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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how changes in the management control systems (MCS) of post-secondary institutions (PSIs) in Western Canada can be described and explained in terms of formal and informal MCS; and whether and how changes in the MCS of PSIs in Western Canada can be described and explained in terms of an integrative contingency-based framework of MCS based on regulatory accountability systems, competitive markets and organizational culture?

The empirical research was undertaken with an exploratory mixed design. The first phase involved descriptive univariate and bivariate statistics as well as non-parametric statistics computed on data from annual reports and financial statements of 46 PSIs in Western Canada to quantitatively explore MCS. The second phase involved the grounded theory (GT) analysis of annual reports of 46 PSIs in Western Canada to qualitatively explore formal MCS in relation to changes in contingencies. The third phase involved the GT analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of senior managers from PSIs in Western Canada to qualitatively explore informal MCS in relation to formal MCS and changes in contingencies.

The research showed that emphasis on formal MCS in Western Canadian PSIs resulted in biased compliance within informal MCS. The exploratory research also demonstrated that the distinction between formal and informal MCS was better understood in a wider framing of MCS in terms of regulatory accountability systems, competitive markets and organizational culture.

This research led to the elaboration of an exploratory theoretical framework to subsume the distinction between formal and informal MCS into an integrative contingency-based framework of MCS.

This paper aim to review existing research in the management control systems field in the banking industry. It identifies gaps in the existing literature and suggests some directions for future research.

The review was carried out principally by consulting leading accounting journals, followed by other relevant journals covering all publications from the inception of the particular journal to 2010. The published articles are categorized by their research topics, theories, methodologies and settings.

The review reveals a dearth of detailed studies on management controls in the banking sector. As evident from the sizeable number of descriptive studies, most prior studies do not engage in an in‐depth inquiry into control issues of banks, and most lack clear articulation either theoretically or methodologically. It finds that currently little is known on the concerns encountered by banks and the nature of management control practices deployed.

This review is selective and, while illustrative of the state of management control research in the banking sector, does not attempt a comprehensive coverage of all research. However, it identifies gaps in the current literature and makes calls for further research on a number of management control issues in the banking industry. Further, in light of the review findings, the paper offers some lessons and insights for practicing managers.

Although some general reviews on various facets of management accounting across time have been undertaken by past researchers, industry‐based reviews have not been their focus. Through a systematic review of management control research in the banking arena, this paper shows that despite both the significant position occupied by the banking industry in nations' economies and the importance of management controls for banks, there remains a need for researchers to pay adequate attention to exploring control issues in this sector.

Since the evolution of theories of organisation in relation to environment the issue of environmental turbulence has come to dominate the literature of management. The strategists in organisations have become the repositories of this turbulence. A policy statement is defined as a statement which absorbs uncertainty, that is, states which are regarded as having a probabilistic formulation may be regarded via an interpretive policy statement as having quasi‐certainty. This protective function of policy permits parts of an organisation to operate in a regular, technically efficient fashion. In this sense all organisation boundaries are policy statements. Within the confines of ordered, stable or quasi‐stable states the disciplines of accounting and operations research may flourish. The accountants in organisations have become the repositories of this order. Accounting is a language of order, an instrument of control which is ordered, narrowly rational and reflects in the organisation that which is similar to the super‐ego. Environmental turbulence threatens chaos and chaos is the antithesis of order. The tension which is experienced in many organisations is exactly the tension between chaos and order, between the threat of being overcome and the need to maintain organisation boundaries. This tension exists in individuals and persons become established in roles which are psychologically comfortable for them (i.e. the accountant is an accountant because he is comfortable with high levels of order and stability). This paper will argue that the use of accountants and accounting as the repository of the problem of order is not accidental and that it is caused by the splitting and projection of parts of whole problems of organisation into variously attuned receptacles. Further, any attempt by accountants to break away from the role of repositories of order will be resisted by other organisational participants mainly because the anxiety associated with a contingent ‘free for all’ is unacceptable.

In the UK, management consultancy is a £2 billion per annum business sector. Major consultancy firms are global or European enterprises which match and perhaps lead the emerging global or regional nature of markets. Yet little is known about these agencies of change, these intelligence networks which have come to play such a significant, perhaps pivotal role in organizational and management development. Part I of this two‐part article presents the role of management consultancy in the context of a knowledge typology – and reports on some of the findings of a preliminary research project.

