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This paper aims to report on a survey of medium and large Irish firms to ascertain reasons for not changing to more advanced costing techniques, namely, activity-based costing (ABC). Developments in technology and recent poor economic conditions would suggest that the technique could be adopted more by firms, as they make increased efforts to keep costs under control.

A survey instrument was used to gather data drawing from the top 1,000 Irish firms. From a useable population of 821 organisations, a response rate of 20.75 per cent was achieved.

Findings show a rate of adoption of ABC of 18.7 per cent, which is lower than previous studies in an Irish context. The level of information technology in firms is not a key factor for non-adoption. Instead, the main reasoning for non-adoption revolve around stable existing costing methods, which firms expressed satisfaction with.

This research suggests the adoption of ABC is not necessarily driven by external factors such as technology and economic shocks, at least in the context of Ireland. It also suggests that costing techniques may be deeply embedded within organisations and are less likely to be subject to change.

The purpose of this paper is to longitudinally analyse the evolution of multiple narrative textual characteristics in the chairman’s statements of Guinness from 1948 to 1996, with the aim of studying impression management influences. It attempts to contribute insights on impression management over time.

The paper attempts to contribute to external accounting communication literature, by building on the socio-psychological tradition within the functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective. The paper analyses multiple textual characteristics (positive, negative, tentative, future and external references, length, numeric references and first person pronouns) over 49 years and their potential relationship to profitability. Other possible disclosure drivers are also controlled.

The findings show that Guinness consistently used qualitative textual characteristics with a self-serving bias, but did not use those with a more quantitative character. Continual profits achieved by the company, and the high corporate/personal reputation of the company/chairpersons, inter alia, may well explain limited evidence of impression management associated with quantitative textual characteristics. The context appears related to the evolution of the broad communication pattern.

Impression management is likely to be present in some form in corporate disclosures of most companies, not only those companies with losses. If successful, financial reporting quality may be undermined and capital misallocations may result. Companies with a high public exposure such as those with a high reputation or profitability may use impression management in a different way.

Studies analysing multiple textual characteristics in corporate narratives tend to focus on different companies in a single year, or in two consecutive years. This study analyses multiple textual characteristics over many consecutive years. It also gives an original historical perspective, by studying how impression management relates to its context, as demonstrated by a unique data set. In addition, by using the same company, the possibility that different corporate characteristics between companies will affect results is removed. Moreover, Guinness, a well-known international company, was somewhat unique as it achieved continual profits.

Interpretive research in management accounting and control provides rich insights from empirically based studies, but it has been criticised for lacking generalisability and potential subjectivity. On the latter, triangulation is useful, and this paper aims to offer some insights on a triangulation technique thus far not commonly reported in management accounting/control research.

Drawing on a study of the roles of management accountants in performance management systems, this paper offers some insights from empirical experiences on the use of concept maps as a tool to assist triangulation and improve understanding of complex empirical phenomena.

The concept maps as utilised revealed additional insights which were not recounted by interviewees during the normal interview time. This is a potentially important finding for consideration of future researchers.

In this paper, how concept maps were used is detailed, and it is hoped that future researchers will find their use beneficial in interview settings.

Thus far, concept maps seem under-utilised in management accounting and control research. This paper gives some initial insights on how they may be used in case study settings.

This paper aims to explore the increasing role of financialisation on investment decisions in the power generation industry in Great Britain (GB). Such decisions affect society, and the relative role of financialisation in these macro-levels decisions has not been explored from a historical perspective.

The paper draws on historical material and interview data. Specifically, we use an approach inspired by institutional sociology drawing on elements of Scott’s (2014) pillars of institutions. Applying concepts stemming from regulative and normative pressures, we explore changes in investments over the analysis period to determine forces which institutionalised practices – such as accounting – into investment in power generation.

