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Purpose – The controllability principle has attracted considerable attention in performance management research. Whereas this discussion hinges centrally on a conception of human motivation, findings from psychological motivation research on intrinsic motivation have not received attention yet. Addressing this research gap, this chapter analyzes the effect of perceived controllability on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and thereby on work effort.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a vignette study with undergraduate students of an accounting course in a German University in early 2009. Each participant was confronted with a written description of a hypothetical business situation (a vignette) on which the participants should base their further answers. These vignettes also contained a description of a remuneration system. Among other things, the degree of this remuneration system's controllability was varied from vignette to vignette. After reading the vignette each participant was instructed to answer some questions regarding his/her willingness to exert additional effort in the described situational context and the motivational reasons behind this willingness.

Findings – The study exhibits that a lack of perceived controllability has a negative impact on extrinsic, but also on intrinsic, motivation and thereby on work effort.

Originality – The findings put the current discussion into a broader perspective, as they suggests that adherence to the principle of controllability is not only warranted given the impact on extrinsic motivation as discussed in large parts of the literature but also for intrinsic motivation.

This paper aims to analyse how the inherent design of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) violates the controllability principle. The management control literature provides convincing examples of actors who breach controllability without intention. This discussion was extended by the example of the BSC. This paper focusses on the breaches that occur when actors lack the awareness or the skills to re-enforce controllability.

Taking a pragmatic-constructivist position, analytical and empirical evidence was included on controllability to analyse the normative literature on the BSC.

It was found that the BSC causes several unintended breaches of the controllability principle at the level of middle managers, both ex ante (control rationale) and ex post (fairness rationale). These breaches are not only situational or induced by how managers in the field design a BSC. They appear to be inherent in the BSC due to the way Kaplan and Norton have conceptualised it.

Practitioners are alerted that the intuitive appeal of popular management fashions such as the BSC covers their conceptual flaws. It was also proposed that failed implementations and dysfunctional applications can be due to the inherent characteristics of the concepts themselves.

This paper contributes by uncovering the unintended violations of the controllability principle by the inherent characteristics. The authors suggest using our conceptual contribution to conduct empirical research on the issues of controllability and management control systems in general. Thereby, the theory-based discussion on the BSC is advanced (Nørreklit, 2000, 2003; Nørreklit et al., 2012a).

This study aims to examine the mediating role of the fairness of the performance evaluation system on the association between the controllability of financial and non-financial measures and managerial performance.

Data was collected using an online survey questionnaire, with 220 responses received from middle and lower-level managers in Australian manufacturing organisations. Covariance-based structural equation modelling using software AMOS 25 was applied to analyse the data. Specifically, Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two-step approach was followed with confirmatory factor analyses first conducted to ensure that the measurement model was valid and reliable before running the structural model.

The findings reveal that the influence of managers’ controllability of performance measures on managerial performance is enacted through their perceptions of fairness. Specifically, the impact of controllability of financial (non-financial) measures on managerial performance is enacted through managers’ perceptions of distributive (interpersonal) fairness.

The empirical findings contribute to the literature investigating the empirical consequences of managers’ controllability of performance measures on performance evaluation processes, with the results revealing that the controllability of both financial and non-financial performance measures is positively associated with managerial performance via managers’ perceptions of different dimensions of fairness. Such results suggest that organisations, most of which do not prioritise the use of controllable performance measures in the design of their performance evaluation systems, need to reconsider the importance of the controllability of both financial and non-financial measures in the performance evaluation processes.

In order to analyze the level of independent controllability and its evolution of high-end equipment manufacturing industry from Jiangsu Province, this article introduces the dual-excitation control line method to construct a comprehensive evaluation model for independent controllability.

Through the collection of information of high-end equipment manufacturing industry's independent and controllable capabilities on different indicators, the three aspects of advancement, autonomy and controllability, an empirical evaluation of 10 enterprises in the high-end equipment cluster in Jiangsu Province was conducted in terms of advancement, autonomy and controllability.

