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This paper seeks to explore how aspects of pre‐decision control mechanisms impact managerial decision‐making behaviour with regard to strategic investment projects.

This study adopted a mixed‐method research approach. Research evidence was collected using a questionnaire survey of 320 large UK companies and eight semi‐structured follow‐up interviews with financial directors who responded to the questionnaire.

The study offers insights into the use and impact of pre‐decision control mechanisms such as: organizational strategy and operating objectives; expectations regarding the involvement of organizational personnel; formal approval procedures; financial evaluation requirements; pre‐determined hurdle rates; established authorization levels and the influence of managerial intuition.

This study adds to prior understandings of capital investment practice by employing mixed methods to examine how pre‐decision controls shape the outcomes of strategic investment decision making. Pre‐decision controls have received little attention within the prior literature, which focuses primarily on project financial analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe how calculations are used in the early phase of strategic capital investment projects (SCIPs) in the mining context and thereby create an understanding of what calculations do in these situations.

The authors conducted a case study based on interviews with project managers, controllers and top-level managers, as well as documents and observations.

The empirical evidence provides key insights into the different uses of calculations in the early phase of SCIPs in the mining industry. The authors found evidence that calculations in the early phase of SCIPs are used to generate ideas, support learning and discussions, evaluate decisions and act as a mediating device.

The paper is based on a single organization, and therefore, the findings of the paper are limited to theoretical generalization.

The study has practical implications directed toward top management, controllers and project managers working with SCIPs. This study suggests that calculations in the early phase are used to unite and create a shared view in the early phase rather than to present rational answers to different investment decision. Calculations can also be used to direct attention toward important areas, sort out and prioritize among ideas, communicate a shared view and function as a template. Thus, calculations are essential in the early phase as they help to transform activities into actions.

This paper contributes to the accounting literature in which it has been emphasized that we still know little of strategic capital budgeting processes, with insights into the multiple uses of calculations in the early phase of SCIPs. We also argue that calculations act as mediating devices in the early phase of SCIPs as they provide a common frame of reference and a basis for action.

It is well recognized that Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are important and popular ways of achieving corporate growth. Motivations include a search for monopolistic power and growth, desire to respond to a low level of profitability in the existing business portfolio, improvement of market position, filling out product line, protection of supply or distribution, gain of control, acquire what is available, to internationalize, or to reduce risk. However, M&A strategies are not risk-free, and arguably one of the CEOs greatest challenges. The last several decades have witnessed a surge of interest in top executives. The strategic choice ranks as one of the dominant roles and responsibilities of senior management. Executives’ experiences, values, and personalities greatly influence their interpretations of the situations they face and, in turn, affect their choices (Hambrick, 2007).

Over the past few years, sad stories of M&A failures have been reported and that can be attributed to poor synergy, bad timing, cultural issues, hubris, complexity, and ineffective strategic control mechanisms including poor due diligence process. M&A strategies require a series of choices made over time by actors at various organizational levels; therefore, it cannot be seen as an independent activity but as an integral part of the formal rational procedure as well as the cognitive process. Strategic cognition plays a very important role in the diagnosis of strategic issues and the formulation of problems (Schwenk, 1988). Pre-decision control mechanisms permeate all levels of strategic investments process to ensure that the investment decision aligns with organizational strategy (Alkaraan & Northcott, 2007). Due diligence processes are comprehensive appraisal of strategic investment opportunities undertaken by a prospective buyer, especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential. Due diligence processes refer to verification, investigation, or audit of a potential deal or investment opportunity to confirm all facts, financial information, and to verify anything else that was brought up during an M&A deal or investment process.

This chapter explores the influence of due diligence processes on strategic investment decision-making (SIDM) processes. Further, it provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Furthermore, the chapter adopts a strategic perspective on M&A, particular attention has been paid to the influence of due diligence and other related strategic control mechanisms on SIDM processes.

Research on biases in investment decision-making is indubitably important; however, studies in this context are relatively scarce. Unpacking bias has received attention in the psychological literature yet very little attention from management accounting research. This bias suggests that the perceived probability that an event will occur generally increases when the event's description is unpacked into a disjunction of subevents. The authors hypothesize that for a capital investment decision context, managers' judgement of the probability of a future event depends on whether the event is described as one packed event or is unpacked into several disjoint subevents. Additionally, the authors propose that altering the format of the description of an event's occurrence from percentage values to relative frequencies reduces unpacking bias.

To test the study’s hypotheses, the authors conducted two experiments based on a 3 × 2 mixed experimental design in which manager participants were asked to estimate the failure probabilities of technical systems in the context of an investment decision.

The authors provide evidence that unpacking bias occurs in an investment scenario, which can be characterized as a high-stakes decision context. Changing the format in which probabilities are presented from percentage values to relative frequencies significantly reduces the bias.

Additional instructions did not further reduce unpacking bias.

For investment decisions under uncertainty, performance indicators in management templates should be presented in relative frequencies to improve managerial decision-making. The fact that the authors could not show an additional effect of instructions in management accounting reports indicates that it is challenging for management accountants to reduce the biased decision-making of managers by “teaching” them through the provision of instructions.

The authors contribute to accounting research by illustrating unpacking bias and by deriving a debiasing mechanism in a capital investment decision context.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the components of a knowledge management system that contribute to superior new product program performance.

An extensive review of the academic and managerial literatures that deal with knowledge management's contribution to superior performance was first undertaken. After identifying gaps in the literature, a comprehensive model of a knowledge management system was developed. Where possible, existing measures of the constructs in this model were utilized. A questionnaire was developed, a commercial mailing list purchased, and a two wave mailing which produced a 15.8 percent response rate conducted.