Investments in electricity generation have different levels of public and private participation. However, the common logics that underpin such investment practices provide an important understanding of political-economics and institutional change in the UK. Thus, the heightened use of accounting in investment has been, to some extent, a contributory factor to the power supply problems now faced by the British public.

This paper contributes to prior literature on the effects of financialisation on society, adding power generation/energy supply to the many societal level issues already explored. It also provides brief but unique insights into the changing nature of the role of accounting in an industry sector over an extended timeframe.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Irish Government mobilised accounting concepts to assist in implementing domestic water billing. While such is commonplace in other jurisdictions and is generally accepted as necessary to sustain a water supply, previous attempts were unsuccessful and a political hot potato.

The authors use an actor-network theory inspired approach. Specifically, the concepts of calculative spaces and their “otherness” to non-calculative spaces are used to analyse how accounting concepts were mobilised and the effects they had in the introduction of domestic water billing. The authors utilise publically available documents such as legislation, programmes for government, regulator publications, media reports and parliamentary records in the analysis over the period from 1983 to late 2014.

The analysis highlights how the implementation of domestic water billing involved the assembling of many divergent actors including the mobilisation of accounting concepts. Specifically the concept of “cost” became a contested entity. The government mobilised it in a conventional way to represent the resourcing of the water supply. Countering this, domestic water users associated “cost” with a direct impact on their own resources and lives. Thus, an entity usually associated with the economic realm was embroiled in political processes, with much of what they were supposed to represent becoming invisible. Thus the authors observed accounting concepts being mobilised to support the gaining of a specific political ends, the implementation of domestic billing, rather than as part of the means to implement a sustainable water supply within Ireland.

This research has some limitations, one being the authors draw on secondary data. However, the research does provide a detailed base from which to continue to study a new water utility over time.

This study demonstrates the complications that can occur when accounting concepts are associated with gaining of a political ends rather than as a means in the process of trying to achieve a sustainable water supply. Further, the process saw the creation of a new utility, which is a rare occurrence in the developed world, and a water utility even more so; this study demonstrates the role accounting concepts can have in this creation.

This paper develops a new model of policy development for the creative industries in a transitional economy setting. These sectors could potentially make a significant contribution to the continuing growth of the Vietnamese economy; however, they are currently held back by a lack of policies designed to support them

The paper uses data collected from a mixed-methods study of the creative and cultural sectors in Vietnam. The paper combines quantitative results from a mapping project with ethnographic observations and several qualitative interviews to identify the policy needs of the sector.

The paper develops the INCITE model of policy development composed of four parts: education and human resources, infrastructure, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech.

The paper contributes to our understanding of the kinds of policies needed to support the creative industries by exploring their development in an economy transitioning from a state planned economy to a market-driven one.

The purpose of this paper is report on findings from a survey of Vietnamese employers in 2008 highlighting key tends in training and future labour needs.

This paper uses data collected from a survey of Vietnamese employers during 2008. The survey was design by the authors and the fieldwork undertaken by representatives of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) with support from the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The survey shows that Vietnamese organisations understand the importance of training for their young workers but require more support from government and the VCCI to ensure effective training.

The paper contains a number of practical implications for Vietnamese employers and the VCCI.

Despite some opening of trade between Vietnam and the west, relatively little is still known about work, employment and training in Vietnam and there a few opportunities to undertake research of this nature. The main contribution of this paper is to report on current training practices and labour needs in Vietnam.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance the eminent work of Burns and Scapens (B&S) by introducing broader conceptualisations on organisational routines and rules into management accounting.

The paper sets out with the B&S framework. The paper is primarily conceptual in nature and with the addition of some more recent literature on organisational routines serves to bolster the underpinnings of the B&S framework. Drawing especially on the work of Feldman and Pentland, the nature of management accounting routines in particular is explored in some detail. By association, rules are also explored.