It effectively reveals the area and evolution characteristics of the “reward” and “punishment” of different indicators of each representative enterprise and reflects the development status and different characteristics of each representative enterprise on the three indicators. The research results provide decision-making guidance for enterprises in the management and control of advanced manufacturing systems with independent and controllable capabilities.

Existing research focuses on the evaluation of enterprises' independent controllability only on a single angle or index. This paper maps the dynamic evaluation problem of multiple time-point data to the evaluation problem of single time-point multi-index data and investigates the fluctuation of the performance of the same enterprise under different indexes, so as to comprehensively evaluate the independent controllable level of high-end equipment manufacturing industry and analyze the reasons. Further, this paper first establishes an evaluation index system of independent controllable level of high-end equipment manufacturing industry and quantitatively measures the advanced, independent, controllable and other aspects of typical enterprises in this industry by constructing a double incentive control line evaluation model.

Blockchain technology is predicted to revolutionize the tourism and hospitality industry through peer-to-peer hotel bookings with little or no involvement of intermediaries. Outstanding features of this technology are its distributed form of storing data, its collaborative way of identifying the “true state” of a system and the immutability of data. These features may lead to a perceived loss of controllability among travelers. Based on the Agentic Theory of Human Behavior, the purpose of this study is to propose that this assumed loss of control matters more to travelers with an individualistic rather than a collectivistic predisposition.

In two studies (n = 475 and n = 196) using verbal scenarios, this study manipulates the perceived controllability of a blockchain-enabled hotel booking app by varying the number of additional services linked to the app. This study tests for the interaction of controllability with individual-level measures of individualistic versus collectivistic (I-C) predisposition.

Collectivistic travelers are more willing than individualistic travelers to use blockchain technology for their hotel bookings. This effect can be mitigated by offering additional services that give individualistic travelers an enhanced sense of “being in control”.

Blockchain-enabled applications facilitating direct hotel bookings without any additional intermediary services are more readily accepted by travelers with a collectivistic mindset. Blockchain applications addressing individualistic travelers require added services that establish a sense of controllability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the interaction of I-C predisposition with perceived controllability in tourism and hospitality. Furthermore, it is the first in the technology-acceptance literature to test this interaction using individual-level measures of I-C predisposition and an experimental manipulation of perceived controllability.

预计区块链技术将通过点对点酒店预订彻底改变旅游业和酒店业, 而中介机构很少或根本不参与。该技术的突出特点是其存储数据的分布式形式、识别系统“真实状态”的协作方式以及数据的不变性。这些特征可能会导致旅行者感觉失控。基于人类行为的代理理论, 我们提出这种假设的失控对具有个人主义而非集体主义倾向的旅行者更重要。

在两项使用口头场景的研究（n = 475 和 n = 196）中, 我们通过改变与应用程序链接的附加服务的数量来操纵支持区块链的酒店预订应用程序的感知可控性。我们测试了可控性与个人主义与集体主义 (I-C) 倾向的个体水平测量的相互作用。

集体主义旅行者比个人主义旅行者更愿意使用区块链技术进行酒店预订。这种影响可以通过提供额外的服务来减轻个人主义旅行者增强了“掌控感”。

本文首次研究了旅游和酒店业中 I-C 倾向与感知可控性的相互作用。此外, 它是技术接受文献中第一个使用 I-C 倾向的个体水平测量和感知可控性的实验操作来测试这种相互作用。

研究建议具有集体主义心态的旅行者更容易接受支持区块链的应用程序, 无需任何额外的中介服务即可直接预订酒店。针对个性化旅行者的区块链应用程序需要额外的服务来建立可控感。

区块链, 、文化, 、个人主义, 、集体主义, 、自我建构, 、技术接受, 、可控性, 、人类行为的代理理论

This study seeks to investigate the impact of firm reputation for service quality on customers' responses to service failures. Firm reputation is defined as customers' perceptions of how well a firm takes care of customers and is genuinely concerned about their welfare.

An experiment design methodology was utilized to test the conceptual model. The respondents were adult passengers waiting for flights at a major airport.

