidiaries into the corporate context. Findings The findings suggest that technocratic and socio-ideological controls in combination help the firm manage three tensions – vertical vs lateral relations, standardisation vs differentiation of practices and centralisation vs decentralisation of decision-making – arising in the course of internationalisation. These results have important analytical implications for the understanding of how a high level of compliance to technocratic control initiatives is achieved. Prior work has, in the main, focussed on the resistance to technocratic controls without paying much attention to complianc...

Det finns en mängd fallstudier som beskriver hur balanserade styrkort (BSC) har utformats och används en kort tid efter införandet. Det finns även större enkätundersökningar som visar att BSC är spritt i företag och organisationer. Det är inte ovanligt att mer än 50 % av de tillfrågade företagen har infört eller planerar att införa BSC. För att ge en fördjupad

Det finns en mängd fallstudier som beskriver hur balanserade styrkort (BSC) har utformats och används en kort tid efter införandet. Det finns även större enkätundersökningar som visar att BSC är spritt i företag och organisationer. Det är inte ovanligt att mer än 50 % av de tillfrågade företagen har infört eller planerar att införa BSC. För att ge en fördjupad

ABSTRACT This paper provides a conceptual comparison between the ‘mainstream strategic management accounting’ literature, the ‘accounting and strategising’ literature and ‘strategic management accounting (SMA) in close inter-organisational relationships’. It concludes that ‘SMA in close inter-organisational relationships’ shares some important characteristics with the ‘accounting and strategising’ literature. Important differences were found, too, though. These mainly concerned the need to understand individuals working for close partners as preparers of strategic information; the need for disaggregated accounting information about unique connections to close partners and about the role of indirect benefits that follow from close connections and the need for the company to not only collect information but also disperse diverse information within close inter-organisational relationships. Through an intensive case study of a global robot manufacturer, Robotics, this paper also provides novel empirical evidence on ‘SMA in close inter-organisational relationships’. For instance, SMA practices included indirect benefits, something mainly neglected in the existing literature on SMA. These indirect benefits involved a close customer's willingness to invest time and effort in Robotics’ technological development, thereby contributing to Robotics’ ability to attain revenue gains in its interactions with other customers. Our findings also have important implications for the ‘inter-organisational accounting’ literature, for instance, by highlighting the need to link more explicitly strategic decision-making with the current interest in the role of accounting in inter-organisational dynamics.

ABSTRACT This paper has focused on the question “What is the role of accounting practices in the fuzzy front-end of product innovation?” Previous accounting research has primarily focused on the product development phase, neglecting the critical, early fuzzy front-end phase. Our findings, based on a case study of a producer of components to airplane engines, contribute to this literature by showing that keeping within the expenditure budget together with technical quantifications replaced the need for financial quantifications when the R&D department justified their work. Non-financial accounting practices thereby operated as a mediating instrument that mediated between the R&D department and internal and external actors regarding expectations about time and commercial potential. The study also contributes to the literature on product innovation in networks by detailing how accounting practices helped in making sure that the produce perspective was confronted with the use perspective and thereby secured attention to business aspects in the innovation process. In addition, accounting practices helped in constructing relatively coherent chains of trustworthy arguments necessary to mobilize support and resources from internal and external actors. Finally we contribute to the bricolage literature by detailing how accounting practices support network bricolage, and the importance of innovators being able to perform selective bricolage where bricolage is complemented with more confrontational behavior to move the innovation process forward.

ABSTRACT This paper has analysed a change process within an organisation providing home-based elderly care. Using a theoretical framework from metaphor theory and insights from the literature on ‘accounting talk’, we followed how metaphorical representations of accounting were introduced and developed by the change agent. New core values and practices emerged within the home help unit that were in line with the ideas and inferences made by these accounting metaphors. The metaphorical representations of accounting concepts linked the unfamiliar domain of accounting to a more familiar domain, and provided rationales for organisational change. Our findings highlight the importance of change agents and ‘accounting talk’ for determining the trajectory of organisational change processes. The findings also suggest that metaphors are a potentially powerful tool for both changing organisational members’ general understanding of financial issues, and forging specific links between accounting concepts and work practices.