This paper proposes that an ostensive‐performative distinction of routines augments our conceptualisation of how management accounting routines can represent both a source of stability and of change (simultaneously). Also, by showing how routines can represent both structure and action simultaneously, some light is shed on the ongoing interrelationship between routines and rules as highlighted in the B&S framework and some concerns in recent literature addressed. In particular, a refined view of both routines and rules not only bolsters the work of B&S, but potentially increases its applicability as a theoretical lens to empirical studies in less formal organisations.

The proposed refinements to the B&S framework, which aim to clarify the nature of rules and routines in a management accounting context, may be particularly useful for researchers studying less formalised (or, less rules‐based) organisations. The findings emphasise the potentially more important role of the less formal concept of routines in most organisations.

The paper supports and complements the B&S framework by integrating more recent conceptual developments on organisational routines and offering some potential definitional clarity on rules and routines in management accounting.

Lean systems thinking was widely studied using relevant variables, but there is a dearth of published theoretical or empirical evidence about the cultural aspects of lean processes. The lack of conceptual development is one of the motivations for this study. Do organizational cultural variations correlate with the success and effectiveness of lean processes? What organizational infrastructures are required for effective lean implementation and continuation? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Examining literature in the area of lean production and lean management, the authors sought current literature at the intersection of organizational culture and lean processes, particularly implementation and sustainability, but found little relating to the topic. Therefore, using the Competing Values Framework taxonomy, the authors examine this intersection, relying on related research in the areas.

In this paper, a brief discussion of lean processes in relation to organizational culture leads to propositions that identify the various cultural dimensions and their purported effect on lean implementation and sustainability. A model of this interaction is developed. Those quadrants of the Competing Values Framework that might be useful in developing research directions for the future are identified.

Future research directions include the measurement of organizational culture in firms that have implemented lean processes. This would be a step toward looking at the effect that the different quadrants in the Competing Values Framework have on various elements of lean efforts. This would take a significant amount of work, because the manufacturing industry, the leader in implementing and sustaining lean processes, may have institutionalized particular organizational cultures. It would be an interesting step forward in the understanding of how lean processes are operationalized across different firms and industries. However, there are multiple ways to examine culture; the authors believe this method allows the capture of the entire spectrum.

Knowing which dimensions influence lean effectiveness and the way that they wield that influence allows managers to develop the firm’s organizational culture to one that will support implementing and sustaining lean efforts. The challenge to implement and sustain lean processes lies in the need to identify the organizational culture infrastructure that will allow this system that was first used by Japanese firms to operate well in other organizational contexts. The values and norms that underlie lean processes may create conflict with the culture that already exists within the organization; such divergence retards adoption and performance.

There is a lack of research at the critical intersection of organizational culture and lean implementation/sustainability. Culture is key to making the changes required of lean implementation and in sustaining the drive toward lean production and management. The paper begins to fill that gap.

The purpose of this paper is to address the extant and arguably excessive focus on routines in management accounting research and a relative neglect of rules. It seeks to advance our understanding of how rules and routines may interact in the technology-enabled context of management accounting and control of contemporary organizations.

The authors draw on, and develop, insights from extant literature and from two case studies to explore how rules and routines may interact.

The paper proposes a framework on the interactions of rules and routines across multiple dimensions. The authors adopt a wide notion of rules to include formal rules, rules as internal cognitive structures of human actors and rules technologically embedded in non-human actors. The authors argue that rules underlie and may precede routines, distinguish between repeated practices and routines and explore the role of technology in today’s management accounting practices.

This research shows how the process of routinization and, ultimately, institutionalization of practices involves multiple dimensions of rules, as well as both human and non-human actors. With this understanding, researchers and practitioners will be better equipped to, respectively, understand nuances of management accounting change and actually achieve change in practice.

This paper highlights the importance of rules in the routinization and institutionalization of management accounting practices and proposes a framework which explores the interactions of rules and routines across three realms: material, action and psychological. Including a material realm, related with technologically embedded rules, in the proposed framework contributes to institutional theory by acknowledging today’s increasing role of technology in organizational life.