Overall, the findings revealed that excellent reputations provide firms with a “buffering effect”, insulating them from some of the negative consequences of failures. Firm reputation moderated the relationship between failure severity and satisfaction, lowered attributions of controllability and stability, and led to higher repurchase intentions following service failures. Attributions of controllability and stability were related only to repurchase intentions; satisfaction did not fully mediate these relationships.

A limitation is the use of an experimental methodology. Other methods would enhance the external validity of the findings.

The findings of this study provide compelling evidence that a firm's reputation can be one of its most important assets. Carefully building and maintaining this reputation is paramount for continued success in any industry, but especially important for service firms where failures are inevitable.

Very little research has examined the effects of firm reputation. This study contributes by testing the impact of firm reputation on customers' responses within a service failure context.

Based on appraisal theory and social response theory, this study aims to explore the mechanism of AI failure types on consumer recovery expectation from the perspective of service failure assessment and validate the moderate role of anthropomorphism level.

Three scenario-based experiments were conducted to validate the research model. First, to test the effect of robot service failure types on customer recovery expectation; second, to further test the mediating role of perceived controllability, perceived stability and perceived severity; finally, to verify the moderating effect of anthropomorphic level.

Non-functional failures reduce consumer recovery expectation compared to functional failures; perceived controllability and perceived severity play a mediating role in the impact of service failure types on recovery expectation; the influence of service failure types on perceived controllability and perceived severity is moderated by the anthropomorphism level.

The findings enrich the influence mechanism and boundary conditions of service failure types, and have implications for online enterprise follow-up service recovery and improvement of anthropomorphic design.

A new literature is emerging around the role of self‐service technologies (SSTs) such as airline ticketing machines, automatic teller machines, and computer‐based shopping services in the strategic offering of service providers. SSTs allow (or force) consumers to help produce their own service encounters via machine interaction rather than by interacting with a firm’s service personnel. Firms which introduce SSTs wish to gain rapid acceptance and usage of these technologies by potential consumers. This study investigates whether the provision of more personal control to consumers can reduce their perceived risk, enhance the perceived value of the SST, and induce greater adoption intention associated with the innovation. Propositions are tested using an experiment. Multiple analysis of covariance and follow‐up tests either fully or partially supported 11 out of 12 hypotheses. A set of managerial implications and recommendations is provided.

The authors investigate how employee social support impacts children’s perceptions of service quality of a child helpline chat service and the chatters’ immediate well-being. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to examine how action-facilitating support, nurturant support and emotional reflections influence the children and to test whether this impact varies depending upon the controllability of the issues discussed.

The authors develop hypotheses about the influence of social support and controllability on children’s perceived service quality and well-being. Chat conversations are coded on the social support given by the employee and the controllability of the issue. Questionnaires are collected to measure children’s service quality and well-being. Using structural equation modeling, hypotheses are tested with a sample of 662 children and chat conversations of a child helpline.

The study reveals that for children chatting about controllable issues, nurturant support and negative emotional reflections negatively influence the immediate well-being of these children. Positive emotional reflections positively influence immediate well-being. For children chatting about uncontrollable issues, nurturant support and negative emotional responses positively influence the perceived service quality.

This study contributes to the services marketing literature by broadening the current understanding of the impact of social support on children’s service quality perceptions and well-being, and by showing how this impact is moderated by the level of controllability of the issue discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of attributions on the efficacy of service recovery strategies in preventing customer defection following a service failure.

The empirical investigation is carried out on the retail banking industry with a final sample of 448 real cases of customer retention or defection after a service failure.

The results of the study not only highlight the relevance of intentionality as an additional factor in explaining customer defection, but also show the effects of some attributional dimensions (intentionality and controllability) on the efficacy of some recovery strategies (redress, apology and explanation) applied by companies to prevent post-complaint customer defection.

The efficacy of the recovery strategies depends on the causal attributions that the customer makes about the service failure.

This study analyzes not only the effects of traditional dimensions of attribution (stability and controllability), but also the additional effect that intentionality attributions may have on actual customer defection (not intentions). Moreover, it analyzes their effects on the effectiveness of recovery strategies in preventing customer defection. Most of these effects have never been empirically analyzed in the literature.