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This paper sets out to introduce the special issue on management controls and new organisational forms. It summarises and reflects on themes and findings raised in the papers in the issue.

The findings reported in the paper are based on desk research and review of the papers contained in the issue.

The paper finds that management control systems can perform various coordinating and governance roles in managing new organisational forms. However, management control systems designers must be aware of the complexities of these new organisational arrangements.

The paper is a summary of studies exploring the roles of management controls in new organisational forms. The issues addressed in these studies are important in furthering our understanding of the changing roles of management control systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how accounting is implicated in the creation and maintenance of organizational boundaries. The analysis focuses on organizations subjected to conflicting objectives as a result of new public management (NPM) reforms.

The analysis is based on case studies of four cultural organizations (Show Caves) in Greece. Data are collected from semi-structured interviews, informal discussions and document analysis. The paper draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of “field”, “capital” and “habitus” and Llewellyn’s analysis of organizational boundary maintenance.

The study observes that NPM reforms contributed to shifting organizational boundaries – from cultural/archaeological to economic/financial and this resulted in conflicting organizational objectives. This subsequently created conflicts between key actors (municipal politicians, professional managers and anthropologists). These actors, depending on the positions (and habitus) they occupy, and the capital (political, cultural and symbolic) they hold, are able to bargain for resources (economic capital). The conflicting objectives (archaeological/cultural/historical, political and commercial) that emerged and the tensions that arose between the key players shaped the identities and boundaries of the Show Caves.

The study makes an original contribution by revealing the complexity and struggle between actors and the role of accounting in managing the boundaries. For example, the study explains how financial threshold and accountability structures function within these cultural organizations that are subjected to conflicting objectives in the context of NPM reforms.

Inter‐firm relationships are increasingly being adopted as competitive tools. However, the challenges created by these relationships for the design and use of management control systems (MCS) have been well documented. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on MCS and inter‐firm relationships. The review examines the types of relationships studied and the theoretical approaches.

The findings reported in the paper are based on desk research. The review is largely concentrated on the key international English language accounting journals.

Supply chain and outsourcing have been the dominant forms of inter‐firm relationships studied. Other studies have focused on joint ventures and networks. Transaction cost economics has been the dominant approach and trust has also featured as a theoretical issue in most of the studies.

The paper furthers the understanding of the contributions made by previous studies on MCS and inter‐firm relationships. Some suggestions for future research are offered at the end.