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This paper aims to analyse the extent to which health and safety action controls, results controls and informal controls affect the integration of health and safety issues into management actions, which in turn leads to improve health and safety performance. It also investigates the extent to which those health and safety control mechanisms contribute complementarily to the integration of health and safety issues.

A survey of 108 Italian non-listed firms tests a set of hypotheses based on complementarity theory and object of control framework.

Not all the health and safety control mechanisms positively influence the integration of health and safety issues into business practices and external stakeholder relations. Complementarity between health and safety control mechanisms is significant only for higher health and safety performance companies, indicating that the health and safety control mechanisms operate as a package.

The health and safety performance measure could be replaced in future research by improved inter-subjectively testable information, although collecting health and safety quantitative data is difficult. An additional limitation is the response rate.

The findings encourage companies to design and use a comprehensive set of health and safety control mechanisms to promote a healthy workplace.

The paper contributes to the management control, sustainability management control and health and safety accounting literature. The paper provides an in-depth interdisciplinary analysis of the effectiveness of different control mechanisms in the context of health and safety that hitherto has rarely been investigated despite the multiple importance of the topic.

The purpose of this paper is to study management control mechanisms (social, behavioral, and output control mechanisms) and their complementary effects on firm performance in lean manufacturing firms.

The study uses second-order structural equation modeling to analyze survey data from 368 different lean manufacturing facilities.

The paper finds that the complementary effects of management control mechanisms in lean manufacturing firms outweigh their additive effects on firm performance.

Applying isolated lean management control mechanisms leads to inferior performance, as these management control mechanisms are complementary. Thus, to realize the full potential of lean manufacturing, this paper suggests that lean management control mechanisms should be implemented as an integrated control system.

Firms seeking to benefit from the implementation of lean manufacturing should understand the complementarity among the management control mechanisms, as the performance effects of lean management control mechanisms when applied together are greater than their isolated additive effects.

This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence of the superior firm performance effects of complementary lean management control mechanisms compared with their additive effects. This paper also expands the understanding of how to conceptualize lean management control mechanisms. Specifically, this is the first paper to distinguish between social cultural control and social visual control mechanisms as well as between non-financial and financial control mechanisms. This paper is also the first to use a second-order structural equation model to properly test and account for the complementary effects on firm performance that stem from multiple control mechanisms.

In this chapter, the authors argue that organizational controls are best depicted and studied as sets of control configurations. Concepts from extant control research streams describing basic control elements as well as ideal types of control systems are used to identify and classify control configurations. The authors present compositional distinctions among four control configurations using a decade-long case study of a start-up company. By displaying how specific control elements are simultaneously distinct and intertwined in this company, the authors reveal significant theoretical insights that can assist scholars in distinguishing between different configurational patterns and in comprehending dynamics present in holistic perspectives of control. The authors conclude by discussing how conceptualizing controls as configurations most accurately reflects both organizational and managerial practice in ways that can motivate the development of new theories and approaches to studying this key aspect of organizational design. Because control configurations inherently reflect interdisciplinary concerns, and because such configurations affect the attainment of strategic goals, this work provides findings and ideas that fit the interests of a broad audience.

This article examines the power of management control mechanisms as “inscriptions” for bringing the interests of organisations within a purchaser–provider network into alignment.

The study contributes to accounting and accountability literature in hybrid organisations by applying actor-network theory to a case study organisation. This enables an analysis of how a government agency, operating as a social service provider to the community, developed and used management control mechanisms in its intra-organisational units to ensure its operations were aligned with the expectations of inter-organisational networks in a purchaser–provider context. Data were collected using open-ended interviews and by examining internal accounting and management reports, government archival records and newspaper articles.

Analysis of the results demonstrates that inter-organisational network control was internalised within the provider organisation because of the ability of the controls to function as inscriptions that influenced organisational actions. The authors conclude that the network control travelled across boundaries over time and was assimilated by the provider organisation to become its internal management control mechanisms.

A single case study of a government service provider agency may limit the generalisation of the findings to other hybrid entities or networks. The significant practical essence of this study lies in the diversity within the results that offer a rich representation of the impact of purchaser–provider arrangements on internal organisational systems within a hybrid public sector setting.

The outcomes enhance knowledge of how a hybrid government agency developed, mobilised and institutionalised its management control mechanisms to ensure the activities of one party are consistent with the other parties' expectations within a network.

Purpose – This study focuses on the relationship between local governments and public sector joint ventures (JVs). Public sector JVs are separate administrative entities that undertake public service activities on behalf of local governments. The aim of this study is to examine the vertical management control packages that are used by local governments to control the relationship with their public sector JVs.

Design/methodology/approach – Two case studies have been conducted in two public sector JVs, owned jointly by more than 20 local governments. The analysis of the two cases is informed by an integrated conceptual framework describing how transactional and relational factors influence control, trust, and risk in the context of public sector JVs.

Findings – The case studies provide a nuanced understanding of the interplay between the vertical management control packages, trust between the parents and the public sector JVs, and risks as perceived by the local governments. The case findings not only reveal how local governments struggle with adequate outcome control but also highlight how and why they rely on behavioral control. A related finding is that while the probability of poor business performance does not have a significant impact on the design of the vertical control packages, the social impact of failure has the potential to create a sense of urgency with regard to changes in the design of vertical management control packages.

