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Article
Publication date: 19 October 2020

Anatoli Bourmistrov

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the author’s personal use of scenario planning methodology in accounting classes and how it can be useful for creating accounting…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the author’s personal use of scenario planning methodology in accounting classes and how it can be useful for creating accounting graduates who are better prepared to face greater uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on the author’s self-ethnography.

Findings

Accounting education is criticized for its inability to educate graduates capable of advising current and future business in an extremely uncertain environment. Scenario planning as a compulsory component in accounting courses can be a potential remedy.

Originality/value

The author encourages accounting educators to find an appropriate balance in their training programs between professional skills and the skills required of accounting graduates to be change agents.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Baltic Journal of Management, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5265

Article
Publication date: 6 November 2017

Anatoli Bourmistrov

The purpose of the study is to examine whether public servants as users of accounting information are responsive to changes in the content of an accounting report and, if so, how…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to examine whether public servants as users of accounting information are responsive to changes in the content of an accounting report and, if so, how responsive they are.

Design/methodology/approach

The study applies a theoretical framework, linking accounting information and accounting use by focusing on users’ “mental models”. The empirical context for the study is a municipality located in Northwest Russia. Three public servants were followed over several days for the purpose of studying their use of a formal accounting report. Later, those users were also presented with a different version of the same accounting report that was re-constructed by the researcher based on normative accounting theory. The study documents the responses of public servants and presents those in a narrative form.

Findings

The study reveals that though the original formal financial accounting report is extensively used, the public servants mostly reject the usefulness of the modified version of the report. The modified accounting report puts public servants in a “discomfort” zone, where the users’ mental models come in conflict with the information in the modified report. Following that, the study uncovers that the use of the traditional accounting report is based on three different mental models developed by users over time and guiding the use of accounting. Those mental models are described by three metaphors: “balanced matrix”, “water tank” and “fair rules”.

Originality/value

There is an unreasonable expectation that change in the public sector accounting system from cash toward accrual information will improve the quality of decision-making by public servants. The claim needs evidence that change in the accounting information supply will actually lead to change in information use. The paper demonstrates that change in use requires more substantial change in the users’ mental models. This change is difficult, time-demanding and requires the development of tailor-made training programs. The paper is also a response to van Helden’s (2016) call for more observational studies that can give a more accurate picture of use.

Details

Pacific Accounting Review, vol. 29 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0114-0582

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 April 2020

Veronika Vakulenko, Anatoli Bourmistrov and Giuseppe Grossi

The purpose of this paper is to explore inter-organizational interactions that might result in prolonged decoupling between central governments' ideas and local governments'…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore inter-organizational interactions that might result in prolonged decoupling between central governments' ideas and local governments' practices during the reform of an institutional field (i.e. healthcare).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on a qualitative study of the centrally directed reform of the healthcare financing system in Ukraine and focusses on practices and reform ideas from 1991 to 2016.

Findings

The findings show that, for more than 25 years, local governments, as providers of healthcare services, faced two major problems associated with drawbacks of the healthcare financial system: line-item budgeting and fragmentation of healthcare funds. Over 25 years, central government's attempts to reform the healthcare financing system did not comprehensively or systematically address the stated problems. The reformers' ideas seemed to focus on creating reform agendas and issuing new laws, instead of paying attention to challenges in local practices.

Practical implications

This article has two main points that are relevant for practitioners. First, it calls for greater involvement from local actors during all stages of public sector reforms, in order to ensure the relevance of developed reform strategies. Second, it points to potential challenges that central governments may face when conducting healthcare financing system reforms in transitional economies.

Originality/value

The paper's contribution is twofold: it outlines reasons for problematic implementation of healthcare financing system reform in Ukraine and explains them through a “reverse decoupling” concept.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 33 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 October 2020

Veronika Vakulenko, Igor Khodachek and Anatoli Bourmistrov

To compare Russian and Ukrainian central governments' reaction to the pandemic, reflected in extraordinary budgetary allocations and to provide our understanding of how those…

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Abstract

Purpose

To compare Russian and Ukrainian central governments' reaction to the pandemic, reflected in extraordinary budgetary allocations and to provide our understanding of how those allocations can be attributed to the two countries’ different social, economic and political contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is built on secondary data analysis over a six-month period, i.e. January–June 2020, during which the real-time events were documented in a research diary. The data sources included budgetary and other relevant legislature, official reports from international agencies, news, press conferences and videos of interviews with key stakeholders.

