Accounting Organizations and Society最新文献

The alignment of a firm's performance measures with its strategic objectives is fundamental to effective management control, at least in part because performance measures and stated strategy represent separate sources of information that workers can rely on to guide their efforts. We experimentally examine the effects of strategic alignment and strategic clarity (i.e., the specificity with which strategic objectives are communicated) on workers' performance on a multidimensional task. We predict and find that alignment improves performance under a vague strategy statement but impairs performance under a clear strategy statement. These results are consistent with strategic clarity and performance measure alignment magnifying the tradeoff between conflicting performance dimensions, leading to reduced commitment to the firm's strategic objectives. Our results confirm the importance of alignment in strategic performance measurement systems and suggest a substitutive relationship with strategic communication: alignment can overcome the negative effects of strategic vagueness, and strategic clarity can help overcome the negative effects of imperfectly aligned performance measures.

Complex organizations are faced with numerous demands that translate into different assessments of value. We focus here on the agency of performance metrics and how they represent and mediate multiple and contrasting values. We draw on a case study of technology incubation, a complex site where attempts to meet the sometimes conflicting demands of stakeholders inevitably lead to multiple assessments of the value of innovation. We propose a theoretical model inspired by Beunza and Garud’s (2007) notion of calculative frame, positing that each frame expresses value in terms of a dominant principle of worth, a metaphorical root, and the key metrics of worth. We then explore how and under what conditions the tensions among frames are mediated by compromising metrics. Our paper contributes to the literature on socio-materiality by strengthening the conceptual linkages between the elements of calculative frames and theorizing their co-constituted character. In this way we broaden the applicability of the calculative frame model to performance measurement in complex organizations. We also contribute to the management accounting literature on tensions and compromise by providing an account of the agency of performance metrics and the mechanisms of combinability through which they mediate a compromise among conflicting frames, and bridge frames that are not in conflict.

We examine (1) the association between performance measurement system (PMS) diversity and product innovation; and (2) the interdependence between PMS diversity and PMS use (diagnostic or interactive) for product innovation. We expect the association between PMS diversity and product innovation to depend on the trade-off between PMS diversity's potential benefits of meeting enhanced information needs and potential costs of information overload. Further, we apply knowledge recombination theory of innovation, which suggests that innovation requires access to diverse information and integration efficiency. Thus, we expect PMS diversity and PMS use to be complementary in supporting product innovation. We test our predictions using survey data collected over two waves. We find a positive association between PMS diversity and product innovation. We test for bidirectional effects, and find that the direction of the association is from PMS diversity to innovation. Furthermore, we find strong support for the complementarity between PMS diversity and PMS use (diagnostic or interactive) in supporting product innovation. Lastly, we document that environmental uncertainty moderates these effects.

It is increasingly common for individuals to be both customers of, and investors in, a company. Despite their prevalence, we have little understanding of whether customer investors' investment judgments differ from those of non-customer investors. Using three experiments, we examine how customer investors' judgments differ from those of non-customer investors in the wake of an earnings restatement, and how customer investors respond to company-issued disclosures that include favorable information designed to mitigate the effects of the restatement. Drawing on prior marketing research, we predict and find that customer investors identify more strongly with the company and sell fewer shares in response to a restatement than non-customer investors. Further, unlike non-customer investors, customer investors’ judgments are not influenced by favorable information in a company-issued disclosure. Our results have implications for companies that are actively encouraging customer-investor relationships and for investors themselves.

This study critically reflects on the concept of 'accountability as responsiveness' by investigating the co-responsiveness of the other within accountability relationships. The research focuses on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and recent 'localisation' agendas in the humanitarian sector, which prioritise supporting and empowering local response efforts in crisis-affected areas. Drawing on an affirmative view of the other (Braidotti, 2006a, 2011a, 2013b, 2019, 2021), the study examines how this is manifested in specific participatory accountability practices. Two such practices within the ICRC, namely 'threats and risk assessments' and 'mapping the journey of the affected person,' are explored to demonstrate their role in the epistemic endeavour of understanding the other in a grounded, embodied, and affirmative manner. It is observed that these practices are designed to elicit specific levels and types of co-responsivity from the other. Furthermore, the study reveals how the intention to know the other in a situated and affirmative sense materialised across three main modes of knowing: the transformative experience of 'becoming' an affected person, the coping mechanisms employed, and the navigation of humanitarian crises. These findings contribute to the literature on accountability as responsiveness by providing specific insights and alternative understandings of responsiveness in accountability relationships. Additionally, the study proposes that accountability practices of this kind can generate specific types of knowledge and facilitate empowerment.

A long line of psychology research suggests that people develop underlying behavioral trait expectations based on facial characteristics, and that these appearance-based trait inferences can influence judgments and decisions. In this study, we examine the relation between audit partners' appearances and their career outcomes. Using independent ratings of audit partners’ facial traits, we find that partners whose appearance violates common gender stereotypes have less prestigious client portfolios. Specifically, we find a negative relation between appearing “competent” and the career outcomes of females and a negative relation between appearing “warm” and the career outcomes of males. Subsequent analyses suggest that these relations are concentrated among non-Big 4 audit partners. We further consider the relation between facial traits and career outcomes and find evidence that males (but not females) whose appearance violates gender stereotypes are less likely to work for Big 4 audit firms. Together, our findings provide insights into the relations between appearance, gender, and career outcomes for public company auditors in the United States.

This paper develops a theoretical history of the intricate relationship between accounting as a recording technology and memory, arguing that accounting's influence extends beyond mere financial documentation to shape human memory and projections into the past and the future. Drawing on Stiegler's theory of transindividuation, understood as the trans-formation of individuals, groups and technologies, and his emphasis on technology-mediated memory, we propose that varying types of accounting records cultivate different memory forms by fostering spatiotemporal projections which reshape the societal perception and comprehension of accounting. Our analysis relies on a comparison between two decentralized transaction recording systems similar in their operations, but which emerged in two different eras: blockchain and early double-entry bookkeeping. Our approach draws from Haydu (1998) to identify similarities and contrasts between different periods which can emphasize the uniqueness of each, while conceptualizing long-term trends. By juxtaposing DEB and BC as instances of decentralized records, the study postulates a critical shift in accounting's transindividuation over time. We argue that while DEB's norms of recording aided in the formation of collective memory and long-term projections, turning records into objects of social investment, BC's recording, propelled by automation and an economic emphasis, manifests as an isolated numerical sequence hindering the scope of human projections. We posit that compared to early DEB, BC recording, although it holds the potential for democratization, may lead to divisions between users, among themselves, and with their records. We discuss the potential implications of this trans-dividuation process for notions of accountability, transparency, regulation, and the broader political role of accounting in society.

Previous studies of macroeconomic accounting have focused on the conceptual and political development of national accounts and how such theoretical concepts generate economic reality. By turning focus to the calculative practices of macroeconomic accounting, studying the Norwegian Quarterly National Accounts (QNA), the present work underlines that the national economy is not only constituted in the political discourse of growth and within international classifications, but also within the everyday processes of calculating the numbers. It shows how the QNA team struggles to adhere to the formal classifications and find reliable empirical accounts that matches them. In such situations, epistemic strategies are employed to handle the “gaps” and misalignments between the formal classifications and the everyday calculative practice. By theorizing the validation and support of weak numbers within a calculative culture shaped by the handling of second-order measurements and interrupted representations, the present study contributes to an emerging accounting literature on interrupted and hyperreal representations.