Presents the results of a first research survey of consulting firms within the United Kingdom. Examines the usefulness of knowledge typology as a way of categorizing firms and the differences, if any, between the firms. Explores the firms′ sources of knowledge, knowledge networks, transfer of knowledge or expertise, and consultant knowledge and skills. Discusses the implications of the survey and presents an agenda for action which comprises of future research into the usefulness of the typologies. Concludes by saying that a more precise instrument is needed to classify parts of organizations as well as the whole and there is a need to examine the particular problems of managing a consultancy firm.

Following on studies of the reported importance of a range of external advice and a study of the impact of marketing advice on small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) performance, this study seeks to examine the relationship between business performance (growth) and the nature and degree of a wide range of business advice used by a sample of owner/managers of SMEs in the Manchester City‐region of the UK.

The study was conducted with 140 SMEs in the Manchester City region using an administered survey instrument.

The degree of use of a range of external advice was positively related to the growth rate of the SME. In common with most previous research, the most sought‐after advisers were external accountants and network contacts. Academic advice was sought very rarely. This study extends previous research and examine the nature of the advice provided by external accountants, which was found to include business, emergency, and financial management support in addition to statutory advice. The degree of provision of this additional assistance was associated with higher growth.

The relationship of advice and growth has been examined using a survey instrument. Further research is needed to understand how advice is sought, provided and used.

Accountants, network contacts and others were significant providers of advice and, where this advice was used, then SMEs reported higher growth rates. The direction of effect is probably in favour of the value of advice, but there could be virtuous cycles of advice and growth. However, the nature and quality of advice sought, offered, understood and embedded in business practice networks and contributing to social capital require further study.

The research extends previous studies by the range of advice and the nature of advice provided by external accountants, considered in relation to firm performance.

The “risk society” presents a considerable challenge to current understanding of the question of risk and the task of organisational leadership. Beck has proposed that we, in late modernity, are moving from an industrial society to a risk society, which requires a corresponding shift from modernism to reflexive modernism. A brief discussion of the risk compensation ideas of Adams will be used to bridge to some observation about how humans approach and understand risk in our society. Four stances towards risk are used as a basis for considering the modes of leadership associated with each of them. It is argued that this provides a starting point from which leadership theory may be extended from its mainly intra organisation perspective to include critical reflexiveness in an inter‐ and extra‐organisational framing. This goes beyond social responsibility to include a critical attention to how a risk society requires leadership to be construed in institutional terms.

In the matter of food purity and control Hospital Catering Services have been outside the law, a privileged position where the general law of food and drugs have never applied and the modern regulatory control in food hygiene has similarly not applied. In the eyes of the general public hospital catering standards have always been high above the general run of food preparation. As the NHS continued, complaints began gradually to seep out of the closed community, of dirt in the kitchens and prevalent hygiene malpractices. The general standard for most hospitals remained high but there were no means of dealing with the small minority of complaints which disgusted patients and non‐cater‐ing staff, such as insect and rodent infestations, and an increase in the frequency of food poisoning outbreaks.

To examine control and accountability in an expressive organisation.

The paper was based upon a longitudinal case study of events in the Church of England from 1994 to 2001 and was based on documents, debates in the governing body, conversations and interviews and participants' observation.

As a response to a financial crisis a group of financiers from within the Evangelical theological tradition (which places stress on headship and control) proposed the creation of a new church governance body (a national council) with strongly integrated central control and severely diminished conciliar participation. This group described the complex church organisations and structures (disparagingly) as “a cats cradle of autonomous and semi autonomous organizations”. This conflicted with the values of the other covenant traditions (Anglo‐Catholic and Liberal). The new body was created, but the proposed centralised control was unraveled, the existing constitution and governance was maintained, the “cats cradle” was enriched within the ground metaphor of autonomy. The case shows how the loosely coupled nature of this expressive institution with its multiple theological (value and belief) stances and multiple organisations, relationships and accountabilities was almost impervious to the attempt to shift them into an ordered and controlled hierarchy.

The great complexity of an ancient Church constrains the researcher to a limited account.

Change in expressive organisations happens by emergent negotiation and cannot be directed because the various value positions infuse everything.

The conception of control and accountability as being constructed and reconstructed in the interplay of the constructs of covenant, constitution and contract. This theorising may have a wider application both to expressive, public institutions and private organisations.