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Partnerships are the British government’s preferred method of procuring public sector services, and the policy is usually justified in terms of delivering value for money. Ex ante financial methodologies are prescribed to ensure that decision making is based on a sound appraisal of alternatives and the government has called for an evaluation of implemented projects. This paper seeks to contribute to that evaluative process by exploring ex post facto some of the issues and problems that arose in practice. Using a case study approach, the paper considers two failures of information technology partnerships to examine how risk transfer, which is at the heart of the partnership policy, works in practice. The cases show that the contracts failed to transfer risk in the way that had been expected. The public agencies, not the commercial partner, bore the management risk and costs fell on the public at large and/or other public agencies.

Focuses on the possible benefits and problems generated by the implementation of a post‐auditing (PA) system. This research work was structured as follows: first, an integrated model for the design of a firm PA system has been elaborated, based on the critical re‐elaboration of specialised literature; an empirical investigation (a survey) has been conducted in a sample of large companies operating in Italy, to analyse the most common configurations of PA systems. The aims were: to understand the behaviour of firms, with respect to the design variables identified in the previous section; to identify common patterns and possible correlationships between the solutions adopted in the different parts of the PA system. The results of the empirical analysis show a substantial alignment between the model and the configuration of PA systems implemented by firms (with some important exceptions), which seem to be influenced to a great extent by the objective with which the PA system has been implemented (project performance control vs learning).

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects failing to meet user expectations is a cause for concern as it often leads to considerable time and money losses. The purpose of this paper is to understand the causal factors for such failures in the Indian context.

A scientific case study research methodology was followed. The unit of analysis: a failed ERP project followed by a successful one in the same organization. Data were collected through interviews, observation and study of archival documents. Analysis was methodical and validated through a triangulation approach.

The results suggest that it is the manner in which key critical success factors (CSFs) such as top management support are operationalized; good project management; a smaller scope and a hybrid approach of integrating the legacy system with the ERP that facilitates adoption and leads to a succesful implementation.

The study extends the work of earlier researchers in a new market – India. It identifies important constructs, composites of existing CSFs, which future research could measure as ex ante predictors of ERP project success.

The authors offer several guidelines related to the role of top management, the importance of simplicity of scope, change management steps – all of which would help implementation teams better manage projects.

The two case methodology of a failed implementation followed by a successful one in the same organization is unique, in the Indian context. This is the closest to a controlled experiment one can have in case study research. The findings pave the way for the development of predictive instruments of ERP project outcomes.

The authors explore the under-researched area of post-decision evaluation in PPPs (public–private partnerships), focusing upon how and whether Post-decision Project Evaluation (PdPE) is considered and provided for in United Kingdom (UK) public infrastructure projects.

The authors’ research design sought insights from overviewing UK PPP planning and more focused exploration of PPP operational practice. The authors combine the extensive analysis of planning documents for operational UK PPP projects with interviews of different stakeholders in PPP projects in one city. Mobilising an open critical perspective, documents were analysed using ethnographic content analysis (ECA) and interviews were analysed using thematic analysis consistent therewith. The authors theorise the absence and ambiguities of PdPE drawing on the sociology of ignorance.

The authors find a long-standing absence and lack of PdPE in PPP projects throughout planning and operational practice, reflecting a dynamic, multi-faceted ignorance. Concerning planning practice, the authors’ documentary analysis evidences a trend in PdPE from its absence in the early years (which may indicate some natural or genuine ignorance) to different levels or forms of weak inclusion later. Regarding this inclusion, the authors find strategic ignorance played a substantive role, involving “deliberate engineering” by both public sector and private partners. Interview findings indicate lack of clarity over PdPE and its under-development in PPP practice, deficiencies again suggestive of natural and strategic ignorance.

The authors draw from the sociology of ignorance vis-à-vis accounting's absence and ambiguity in the context of PPP, contributing to an under-researched area.

Enterprise governance is an emerging concept which emphasizes the importance of balancing the corporate governance and performance management aspects of the organization. In the light of recent corporate scandals, there has been considerable pressure worldwide to improve standards of corporate governance through new codes of best practice and legislation. While necessary, there is a danger that with so much attention on control issues, the need for companies to create long‐term wealth and to pursue the right strategies to achieve this is overlooked. Research has shown that a particular challenge for boards is to maintain effective oversight of the company’s strategic position and progress. In response to this “gap” in oversight, The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants has developed a strategic scorecard. The scorecard is currently under development but is introduced here as a potentially valuable strategic management framework.