The paper finds that customer intelligence generation, competitor intelligence generation, technological intelligence generation, and intelligence dissemination all contribute to the stock of knowledge assets (p<0.05). It was also found that, after controlling for influences on new product performance, a knowledge‐based strategy fully mediated the knowledge asset‐new product program performance relationship (p<0.05).

This is a cross‐sectional study so causality should not be implied. The study was conducted among companies competing in high‐tech industries so there may be questions about generalizability.

Within the limitations of the research design, this study demonstrates the components of a knowledge management system. It provides numerous examples of the techniques utilized and companies that utilize them.

The paper identifies the components of a knowledge management system that contribute to superior new product program performance.

The authors examine the extent to which a controller's involvement in project functions (namely definition and scope, organization, constraints management and risk management) cascades down to project performance.

The authors test the study’s framework using survey data from a sample of project leaders in German and Swiss firms. Responses were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) technique.

The authors find that controllers contribute to project success via the previously described project functions. Further, the study reveals the crucial role of controllers in managing uncertainty and project risks.

Although the arguments used in this research were not country specific and suggest that the findings of this study also apply to the controller professional in general, this study clearly acknowledges that further research is needed to address the effects of this role in different jurisdictions given the specific characteristics of controllers acting in German-speaking countries.

The authors provide insights on the role of controllers at an operational level, like project management, highlighting the need for controllers to support an effective project governance.

The authors add to the literature by examining the role of controllers in highly knowledge-intensive, highly pressured, task-driven, interdependent and dynamic operational settings, thus contributing to a better understanding of how controllers function at an operational level. The authors also strengthen a broader role of controllers in project management that goes beyond their historical controlling activities to include more modern functions, extending previous studies analyzing their professional identity.

This study aims to investigate how and why a new management accounting control (MAC) regime emerged in a previously government-owned energy company with a Soviet past in the context of changing politico-economic dynamics in Ukraine.

Drawing upon data from a case study of a large Ukrainian energy company with a Soviet past that has undergone major transformations in recent years, the authors analyze MAC regime changes in the company from an institutional logics perspective. All primary and secondary data used in this study were collected from 2012 to 2016. Retrospective interviews and extensive use of written materials, including corporate documents and other publicly available data, helped them reconstruct those events, which the authors could not observe personally.

The authors observed that MAC regime changes in the company mirror; overall changes in the political and economic environment and Ukraine’s willingness to become closer to the West. The company seems to follow liberal Western market logics and eliminate those of Soviet heritage. The MAC regime changes seemed to contribute to the company’s survival during challenges caused by the political and economic crises that began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories in the East of the country, demonstrating the usefulness of the new MAC regime and overall business logic.

This study adds to the literature on management accounting and control change in emerging economies and extractive industries by highlighting the role of changing institutional logics in shaping a MAC regime. The authors explain why, in some contexts (i.e. Ukraine), organizational actors accept and favor liberal Western market logic.

A particularly significant facet of this study concerns its extension of the role of MAC and the way it is perceived in a new international context in times of significant transformation. The results suggest that MAC regime change may be favorably received if it is based on local values and aspirations.

By mobilizing the empirical setting of a megaproject, this study problematizes public budgeting as participatory practice. The authors suggest that megaprojects are prone to democratic legitimacy challenges due to a long history of cost overruns, which provides stakeholders with a chance to dramatize a budgetary controversy.

Through article and document data, the authors reconstructed a controversy that emerged around the budget of Stockholm/Åre’s candidature for the Olympic Winter Games 2026. The authors used Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006) orders of worth to systematically analyze the justification work of key stakeholder groups involved in the controversy.

This study illustrates that a budgetary controversy was actively maintained by stakeholder groups, which resulted in a lack of public support and the eventual demise of the Olympic candidature. As such, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of public budgeting as a controversy-based process vis-à-vis a wider public with regard to the broken institution of megaprojects.

This study suggests more attention to the disruptive power of public scrutiny and the dramatization of budgeting in megaprojects. In this empirical case, the authors show how stakeholders tend to take their technical concerns too far in order to challenge a budget, even though megaprojects generally provide an ill-suited setting for accurate forecasts.

While studies around the financial legacies of megaprojects have somewhat matured, very few have looked at pitching them. However, the authors argue that megaprojects are increasingly faced with financial skepticism upon their approval upfront.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.

The purpose of this paper is to identify current practice in respect of the appraisal of both information communication technology (ICT) and non‐ICT capital investments, and to elicit the opinions of senior executives on the various issues concerning such investment practices.

Empirical research based on data from a postal questionnaire, designed around a factual and attitudinal survey.

This research presents evidence of the financial and risk assessment models used by practitioners in the appraisal of both ICT and non‐ICT capital projects. It shows that there was no significant difference between ICT and non‐ICT appraisals in this respect. It does, however, show that there are significant differences between the two types of projects in respect to other important appraisal/evaluation issues. It also uncovers important issues regarding ICT globalisation, project champions, post audits and appraisal teams.

This research does not identify the approach adopted, or the models used, to appraise strategic issues. This is an area for future research.

This research presents data that will assist both practitioners and academics in a greater understanding of the appraisal of both ICT and non‐ICT projects, which will pave the way to better decision making in the future.

It is believed that this is possibly the only survey to simultaneously address the appraisal issues concerning both ICT and non‐ICT projects.