Findings

The findings showed that uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and the corresponding lockdown policies in Russia and Ukraine have produced two divergent patterns of budgetary allocations: step-by-step budgetary allocations in Russia vs one emergency budget decision in Ukraine.

Originality/value

The paper explains the divergence of the central governments' budgetary decisions based on the same lockdown policy, in light of the different ideological and financial legitimized action spaces that frame governmental decisions.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 32 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 May 2018

Evgenii Aleksandrov, Anatoli Bourmistrov and Giuseppe Grossi

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how participatory budgeting (PB), as a form of dialogic accounting, is produced in practice.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how participatory budgeting (PB), as a form of dialogic accounting, is produced in practice.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a qualitative case study of PB development for the period 2013-2016 in one Russian municipality. Based on triangulation of in-depth semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, videotape data and netnographic observation, the authors employ ideas of dialogic accounting and institutional work.

Findings

The study shows that the PB experiment, which began with dialogic rhetoric, in reality, had very limited dialogic effects. However, the authors also observed that the PB dynamics over time made the practice neither inherently monologic nor dialogic. The authors explained such transformations by the way in which the individual reflexivity of actors altered when carrying out institutional work. Curiosity reflexivity was the most essential, triggering different patterns of institutional work to set up the PB experiment. However, further, the authors demonstrated that, over the course of the experiment’s development, the institutional work was trapped by various actors’ individual reflexivity forms and in this way limited PB’s dialogic potential.

Originality/value

The study shows the importance of understanding and managing individuals’ reflexivity, as it shapes the institutional work performed by different actors and, therefore, influences the direction of both the design and materialization of dialogic accounting experiments such as PB. In a broader sense, this also influences the way in which democratic governance is developed, losing democratization potential.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 31 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 July 2019

June Borge Doornich, Katarina Kaarbøe and Anatoli Bourmistrov

This paper aims to explore how changes in the coercive and enabling orientations of the organizational rule system influence the attention managers pay to rules.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore how changes in the coercive and enabling orientations of the organizational rule system influence the attention managers pay to rules.

Design/methodology/approach

The findings of a case study covering a multinational energy company, which are interpreted based on insights from the coercive/enabling bureaucracy literature and the evolution of rules literature, help explain how rules can direct attention.

Findings

The findings suggest that the tensions between corporate management’s intentions for an organization’s rule system and the attention middle (country) managers pay to those rules were the main driver of dialectic changes in the rule system. The more coercive the rule system became, the more middle managers diverted their attention away from rule compliance. The paper shows how the dialect change process constituted a dynamic interaction between mindful “rule setters” and mindful “rule followers.” The alignment between intentions and attention was reestablished by better balancing the coercive and enabling orientations of the rule system: enabling better flexibility, enhancing internal transparency based on local business logic and improving global transparency through closer alignment of local and global growth and efficiency goals. Surprisingly, the repair characteristic was not as important.

Originality/value

The findings contribute to the literature by showing how the enabling and coercive characteristics of an organizational rule system constitute managerial attention artifacts. The paper demonstrates how tensions between corporate intentions and local contingencies in the context of global organizations can lead to constrictive change and create a win-win situation for both central and local actors by better balancing the coercive and enabling orientations of the rule system. It also offers new insights into the dialectic change process in an organization’s rule system based on attention view toward organizational rules.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 9 May 2022

Dan-Richard Knudsen, Anatoli Bourmistrov and Katarina Kaarbøe

Research suggests that centers of calculation, empowered by accounting inscriptions, are similar to maps: they provide a useful, albeit simplified, version of reality. The…

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Abstract

Purpose

Research suggests that centers of calculation, empowered by accounting inscriptions, are similar to maps: they provide a useful, albeit simplified, version of reality. The purposes of this paper are to examine whether and how digital platforms change the nature of centers of calculation, and to improve the understanding of the relationship between digital platforms and accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

An in-depth, single case-study design is used to empirically investigate how a Nordic hotel chain competed with global online travel agencies (OTAs) in the quest for the “new oil”—customer data.

