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Centralised workplace and decentralised facilities management organisations combine several interacting functions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the workplace service environment from a ‘network organisation’ perspective comprising workplace knowledge‐holder roles that have both formal and informal connections. This paper proposes that the core business customers, in‐house and outsourced service providers, and the contract managers have a similar need to interact and learn from each other and presents a framework for ‘network service organisations’ to describe their changing collaborative roles. First, the customer interfaces of workplace networks are identified. Secondly, a theoretical framework for a network service organisation is presented, followed by a section on creating centres of excellence for workplace knowledge. Thirdly, a generic governance model for network collaboration is introduced. The aim of the paper is to increase knowledge about understanding and managing network relations in the new workplace environment. The paper ends with a discussion on limitations to formal cooperation and the need for further research on informal relationships within these networks.

A case study at Senate Properties, a Finnish building owner organisation, for theory building was conducted to provide significant insights into strategic planning in partnership networks with a view to developing interaction in a triadic alliance. The purpose of this paper is to describe how a Finnish building owner organisation, Senate Properties, the focal firm of the studied network, manages multi‐level interaction in the alliance network of the case study.

In this paper, the building owner's role is studied by using two network analysis studies. The emergent phase of a “triadic alliance” of service providers, building owners as contract managers, and the end‐users of services is analysed by using two separate qualitative network analysis studies.

The case study indicates that the networks of building users, owners, facilities management parties and service providers can improve their interaction and cooperation by multilevel interaction building, mutual orientation building in groups and formation of boundary‐spanning roles. We therefore present a model or a framework for interaction building in triadic networks that is derived from a knowledge base that can better explain the requirements of core businesses, key real estate and facilities services attributes and options evaluation to meet dynamic changes.

The paper suggests that organisations involved in facilities management that enter into an alliance have to communicate and proactively exchange information to strengthen the interaction and cooperation between network members. For success, each network member should share information and each must learn from the others.

The interaction approach of network analysis takes place in a new building owner centred environment. The paper argues on a general level that to understand the complicated roles within the workplace environment, it is necessary to study the interaction needs of different functions.

Centralised workplace and decentralised facilities management organisations combine several interacting functions. Different levels of a network service organisation are presented. The interacting functions are divided into three organisational levels: strategic clients, network integrators, and functional service units. The research paper demonstrates proposals, data collection plans, and relevant lines of questioning for future case studies and network analysis on the basis of the connections discovered in the pilot study environments.

Strategic, operational, and functional connections are analysed by studying formal and informal links between the managers responsible for various functions. The research was conducted with four pilot cases divided into four types of business units: a corporate headquarters (a financial services group); a large business unit/subsidiary (a telecommunications service provider); a medium business unit in the area of property management (a real estate investment company); and a small business unit (a technology park). The pilot cases function as a laboratory for the authors future case studies.

The article provides information how formal connections such as cross‐functional teams, task forces, and liaison roles create stronger ties between strategic planning and operational service delivery. The pilot study implies that without formal connections the functions of the network service organisation faces barriers to both vertical and horizontal interaction.

Regardless of the popularity of the network analysis method, the conducted pilot cases and the found connections did not explain the whole value of centralised planning and strategic interaction between different workplace and service functions.

The network analysis takes place in a new facilities management environment. The article argues on a general level that post‐modernistic organisations, such as network, boundaryless, temporary, hybrid and virtual organisations, that are fragmented and managed informally can benefit from formal control mechanisms and meetings.

This study investigates the difficulties involved in translating stakeholder expectations into action and maintaining legitimacy through the use of a performance measurement system (PMS) created in a Finnish regional development company (RDC). This longitudinal case study illustrates the fluctuating and socially constructed nature of legitimacy in the public sector.

This qualitative case study longitudinally analyzes the various developments occurring during and after the development of a PMS system for the case organization. Empirical data include interviews, workshops, observation and other materials relating to the case organization.

The initial interest in operational improvement changed to legitimation-seeking behavior by the case organization when the measures created were modified to accord with the changed preferences of the key stakeholders. However, the pursuit of legitimacy for the RDC was made difficult by the outcome-oriented, changing and contradictory nature of stakeholders’ demands. This study’s findings reveal a continuous mismatch between organizational activities and the board’s expectations, leading to the eventual closure of the organization.