Originality/value – This study adds to the literature on interorganizational relationships by providing insight into the use of vertical management control packages in the specific, but relevant, setting of public sector JVs.

Explores the relationship between the firm characteristics and the control mechanisms in 85 multinational manufacturing companies operating in Turkey. Takes size, age and country of origin as firm characteristics. Control mechanisms include ownership, board of directors, top management team and training. Size is more strongly associated with control mechanisms than age or country of origin. MNCs have majority ownership in nearly 70 per cent of the firms. Size is inversely related to ownership. Large MNCs have training programmes when small ones do not. Ownership significantly influences the composition of board of directors. The level of perceived control is related to the amount of ownership.

While previous studies have focused on identifying management control (MC) mechanisms in international construction joint ventures (ICJVs), the impacts of such MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs remain largely unknown. This study aims to investigate the impacts of MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs hosted in the developing country of Ghana.

Through a comprehensive review of the literature, a theoretical model was developed, and data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 190 project managers composed of Ghanaians/locals and their foreign partners of ICJVs. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

Results showed that both personnel and support and training control mechanisms have a positive and significant impact on project and company/partner performance. Surprisingly, insignificant and negative impacts exist between both mechanisms and socioenvironmental and company/partner performance from the local partners' view, respectively; the reverse is rather true from the foreign partners' perspective.

This study contributes to the ICJV body of knowledge by analyzing the impacts of MC mechanisms on the ICJVs’ performance, enabling ICJVs frontliners (i.e. top managers) and project managers to better enhance their control structures and the ICJVs’ performance.

This is arguably the first study to take the bipartite perspective rather than the unilateral view of studying the impacts of MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs.

As public organizations strive for higher e‐government maturity, information technology (IT) Project Portfolio Management (IT PPM) has become a high priority issue. Assuming control is central in IT PPM, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how a Danish local government conducts control in IT PPM. The authors identify control problems and formulate recommendations to address these.

Adopting principles from Engaged Scholarship, the authors have conducted a case study using a wide variety of data collection methods, including 29 interviews, one workshop, and analyses of documents.

It is found that the local government relies vastly on informal control mechanisms and five control problems are identified: weak accountability processes between the political and administrative level; weak accountability between the director level and the IT executives; IT projects established on the basis of incomplete information about internal resources; lack of operational goals to hold IT projects accountable; and no account of actual IT project costs. The authors propose a model for highlighting how more formal control can be implemented and address the identified control problems.

As a single qualitative case study, the results are limited to one organization and subject.

The paper has implications for IT PPM in Danish local governments and similar organizations in other countries. The paper shows that the lack of formal control mechanisms makes accountability between hierarchical levels difficult, which deprives organizations of the opportunity to pursue and display unambiguous value from their e‐government initiatives.

This paper fulfills an identified need to understand how local governments can improve IT PPM.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt “whole network” perspective and analyzes the governance and control mechanisms in the Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the oldest and largest inter-governmental networks, through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. The purpose is to introduce a typology of network governance forms to the accounting literature and to analyze the governance and management control mechanisms within the UPU, a “participatory federation” (Provan, 1983) type of network that has managed the challenges of collective collaboration since 1875.

The study benefits from unlimited access to all archival materials of the UPU such as minutes of Congress and committee meetings since 1875 as well as secondary documents and market studies related to the postal sector. The data reported in this study are derived from the archives of the UPU in Berne, Switzerland and interviews conducted with senior officials.

Drawing on the work of Provan (1983) and Provan and Kenis (2008) the authors identify five “ideal type” network governance forms based on such variables as differences in the relative power of network participants and whether these networks have arisen spontaneously or due to external coercion, the authors classify the UPU as a “participatory federation.” Within the theoretical boundaries of this typology the authors identify the multi level governance structures and the use of management control mechanisms by each level of governance. The authors introduce a distinction between the “network constitutional organization” that focusses on the socialization of network members and strategy-level orchestration of the overall network and the “network administrative organization” (NAO) that mobilizes management accounting and control mechanisms to monitor, encourage and facilitate member collaboration. The authors propose that control within a participatory federation is enacted through collective entrepreneurship by governance bodies using management accounting and control mechanisms as institutional carriers.

The paper is focussed on the current state of the UPU’s network structure and processes and did not explore the dynamics around the emergence of the different network governance and control mechanisms. An exploration of the collective construction by network participants of the need for these mechanisms would provide insights into how they emerge and might lead to a better understanding of the role of NAOs in networks.

The paper highlights the challenges faced by collaborative networks and identifies enabling characteristics of a participatory federation’s governance bodies. The empirical observations within the context of the UPU contribute to the theoretical understanding of the desirable characteristics of participatory federations that might be applicable to similar public and private collaborative networks

This study expands the knowledge of management accounting and control systems in networks. It bridges a gap in the accounting literature by adopting a “whole network” perspective and by differentiating types of network governance structures that use management accounting and control systems. This contributes to the understanding of accounting and control across the full range of organizational forms.