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The purpose of this paper is to describe how first-line managers (FLMs) in home care (HC) reason about the opportunities and obstacles to lead the work according to the individual’s needs and goals.

In this participatory appreciative action reflection project, eight managers within one Swedish municipality were interviewed. The data were analysed using a thematic analysis.

The results showed a polarization between two different systems that FLMs struggle to balance when attempting to lead HC that adapts to the needs and goals of individuals. One system was represented by the possibilities of a humane system, with human capital in the form of the individual, older persons and the co-workers in HC. The second system was represented by obstacles in the form of the economic needs of the organization in which the individual receiving HC often felt forgotten. In this system, the organization’s needs and goals governed, with FLMs needing to adapt to the cost-effectiveness principle and keep a balanced budget. The managers had to balance an ethical conflict of values between the human value and needs-solidarity principles, with that of the cost-effectiveness principle.

The FLMs lack the opportunity to lead HC according to the needs and goals of the individuals receiving HC. There is a need for consensus and a value-based leadership model based on ethical principles such as the principles of human value and needs-solidarity to lead the HC according to the individual’s needs and goals.

The study aims to determine whether audited organizations experience differences between external audits and official controls.

A survey among 100 organic food producers was conducted to explore differences regarding the usability of external audits and official controls. The survey was conducted in 2020 using the computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) method supplemented by the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) method. Organizations processing organic farming products in Poland were chosen for the study.

Three primary benefits associated with external audits and official controls were identified, i.e. (1) enabling and initiating activities related to the improvement of the organization, (2) improving the financial performance of the organization and (3) enhancing credibility. For most organizations, the assessment of these features was at the same level for both external audits and official control. However, if these assessments differed, commercial audits were assessed at a higher level than official controls.

The study is limited to only one specific type of manufacturing organization and one European country.

The literature review shows some conceptual differences between audits and official controls, but the results of this study show that the business environment does not perceive these differences as significant. Thus, the value of the study is reflected in the conclusion that both external audits and official controls are considered useful and credible approaches to monitoring the quality within the organization, which allows us to state that external evaluation is generally seen as an opportunity to improve the performance of the organization.

In this paper, the authors empirically and theoretically analyze the scaling and control of talent development to highlight an important part of commercialization in football clubs, especially in the light of a growing transfer market.

Conducting a single case study of a Swedish football club, the authors adapt a view of the club as a “high-intensity” organization (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2004), one that inherently relies on strong identification of employees and the fostering of talent. This view allows us to detail the importance of both socio-ideological and technocratic forms of control involved in the talent development process.

The authors show how socio-ideological and technocratic forms of control were combined to establish the football club as a “talent factory” in the league, as well as the corresponding challenges when scaling talent development activities and how these challenges were handled. In doing so, the authors contribute to the broader accounting literature on talent- and human resource management, as the authors provide an example of how football clubs may commercialize without necessarily violating their fundamental sports values.

Talent management has mainly been studied in terms of increasing player wages and a focus on the cost of talent. As opposed to these perspectives, the authors highlight the revenue potential in developing players in the light of a growing transfer market and the relevance of talent development for the commercialization of football clubs.

The implementation of control systems allows marketing managers to improve operational decisions and organizational results. This paper aims to identify the relationship between control combinations and organizational results and analyze the relationships between the variables attributed to the marketing managers and with marketing control combinations. Decisions involving marketing control combine formal and informal mechanisms and generate control systems that have a favorable relationship with organizational results.

The paper is based on 301 cross-sectional surveys among marketing managers. The classification procedure based on metric distance was implemented to identify the marketing control combinations. A hierarchical cluster analysis was carried out with perceptions about formal and informal control, to validate the control combination classifications. Finally, a discriminant analysis and ANOVA test were carried out for exploring factors associated with the managers. The data analysis was supported by IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software.

The authors found evidence that, when managers perceive high-control systems, the perception of non-financial and financial results is always better, but the presence of high-clan control also returns optimal results. In addition, the manager's satisfaction levels and work motivation are higher with high control systems than with other control systems.

This study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a broader empirical basis to extend conceptual frameworks about marketing control combinations that emerge in practice.