The findings help to analyze the legitimacy and relevance of PMSs in public-sector projects. The study highlights the practical importance of analyzing the different legitimacy priorities of various stakeholder groups, such as politicians and entrepreneurs.

The study analyzes the fluctuating nature of legitimacy longitudinally in the public-sector context from the stakeholder perspective. This study analyzes a situation where the stakeholders’ evaluations of the legitimacy of the organization, and the PMS developed, change over time, complicating the accounting for stakeholders.

New Ways of Working (NewWoW) refers to a novel approach for improving the performance of knowledge work. The purpose of this paper is to seek innovative solutions concerning facilities, information technology tools and work practices in order to be able to “work smarter, not harder.” In order to develop work practices toward the NewWoW mode there is a need for an analytical management tool that would help assess the status of the organization’s current work practices and demonstrate the impacts of development initiatives. This paper introduces such a tool.

Constructive research approach was chosen to guide the development of the Smart ways of working (SmartWoW) tool. The tool was designed on the basis of previous knowledge work performance literature as well as on interviews in two knowledge-intensive organizations. The usefulness of the tool was verified by applying it in four organizations.

SmartWoW is a compact questionnaire tool for analyzing and measuring knowledge work at the individual level. The questionnaire consists of four areas: work environment, personal work practices, well-being at work and productivity. As SmartWoW is a standardized tool its results are comparable between organizations.

SmartWoW was designed a pragmatic managerial tool. It is considered possible that it can be valuable as a research instrument as well but the current limited amount of collected data does not yet facilitate determining its usefulness from that perspective.

This paper makes a contribution to the existing literature on knowledge work measurement and management by introducing an analytical tool which takes into account the NewWoW perspective.

This paper aims to demonstrating that the former new institutional theory of isomorphism and decoupling cannot be extended, modified or refuted as it is a closed theory. By analyzing the structure of this former version of institutional theory and its numerous modern competitors (institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work and institutional logics theories) it is argued that these alternative theories demonstrate even less explanatory and predictive power and do not refute or extend their predecessor. The rise of new organizational theories can have no other effect on classic institutional theory than to limit the domain of its applicability. In turn, there are a number of principles and conditions that future theories should meet to be accepted as progressive advancements.

The paper provides a review of relevant organizational and philosophical literature on theory construction and scientific progress in organizational research and offers a set of principles and demands for those new theories that seek to challenge new institutionalism.

The authors show that the former institutional theory satisfies two main criteria that any scientific theory should conform with following it is useful and falsifiable in term of giving explanations and predictions while, at the same time, clearly specifying what can be observed and what cannot; what can happen and what is not likely to occur. Modern institutional theories cannot demonstrate this quality and they do not satisfy these criteria. Moreover, institutional isomorphism theory is a closed theory, which means it cannot be intervened with changes and modifications and all future theories should develop their theoretical propositions for other domains of applications while they should account for all empirical phenomena that institutional theory successfully explains.

Adopting instrumental view on organizational theories allowed reconstructing the logic and trajectory of organizational research evolution and defends its rationality and progressive nature. It is also outlined how existing dominant theory should be treated and how new theories should challenge its limitations and blind spots and which philosophical and methodological criteria should be met.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the philosophical and practical compatibility of actor-network theory (ANT) and interventionist research (IVR) and search for explanations for their scant combined use. The scope of investigation is limited to accounting, management and organization studies (MOS), but the findings are believed to be applicable in other social sciences as well.

An analysis is conducted of accounting and MOS research in addition to interviewing eight accounting scholars who have applied IVR and/or ANT in their research.

A comparison of the philosophical and other features of ANT and IVR suggests that they should be relatively easily combinable in studies. Based on interview material, three types of barriers to combining ANT and IVR are identified: perceived epistemological incompatibility, fear of going native or losing neutrality and academic tribes. However, subsequent analysis indicates that none of these forms an insurmountable obstacle to the combination.

The combined application of ANT and IVR could benefit both IVR and ANT researchers in management accounting as it would enable them to conduct theoretically grounded studies on dynamic processes, such as the emergence and implementation of accounting innovations, to pose original research questions and to find new perspectives to accounting phenomena.

Employing ANT and IVR in combination could increase organizational interest in management accounting research.

The paper contributes to the discussion on the compatibility of different research approaches and highlights ways in which researchers could benefit from combining ANT and IVR.