Search results

This paper aims to explore governance committee’s attributes in terms of composition, roles/duties and responsibilities and operations.

Information on the governance committee and the board in general was collected from the websites of 167 Canadian firms. Financial data were collected from the Sedar database.

Results uncover two patterns of governance committee attributes (composition, roles and operations), resulting in our characterization of governance committees as “less active” and “more active.” In light of additional analyses, the two groups also differ in terms of antecedents and impact.

This study can help board members to enhance board effectiveness by describing governance committee attributes and identifying contextual factors that could lead to a more active governance committee. In addition, it suggests that such committee can improve financial performance.

This empirical research focuses on the governance committee, a largely unexplored primary board oversight committee. An index comprising 19 duties and responsibilities performed by the governance committee was developed.

The aim of this longitudinal study is to quantitatively examine the impact of changes in the mix of eco-controls. More specifically, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, it investigates the nature of change occurring in eco-controls by analyzing three attributes of change, namely, direction of change, scope of change and scale of change. Second, this study investigates the impact of changes in eco-controls by examining to what extent the three attributes of change specifically explain environmental performance.

Longitudinal survey approach is used to collect data from a sample of manufacturing firms at two points in time.

The results suggest three main conclusions: changes leading to more (less) importance devoted to eco-controls within the organization contribute positively (negatively) to environmental performance; concerted changes on all aspects of the mix of eco-controls contribute more to environmental performance than piecemeal changes on specific aspects of the mix; and the aspect which contributes to environmental performance is not the scale of that change but the mere presence of a credible signal which reflects the seriousness of the intentions.

This paper contributes to management accounting change literature by breaking down the nature of change of management control practices in attributes (direction, scope and scale) and examining their specific impact on performance.

This study aims to provide an integrated view of performance measurement systems (PMS) by developing a taxonomy reflecting the interdependencies among various PMS aspects. This study aims to move the study of PMS from a cartesian form of contingency fit to a configuration form. More specifically, the following research question is investigated in this study: To what extent do similar patterns across various dimensions of PMS occur with regularity? Using a survey approach to collect data from a sample of manufacturing firms, this study aims to develop a taxonomy based on three aspects of the PMS process, namely the design (i.e., the mix of financial, customer, internal processes, innovation and learning measures), the use (i.e., monitoring, strategic decision-making, attention-focusing, legitimization), and the revision (i.e., the addition, deletion, and changes in performance indicators). Three patterns of relationships reflecting the role and importance of PMS within the organization emerge: (a) PMS as an outcomes surveillance mechanism, (b) PMS as a management support tool, and (c) PMS as an institutionalized organizational process. This study contributes to the management accounting literature by providing a different understanding of the various levels of integration of PMS within organizational routines.

The aim of this paper is to bridge the gap between the organizational effectiveness (OE) models developed in the field of organizational theory and the performance measurement models presented within the management accounting literature. The specific evolution of these two complementary streams of research stemming from two different fields of research are reconciled and integrated by analyzing their convergences and divergences. As a response to theoretical and practical pressures, the evolution of OE models reflects a construct perspective, while the evolution of performance measurement models mirrors a process perspective. Performance measurement models have moved from a cybernetic view whereby performance measurement was based mainly on financial measures and considered as a component of the planning and control cycle to a holistic view based on multiple nonfinancial measures where performance measurement acts as an independent process included in a broader set of activities. This paper contributes to the performance measurement literature by establishing the origins of the performance measurement models and by shedding light on unexplored fertile areas of future research.

While the idea of control packages goes back to the early 1980s, empirical management accounting researchers have been reluctant to examine this broader view of management control. Past research has addressed the use of management control for the organization as a whole, as well as for specific objects of control. While those objects of control typically involve information available for internal uses, we do not know much about the role of management control when the object of control is comprised of information intended to be disclosed outside the organization. This study aims to examine the role of a control package to manage web-based corporate reporting. More specifically, this study aims to examine the antecedents and consequences of a management control package related to web site content. The results suggest that perceived environmental uncertainty and stakeholder orientation are key factors that influence the extent of use of the management control package. Moreover, the extent of use of a management control package is associated with the quality of web site content but not the quantity of information disclosed.

This paper analyzes citations from the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using Google Scholar in April and May, 2013.