ABSTRACT This paper provides a conceptual comparison between the ‘mainstream strategic management accounting’ literature, the ‘accounting and strategising’ literature and ‘strategic management accounting (SMA) in close inter-organisational relationships’. It concludes that ‘SMA in close inter-organisational relationships’ shares some important characteristics with the ‘accounting and strategising’ literature. Important differences were found, too, though. These mainly concerned the need to understand individuals working for close partners as preparers of strategic information; the need for disaggregated accounting information about unique connections to close partners and about the role of indirect benefits that follow from close connections and the need for the company to not only collect information but also disperse diverse information within close inter-organisational relationships. Through an intensive case study of a global robot manufacturer, Robotics, this paper also provides novel empirical evidence on ‘SMA in close inter-organisational relationships’. For instance, SMA practices included indirect benefits, something mainly neglected in the existing literature on SMA. These indirect benefits involved a close customer's willingness to invest time and effort in Robotics’ technological development, thereby contributing to Robotics’ ability to attain revenue gains in its interactions with other customers. Our findings also have important implications for the ‘inter-organisational accounting’ literature, for instance, by highlighting the need to link more explicitly strategic decision-making with the current interest in the role of accounting in inter-organisational dynamics.

ABSTRACT Purpose – This paper aims to explore the effects of the increased influence of accounting on core values and practices within the services providing home care in Sweden – a public sector setting involving inter-organisational cooperation. Design/methodology/approach – Case study data were obtained primarily through semi-structured interviews with managers and front-line staff involved in home care. Findings – When accountingisation is extended to include inter-organisational cooperation, a form of heterogeneous accountingisation occurred in the home care services: an internal domain (with a low level of accountingisation) could be differentiated from an inter-organisational domain (with a high level of accountingisation). When the accounting-induced disturbances intensified, there was a redefinition of core values. In the internal domain, core values of pensioner-oriented focus and flexibility during service delivery persisted. In contrast, in the inter-organisational domain, core values had the legal boundaries of the organisation as their central foundation, standardisation was emphasised, and inter-organisational work practices were defined as the other organisation's responsibility. The findings also extend the research on absorption groups by indicating the rise of a new type of absorption process. Absorption was not undertaken by a few individuals, specialist work groups or satellite organisations, as described in the literature; instead, all front-line welfare professionals were involved in absorbing the accounting-induced disturbances when performing their tasks. Research limitations/implications – This case study research is context-specific and the meaning and consequences of accountingisation may differ within the public sector because of the status and strength of professional groups concerned. Originality/value – To date, research on accountingisation has primarily employed an intra-organisational perspective. This paper analyses accountingisation in an inter-organisational setting.

This paper draws on literature from marketing and inter-organisational accounting to develop a framework for Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) in business-to-business networks. Through an intensive single case study of a global robot manufacturer, the paper extends previous conceptions of what SMA may consist of, who the actors implicated in SMA practices are and when SMA is performed. In a context of complex interdependencies in business-to-business networks, our study demonstrates that network SMA primarily concerns information on the unique connections to close customers and suppliers, and third party effects. Cross-functional teams, comprised of middle managers concerned with engineering, sales and quality, as well as selected personnel from close customers and suppliers, are important actors for SMA. It is also seen that when SMA is performed it is often because financial and non-financial information is required to solve unexpected problems and to exploit unexpected opport...

ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the nature of product development,and the impact of accounting practices on such developments. Through an in-depth case study at ABB Robotics we extend Dubois and Araujo’s (2006) work on distributed product development. We find that distributed product development,encompasses,a mix of hierarchical and collective systems integration, planning and improvising. We thereby contribute to the emerging,literature on,distributed

Det finns en mängd fallstudier som beskriver hur balanserade styrkort (BSC) har utformats och används en kort tid efter införandet. Det finns även större enkätundersökningar som visar att BSC är spritt i företag och organisationer. Det är inte ovanligt att mer än 50 % av de tillfrågade företagen har infört eller planerar att införa BSC. För att ge en fördjupad