In the continuing endeavour to work towards ever better management, experience plays a crucial role. We learn from success, but we can learn much more from failure. Further, it is far better and cheaper when we learn from other people′s failures rather than our own. This monograph assesses the requirements of project management in relation to industrial projects, illustrating the factors that can result in failure by means of a series of case studies of completed and abandoned projects worldwide that have failed in one way or another. The key roles played by project planning and project cost control in meeting and overcoming the practical problems in the management of industrial projects are examined in detail. In conclusion the lessons that can be learned are evaluated and presented, so that we may listen and learn – if only we will.

In the field of strategic investment decision making (SIDM) a body of research has grown up via international case studies and organisation-based fieldwork. However, there has been little systematic theorisation around SIDM processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to show how strong structuration theory (SST) can be employed to guide how future SIDM studies are conducted and theorised.

The authors draw upon the concepts from SST to reanalyse prior empirically based work. The authors apply SST-informed analysis to four SIDM case studies selected from the total of 18 published over the period 1970-2016 to explore the utility of SST compared with other approaches.

The analysis highlights the role of agents’ knowledgeability and position-practice relations in SIDM, which has largely been neglected by prior studies. The authors demonstrate the potential of SST to inform meso-level theorising by applying it to four published case studies. Whilst the authors argue for the adoption of SST, the authors also identify key methodological and conceptual issues in using SST in SIDM research.

The examples and recommendations could assist management accounting researchers, particularly those engaged in case studies and organisational fieldwork, to build knowledge via the improved comparison, integration and theorisation of cases undertaken by different researchers in different contexts.

The authors offer a bridge between SST concepts and case study evidence for theorising, carrying out and analysing case study and field research on SIDM.

This article gives guidelines to accountants on the practical aspects of sound capital investment planning and control systems.

While investment decisions may be financial decisions, there is a growing recognition that they are also often non-financially based decisions. The purpose of this study is to report findings focused on the project selection stage of capital budgeting, which has the objectives of exploring for: the relative degree of emphasis decision makers attach to a financial and non-financial orientation in capital budgeting; and the role, if any, that two agency theory variables have on the relative degree of emphasis: a personal incentive for project go-ahead and monitoring of project outcomes through a post-audit.

Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are used and framed in a between-subjects 2 (personal incentive) × 2 (monitoring) design. DCEs are well-suited to research questions which examine some tension between competing alternatives. For example, trade-offs involving the relative degree of emphasis decision makers attach to a financial and non-financial orientation in capital budgeting.

In the absence of a personal incentive and monitoring, decision makers attach a significant degree of emphasis to cash inflows and cash outflows, both financial factors, and one strategic non-financial factor being improvement in the position of the firm vis-à-vis competitors in capital budgeting. However, when decision makers receive a personal incentive from project go-ahead, they attach a lower degree of emphasis to cash outflows. Alternatively, when there is monitoring through a post-audit and a personal incentive, decision makers attach a higher degree of emphasis to cash outflows.

Decision makers attach a significant degree of emphasis to only a relatively narrow band of attributes in making a capital budgeting decision, which is true in both the absence of and in the presence of the agency conditions. There is also little support for the view that there is any higher degree of emphasis attached to a financial orientation vis-à-vis a non-financial orientation. A particularly important finding relates to the overarching goal of monitoring through a post-audit. One view is that it should foster more accurate forecasting by making forecasters aware that their efforts will be reviewed. However, the findings of this study appear to be more supportive of a view that post-audits might lead agents to become more conservative or even shy away from projects.

The study makes contributions to the growing field of research which has the objective of exploring for the relative degree of emphasis decision makers attach to a financial and non-financial orientation in capital budgeting. In particular, it extends the prior research through its investigation of the role that two agency theory variables play in the relative degree of emphasis decision makers attach to a financial and non-financial orientation: a personal incentive for project go-ahead and monitoring of project outcomes through a post-audit.