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1 – 3 of 3Emilio Passetti, Massimo Battaglia, Francesco Testa and Iñaki Heras-Saizarbitoria
This paper aims to analyse the extent to which health and safety action controls, results controls and informal controls affect the integration of health and safety issues into…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyse the extent to which health and safety action controls, results controls and informal controls affect the integration of health and safety issues into management actions, which in turn leads to improve health and safety performance. It also investigates the extent to which those health and safety control mechanisms contribute complementarily to the integration of health and safety issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey of 108 Italian non-listed firms tests a set of hypotheses based on complementarity theory and object of control framework.
Findings
Not all the health and safety control mechanisms positively influence the integration of health and safety issues into business practices and external stakeholder relations. Complementarity between health and safety control mechanisms is significant only for higher health and safety performance companies, indicating that the health and safety control mechanisms operate as a package.
Research limitations/implications
The health and safety performance measure could be replaced in future research by improved inter-subjectively testable information, although collecting health and safety quantitative data is difficult. An additional limitation is the response rate.
Practical implications
The findings encourage companies to design and use a comprehensive set of health and safety control mechanisms to promote a healthy workplace.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the management control, sustainability management control and health and safety accounting literature. The paper provides an in-depth interdisciplinary analysis of the effectiveness of different control mechanisms in the context of health and safety that hitherto has rarely been investigated despite the multiple importance of the topic.
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Keywords
Michelle Carr and Stefan Jooss
COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements and adapt their ways of working. Yet, we know little about how management control might be…
Abstract
Purpose
COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements and adapt their ways of working. Yet, we know little about how management control might be enacted in the future of the sustainable workplace. The objective of the study is to examine the patterns of management control change in the Big 4 accounting firms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting an exploratory qualitative research design, the authors draw on 42 interviews with directors and associates in the Big 4 professional services firms.
Findings
The findings reveal two pathways of management control change including alignment and displacement. The authors found that relatively minor adaptions to action and result controls were relied upon to respond to substantial cultural and personnel control changes.
Originality/value
The contributions are threefold: the authors take a temporal perspective to (1) unpack the changes to management control arrangements; (2) theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways encompassing pace, scope and longevity of management control change and (3) contextualise management control arrangements in a hybrid work setting.
Highlights
COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.
Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.
The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.
Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.
The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.
COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.
Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.
The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.
Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.
The authors theorise the findings by developing a three-dimensional taxonomy of change pathways.
Details