This study assesses the success of the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using citation analysis. Four citation metrics are used. The four citation metrics are: (1) total citations since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (2) citations per author since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (3) citations per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013, and (4) citations per author per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013.

The top 20 authors for each citation metric, the top 20 faculties for each citation metric, and the top 20 doctoral programs for each citation metric are determined. Furthermore, the top 20 articles are determined using two citation metrics and the H-index for Advances in Management Accounting is computed.

Potential doctoral students, current doctoral students, “new” Ph.D.s with an interest in management accounting, current management accounting faculty, department chairs, deans, other administrators, journal editors, and journal publishers will find these results informative.

This study examines the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. Meaningful work is an important driver of individual performance of managers, and employees and can be enabled by sufficient use of management controls. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

Based on bibliometric analyses and a structured literature review of academic research studies from the organizational, management and accounting literature, the authors develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work.

First, the authors propose that the use of formal management controls in a system (i.e. the levers of the control framework) is more powerful than using unrelated formal controls only. Second, they suggest that the interaction of a formal control system together with informal controls working as a control package can even stretch the perception of meaningful work. Third, they argue that the intensity of the control use matters to enhance the perception of meaningful work (inverted u-shaped relationship).

This study presents the first conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. It provides valuable implications for practice and future research in the field of performance management.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between language, thinking and society for explaining the degree of visibility of the French organizational studies (OS) production.

This paper proposes a sociological analysis based on Bourdieu field to understand the variation of reception the French OS production have had among the Anglo-Saxon field. The paper aims to underline some key elements, which can explain the differences of reception experienced by the French OS scientists. The paper opted for a general review using historical data; reviews of OS literature; and Google scholar, Web of Science and major OS Journal data.

The paper provides some evidence about how the degree of visibility of the French OS production is related to translation, cognitive and social resonance, producer place in the scientific network and relationship between the fields. It suggests that the degree of visibility is the result of a complex set of socio-cognitive schemes, social issues raised by the scholar and the place occupied by the researcher in the field.

The paper brings interesting ideas concerning the international development of the OS field, the degree of visibility of diverse contributions coming from non-English speaking researchers, notably the French ones, and how the dialogue between different linguistic and social universes can be ameliorated.

This paper aims to study the informational dynamics that take place between a firm and its stakeholders with respect to corporate environmental management.

The analysis is based on a case study contrasting environmental information reported by the case firm with environmental information about the firm disclosed by four stakeholder groups or their representatives (governments, the community, environmental non-governmental organizations and investors) over three years. The information flow of disclosure is also considered.

The results suggest that the informational dynamics are composed of multiple related patterns. The patterns range from correspondence between disclosures to stakeholders complementing or contradicting corporate disclosures. Different patterns are associated with different levels of interactions from stakeholders, who are most involved when they combine disclosure patterns around key environmental issues for the forest industry. Limited interactions are observed from the firm, suggesting a symbolic engagement within the dynamics and a strategic accountability approach.

Limitations are found in the focus on disclosure outlets without examination of their production and reception, and in the inherent nature of the documents collected to represent each perspective. Some stakeholder groups were excluded from the study due to data unavailability.

This paper offers an in-depth analysis of firm-stakeholders interactions with respect to environmental reporting and maps the information flow of their disclosure.

This study aims to examine how the effect of host country formal institutional uncertainty on the percentage of equity sought in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) is moderated by the host country industry (i.e. targets from the technology versus those from the non-technology industry).

This study is based upon the legitimacy perspective of institutional theory and uses Tobit regression analysis on a sample of 1,340 CBAs.

Results show that cross-border acquirers prefer a lower equity level for targets in institutionally less developed countries and that this negative effect of the host country institutional risk on the equity percentage sought is more pronounced for technology-based targets.

Three major limitations of the study are as follows: The data were collected from only Japanese acquirers. The study measured formal institutional uncertainty by applying only secondary data. The study used the Bloomberg Industry Classification Systems, instead of the Standard Industry Classification that has been used widely in prior studies.

This study shows that the industry selected has a bearing on equity sought in CBAs. Investing in institutionally less developed countries is particularly challenging when the targets of acquisition are in the technology industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the moderating effects of an industry on the relationship between host country formal institutional uncertainty and the percentage of equity sought in CBAs.