企業設置營銷控制系統來進行營銷控制,這可讓市場經理能改善其營運決策和組織成果。本文擬確定控制合併與組織成果的關係;本文亦擬分析涉及市場經理的變數與營銷控制合併的關係。涉及營銷控制的決策會結合正式和非正式的機制,而這些決策會帶來與組織成果有良性關係的控制系統。

本研究乃基於對市場經理進行的301項橫斷調查。研究人員實施基於度量距離的分類程式,來確定營銷控制合併;為了證實有關的控制合併分類是正確的,研究人員就對正式控制和非正式控制的觀感和看法、進行了階層式分群法分析;最後,研究人員進行了判別分析和變異數分析 (ANOVA), 以探索與經理有關聯的因素。有關的數據分析得到IBM公司的SPSS (統計產品與服務解決方案) Statistics 24 (統計軟體) 的支持。

我們證實了、若主管感知高控制的系統,其對非財務結果和財務結果的看法必會較好的,但高社群控制亦會帶來最佳的結果。我們亦證實了高控制系統,較其它控制系統,更能提高主管的滿意程度和工作動機。

本研究提供了一個更廣闊的經驗基礎,以擴展涉及在實踐中出現的營銷控制合併的概念框架,就此,本研究豐富了這方面的知識。

Drawing insights from institutional theory, this paper aims to examine whether and to what extent banks have reconfigured their management control systems (MCSs) in response to growing institutional pressures towards sustainability, understood as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

The authors conducted an exploratory study at the three largest Italian banking groups to shed light on changes made in MCSs to account for ESG issues. The analysis is based on 12 semi-structured interviews with managers from the sustainability and controls areas, as well as from other relevant operational areas particularly concerned with the integration process of ESG issues. Additionally, secondary data sources were used. The Malmi and Brown (2008) MCS framework, consisting of a package of five types of formal and informal control mechanisms, was used to structure and analyse the empirical data.

The examined banks widely implemented numerous changes to their MCSs as a response to the heightened sustainability pressures from regulatory bodies and stakeholders. In particular, with the exception of action planning, the results show an extensive integration of ESG issues into the five control mechanisms of Malmi and Brown’s framework, namely, long-term planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and cultural controls.

By identifying the approaches banks followed in reconfiguring traditional MCSs, this research sheds light on how adequate MCSs can promote banks’ “sustainable behaviours”. The results can, thus, contribute to defining best practices on how MCSs can be redesigned to support the integration of ESG issues into the banks’ way of doing business.

Overall, the findings support the theoretical assertion that institutional pressures influence the design of banks’ MCSs, and that both formal and informal controls are necessary to ensure a real engagement towards sustainability. More specifically, this study reveals that MCSs, by encompassing both formal and informal controls, are central to enabling banks to appropriately understand, plan and control the transition towards business models fully oriented to the integration of ESG issues. Thereby, this allows banks to effectively respond to the increased stakeholder demands around ESG concerns.

In developing countries, how risk management technologies influence management accounting and control (MAC) practices is under-researched. By drawing on insights from institutional studies, this study aims to examine the multiple institutional pressures surrounding an entity and influencing its risk-based management control (RBC) system – that is, how RBC appears in an emerging market attributed to institutional multiplicity.

The authors used qualitative case study research methods to collect empirical evidence from a privately owned Egyptian insurance company.

The authors observed that in the transformation to risk-based controls, especially in socio-political settings such as Egypt, changes in MAC systems were consistent with the shifts in the institutional context. Along with changes in the institutional environment, the case company sought to configure its MAC system to be more risk-based to achieve its strategic goals effectively and maintain its sustainability.

This research provides a fuller view of risk-based management controls based on the social, professional and political perspectives central to the examined institutional environment. Moreover, unlike early studies that reported resistance to RBC, this case reveals the institutional dynamics contributing to the successful implementation of RBC in an emerging market.

This paper explores the role that the control system – understood as a set of financial and non-financial mechanisms – introduced by the Ministerial Decree of 15th February 1860 played in promoting the ethical tolerance of prostitution in the Kingdom of Italy.