Findings

The paper demonstrates how the case organization created a local alternative to global digital platforms with the aim of acquiring customer data, thereby moving from a center of calculation (CoC) to what authors label a “center of data appropriation” (CDA). While CoCs are guided by accounting inscriptions that enable “mapping”, CDAs are constructed around accounting inscriptions with other properties that enable digital “mirrors” of the economic domain. The authors find that this has two governing effects. First, multiple centers emerge that compete for access to the periphery. Second, future forms of competition can follow dynamic trajectories, where mutual dependence between CDAs may lead to coopetition.

Originality/value

Scholars have suggested that surveillance capitalism creates market-power imbalances. This study indicates that the transformation of local organizations into CDAs enables them to challenge global digital-platform organizations. Therefore, authors argue that local organizations may retain some market power by establishing local CDAs.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2017

Anatoli Bourmistrov and Katarina Kaarbøe

The purpose of this paper is to understand how in a situation of a crisis can Management Accounting Systems (MAS) create tensions in attention to information between top and line…

1667

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand how in a situation of a crisis can Management Accounting Systems (MAS) create tensions in attention to information between top and line managers.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on a field study.

Findings

The findings based on an attention-based view on organizations demonstrate how change to an MAS introduced to handle the crisis failed to integrate top and line managers’ attention toward the common issues. Tightening of budget control was an expected response in such a situation. However, this change produced rather the opposite result – attention to information articulated by the top and line managers became even more disintegrated. This was visible in terms of different interpretations of both the reasons and the strategy of how to get out of the crisis – this is what we call a tension in attention.

Research limitations/implications

The study is subject to the usual limitations of case-based research.

Practical implications

Implications from the study is that there is a need for caution about how managers move in the beginning of the crisis because the initial response sets a tone and trajectory of the crisis. In practice, this means that sense making processes are important in an early stage of a crisis to avoid tensions in attention between different groups in the organization.

Originality/value

The authors argued that little research has been conducted so far regarding what information managers focus their attention on in organizations under financial distress conditions. The originality is the use of an attention-based view together with organizational psychology to understand this area.

Details

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1832-5912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 May 2020

Evgenii Aleksandrov, Anatoli Bourmistrov and Giuseppe Grossi

The paper explores how the implementation of performance budgeting unfolds public managers' attention and responses to competing accountability demands over time.

1200

Abstract

Purpose

The paper explores how the implementation of performance budgeting unfolds public managers' attention and responses to competing accountability demands over time.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a longitudinal study of one Russian municipality's implementation of PB under central government pressures during 2013–2017. Using triangulation of 25 interviews, documentary analysis and field observations, we employed institutional logics to guide the study.

Findings

The paper demonstrates the dynamic properties of PB construction under competing accountability demands via the “creative distraction” metaphor. PB was a “distraction” mechanism, which, on one hand, strengthened external accountability, while, on the other, distracting the municipality from internal municipal demands. Nevertheless, this “distraction” was also “creative,” as it produced proactive responses to competing accountability demands and creative effects over time. Specifically, PB also led to elements of creative PB negotiations between departments when managers started cooperating with redirecting the irrelevant constraints of performance information in budgeting into necessary manipulations for municipal survival. The demonstrated “creative distraction” is explained by the changing institutional logics of public managers supplemented by a set of individual factors.

Originality/value

The paper responds to the recent calls to study PB practice under several accountability demands over time. In this regard, we show the value of public managers' existing institutional logics as they shape PB's capacity to balance competing accountability demands. As we revealed, this capacity can be limited, due to possible misalignment between managers' attention toward “what to give an account for” during budget formation (input orientation driven by OPA logic) and “what is demanded” with the introduction of PB (output orientation driven by NPM logic). Yet, the elements of proactive managerial responses are still evident over time, explained by a set of individual factors within the presented case, namely: learning NPM logic, strengthened informal relationships and a common saturation point reflected by managers.

Details

Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies, vol. 10 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-1168

Keywords

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