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This paper aims to advance understanding of the role of informal controls for governing day-to-day interactions in the execution phase of interfirm collaborations. It explores the nature of these informal controls and how they are used by the firm’s partners during this phase.

In-depth case study of a lateral relationship between a car manufacturer and its suppliers, based on interviews, observations and archival material, and using concepts from the field of psychology.

The results reveal an interfirm collaboration in which the supplier, in particular, relies on so-called informal interpersonal controls for micro-contracting and solving the control problems of its day-to-day interactions. Specifically, the study finds that the collaboration partners rely on interpersonal influence tactics for influencing behavior, coordinating the activities of the collaboration partners, and mitigating collaborative risks. Depending on the specific individual, in terms of, for example, their “mood”, and the contingencies of the explicit interaction, such as contradicting flanking contractual agreements, the actors engage in different activities, including ingratiation, pressure or rational persuasion.

This study illuminates the role of informal controls in interfirm settings by distinguishing analytically between interpersonal and interorganizational informal controls. By mobilizing the psychological concepts of interpersonal influence tactics, the extant research in this field is complemented through the illustration of how the actors use informal control mechanisms, depending on their corresponding counterpart, and the specific situation of the interaction. The findings thereby highlight the situated nature of governance, suggesting that governance between collaboration partners is not a static condition, rather an ongoing process in which the actors use, and alternate between, distinct tactics in their daily interactions.

This study investigates in depth how decision-making of different organisational members is shaped by various management control systems (MCSs) that reflect different institutional logics, how the entire organisation deals with the arising institutional complexity and which role different management controls as a system play in such situations.

A case study was conducted on a German Mittelstand firm whose MCSs were shaped by three different logics over time: a family logic, a stakeholder logic and a shareholder logic.

This paper shows how different actors of an organisation confronted with institutional complexity used selective coupling of different MCS components and compartmentalizing MCS components to deal with clashing institutional logics. Thereby, it was possible for the actors to balance different sub-communities within the firm that were shaped by conflicting but yet complementary logics that were required for organisational survival.

This study contributes to the understanding of how an MCS can be exploited for organisational structural responses to multiple logics. Due to this research design, the present study deals with challenges of ex post rationalization.

The results show options for organisational leaders to deal with different kind of worldviews (i.e. logics) that shape employees’ behaviour. Particularly, this paper explains how leaders can restructure their MCSs to influence human behaviour in times of radical change.

This paper contributes to the literature on MCSs by showing what role MCSs play in structural responses to institutional complexity.

This study aims to consider how emerging management control systems (MCS) form the MCS package of start‐up firms. Based on institutional theory, the authors aim to better understand reasons for introducing MCS and the reciprocity between the parts of the firm's overall MCS package.

The authors apply a qualitative cross‐sectional field study approach involving 74 interviews with key stakeholders in 20 young start‐up firms with venture capital financing. Interview data are fully transcribed, analysed, checked, and triangulated.

The results uncover the main constituents of start‐up firms in three different institutional fields (nascent, start‐up, post start‐up), which substantially impact on the introduction of new MCS and the subsequent MCS packages. The introduction of formal MCS seems to be divided into different phases.

This study is subject to the limitations of case‐based research. Moreover, the theoretical underpinning of institutional theory potentially underestimates the influence of agency on social behaviour and structures.

The study highlights the major drivers of establishing a set of control systems through which the interests of different stakeholders are aligned. A multitude of concrete examples of managing controls are given, including reasons for their introduction and their effects.

This paper sheds light on the introduction of MCS in young firms. This complements prior research, which has almost exclusively focused on MCS in more mature and established firms. Moreover, the authors deepen prior insights that are primarily focused on isolated formal components of MCS, by understanding MCS as a package.

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.

Adopting an exploratory qualitative research design, the authors draw on 42 interviews with directors and associates in the Big 4 professional services firms.

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.

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.

1. COVID-19 has forced Big 4 firms to challenge existing management control arrangements.

2. Literature has focused on traditional, onsite work settings and largely ignored change pathways.

3. The authors take a temporal perspective to unpack changes to management control arrangements.

4. Big 4 firms adapted to hybrid work with substantial changes to personnel and cultural controls.

5. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Attempts to consider how a founder has reduced equivocality in relation to support networks and reducing risks, especially in an international environment. Presents the case studies of five Danish and Australian born global companies. Considers different global models and their limitations. Presents the findings of recent surveys in this area. Concludes that internationalization has not been the primary objective in the founding process and gives direction for further research.

Preparing future elementary teachers to connect social studies content and skills with technology necessitates the integration of technology into teacher preparation methods courses. Such integration hinges on the identification of pre-service teachers’ level of Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK). These three knowledge areas help shape smart uses for educational technology beyond entertainment that utilize technology in educationally profitable ways. The TPACK model is useful for identifying the knowledge required by pre-service teachers for the purpose of wedding instructional technology to social studies content and instruction. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to describe and to analyze the integration of an instructional technology lesson in an elementary social studies methods course in a large Midwestern university. The study, specifically, describes and reports on 25 pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the utilization of a social studies software technology called Timeliner. The study reports on the level of TPACK awareness of the study’s pre-service teachers and offers implications related to instructional technology integration in elementary social studies methods courses.

The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of uncaptured sustainable value and strategies to generate opportunities to capture it in the circular supply chain of post-consumer used clothing.

This study is based on an inductive analysis of 21 semi-structured interviews conducted with various stakeholders in the circular clothing supply chain (for-profit and not-for-profit) using the value mapping approach, as previously applied in the literature on sustainable business models.

Fifteen antecedents of uncaptured sustainable value, and thirteen value opportunity strategies were revealed that hinder or generate multi-dimensional value types. Economic value is impacted the most, while there is lack of explicit understanding of the impact of these antecedents and strategies on environmental and social value capture. From a multi-stakeholder perspective, the ecosystem is emerging as new for-profit actors are developing novel process technologies, while not-for-profit actors are consolidating their positions by offering new service options. There is also an emerging “coopetition” between the different stakeholders.

More granularity in the different types of uncaptured value could be considered, and external supply chain stakeholders, such as the government, could be included, leading to more detailed value mapping.

This research provides practitioners with a value-mapping tool in circular clothing supply chains, thus providing a structured approach to explore, analyse and understand uncaptured value and value opportunities.

This extended value perspective draws upon the value-mapping approach from the sustainable business model literature and applies it in the context of the circular clothing supply chain. In doing so, this research illustrates circular clothing supply chains in a new way that facilitates an improved understanding of multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder value for embedded actors.