A qualitative research method was adopted. Specifically, this study draws on literature on accounting and deviant behaviors and on Suchman's theories of legitimation (1995) to interpret empirical evidence collected from archival primary sources as well as secondary sources.

The paper highlights how the accounting mechanisms introduced by the law were molded to limit the serious consequences of prostitution from a public health standpoint and to demonstrate that the State neither profited from prostitution nor used public money to fund it. This should have stimulated ethical tolerance of the law itself and, consequently, of the prostitution that was regulated.

This paper opens a new research avenue in the field of accounting history by exploring the connection between accounting and prostitution. Moreover, unlike the extant literature on accounting and deviant behaviors, this study delves into the role played by accounting mechanisms to promote ethical tolerance rather than to activate normalization processes.

This research aims to examine and understand the rationales and modalities behind the use of disclosure before, during and after a corporate governance scandal involving CPA Australia (CPAA).

Data beyond CPAA's annual reports were collected, such as news articles, media releases, an independent review panel (IRP) report, and the Chief Operating Officer's letter to members. These disclosures were manually coded and analysed through the word counts and word trees in NVivo. This study also relied on Norbert Elias' conceptual tool of power games among networks of actors – figurations – to model the scandal as a power game between the old Board, the press, concerned members, the IRP and the new Board. This study analysed the data to reveal a collective and in fieri power balance that changed with the phases of the scandal.

A mix of voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures was important in triggering, managing and ending the CPAA scandal. Moreover, communication and disclosure fulfilled a constitutive role since both: mobilised actors, enabled coordination among actors, contributed to pursuing shared goals and influenced power balances. Such a constitutive role was at the heart of the ability of coalitions of figurations to challenge and restore the powerful status quo.

This research introduces to accounting studies the collective and in fieri dimensions of power from figurational theory. Moreover, the research sheds new light on using voluntary, involuntary, requested and absent disclosures before, during and after a corporate crisis.

This study aims to fill the research gap regarding the usability of group reporting information in the central government. It answers the question of how the consolidated information should be formed to benefit the real needs of governmental information users.

The empirical research is based on a survey and interviews among key internal preparers and users in the central government sector in the case country, Finland.

Results show that the private sector approach regarding consolidation is not appropriately transferable to the central government sector. The key stakeholders identified several economic and financial reporting needs that exceed what formal Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS) can offer. Consolidation is needed but not according to the extensive full control approach, but rather following the budgetary approach consolidating units of the legal person of the government, and further using the partial control approach for consolidating by discretion essential special purpose SOEs.

Respondents and interviewees represented governmental internal organisations, free experts, auditors and financial managers from the group entities. Politicians and citizens were not directly represented.

Research gives applicable insights into central governments planning and developing group reporting for information needs in a favourable cost-benefit ratio. Findings benefit the development of EU's EPSAS (European Public Sector Accounting Standards) project which is still incomplete.

Research recommends governments to make a thorough analysis before deciding on a new financial reporting system. A critical analysis prevents governments to waste money and resources on a reporting system not fulfilling the real needs of information users.

The value of this research is that the private sector approach in consolidation was not taken as granted. This study investigated critically and empirically the real need for consolidated information serving steering and overseeing purposes of the government's group entities.

The primary objective of this research is to chronicle how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other United States Federal Government Agencies (USFGA) agencies have played a role in shaping the trajectory of financial reporting for sustainability, with a particular emphasis on triple bottom line (TBL). This exploration extends to other indexes reporting sustainability data encompassed within financial, social and environmental reporting.

This study adopts an illustrative methodology, utilizing data sourced from governmental, business and international organizational documents.

Sustainability accounting predominantly finds its place within the framework of TBL. However, it is crucial to note that sustainability reporting remains voluntary rather than mandatory. Nevertheless, accounting firms and professional accounting societies have embraced it as a supplementary facet of financial accounting reporting.

The research highlights the historical evolution of sustainability within the USFGA and corporate entities. Corporations’ interest in accounting for sustainability performances has significantly contributed to the emergence of voluntary sustainability accounting rules, as embodied by the TBL.