Search results

To examine how the performance of organisations in managing and utilising their human resources is disclosed through key performance indicator (KPI) reporting.

Utilises intellectual capital (IC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR)/stakeholder perspectives in performing a content analysis of KPIs reported by Australian banks.

Examining KPI reporting in relation to human resources across the sample of Australian banks indicates significant differences in the amount of KPIs reported and the focus of the KPIs reported, with the emphasis varying from disclosing the value derived from human capital to the value provided to employees and the broader society. Overall, the findings suggest the popularity of a stakeholder perspective in reporting on the management of human resources.

Policy formulators and researchers need to investigate the benefits and cost of mandating or providing further guidance for extended performance reporting, the need for integration and convergence in IC and CSR‐stakeholder reporting and how reporting practices align to internal measurement and management of organizational sustainability.

This paper integrates IC and CSR perspectives to examine which approach better explains observed KPI reporting patterns in relation to human resources. Thus, far, both disciplines have advanced in isolation despite both being concerned with sustainability issues. In classifying disclosed KPIs for human resources within four alternative reporting frameworks (two from the IC literature and two from the CSR‐stakeholder literature), it determines whether IC (with its focus on how value is derived from human capital) or CSR‐stakeholder (with its emphasis on the delivery of value to employees as stakeholders) has garnered more traction in both influencing reporting practices and mitigating the limitations of financial reporting practices.

The paper investigates the operation of the trust‐formal control dynamic in collaborative supply relationships.

A case study of an Australian metal manufacturer (IronBiz) and its collaborative supply relationships is conducted.

Relationships between formal controls (comprising accounting controls and contracts) and trust are developed based on the empirical observations from the case study conducted and prior literature.

The main limitations of the paper include: an empirical examination of the buyer organisation only in dyadic supply relationships; the limited generalisability associated with the methodology and field site chosen.

In contrast to the continued popularity of collaborative arrangements as a form of organisation, gaps in the literature still exist as to the dynamics of trust creation and the relationship between trust and formal controls. This paper focuses on the trust‐formal control dynamic, with an emphasis on how trust is generated and sustained in supply relationships and the role of formal controls in this process.

The first aim of this paper is to present the methods developed by one of the co‐authors to render visible the complexity of intellectual capital (IC). These were developed to make relationships between IC elements and value creation accessible to managers seeking to act on IC. The second aim of the paper is to explore the ability of visualisation techniques to inscribe the complexity of IC. This is pursued through a process of reflecting on the experiences of “being involved” in the production of IC visuals.

The study details the methods utilised in a case study of a shared service centre of a financial services organisation and presents a reflective analysis using the Latourian notion of inscriptions.

In conducting its reflective analysis, the paper traces the various translations undergone by the inscriptions of IC, with the end result of these movements being a visual meta‐narrative connecting the various IC elements to one another as well as dimensions of IC value creation.

The paper presents a novel examination of visualisations of IC as might be used within firms for the purposes of resource mobilisation and managerialist intervention.

This paper aims to introduce the AAAJ special issue on “Accounting as codified discourse”, explicate the idea of codification and locate the notion of a “codified discourse” within the broader tradition of discourse studies in management.

The approach is conceptual and discursive, and provides a theoretical framework for understanding codification and a discursive context for the accepted papers in this special issue.

Theoretically, consideration of the more determinate relationship between codified discourse and practice can add to the general understanding of the discourse/practice dynamic in organisation studies. Several issues are identified that call for further empirical investigation. First, some of the broad‐spectrum accounting codes (e.g. historic cost) are currently under review in the expectation that change will enable constructive accounting innovation. Second, the impact of more codified accounting on management practice in organisations requires evaluation. Third, how far “intangibles” and “externalities” can be codified is a pertinent current agenda. Fourth, work is needed on whether and to what extent professional power is curtailed when politicians and policy makers introduce more codified discourses.

Currently “codification” is not well understood in the literature. This AAAJ special issue opens up the debate but there remains considerable scope for future work to take this agenda forward – to enable more detailed understanding of accounting as codified discourse.

Although “discourse studies” and “discourse analysis” are now firmly embedded in the organisational/management literature, “codified discourses” have not featured in the debate. This is a significant omission as codification is a key feature of many discourses – especially in professional fields like accounting, law, and medicine. Moreover, codified discourses are becoming more widespread. The value of this paper lies in its exposition of accounting as codification in relation to discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical account of the discourse‐practice nexus relating to an accounting for intellectual capital (IC) at an Australian public sector organisation (LandsNSW).

The paper is a case study. Data collection techniques comprised semi‐structured interviews, in situ observation of meetings and internal presentations, and reviews of documents such as internal memos, strategic plans, IC statements and business performance and annual reports.

Although ambiguity in discourse may reduce its ability to prescribe particular practices, the paper argues that such qualities allow discourse producers greater flexibility in attempting to shape action. At LandsNSW, IC discourse was given shape by those mobilising it. Specifically, constructing IC as a potential solution to practical concerns made IC more attractive to discourse consumers. By interesting and enrolling users in this manner, IC discourse was taken up where it had previously been discarded.

External factors that comprised IC discourse outside the organisation have only been given limited attention. It is also acknowledged that discourse consumers extend beyond practice manager level to also include employees in lower level operational positions and that these have not been explored in this study.

The paper provides useful information on enrolling discourse consumers to affect material intellectual capital practice.

The purpose of this research is to examine the role of accounting numbers in one organisation's attempts to enact and calculate customer intimacy, given renewed interest in organisation‐customer relationships.

The paper utilises actor‐network theory in conducting an ethnography at a wholesale financial services firm pursuing a strategy of customer intimacy. The main empirical site was the sales and marketing department, where actors were attempting to further their knowledge of customer needs in the present and anticipate them into the future.

The paper finds heterogeneous enactments of “customer intimacy” through a “numeric calculation network” and a “sales calculation network”. The former sought to use accounting numbers to calculate how customer intimacy was enacted and impose upon a sales‐force periphery a regime of performance measurement. The latter eventually destabilised the proposed performance measures by promoting their own basis for calculating customers. These were more diverse and “implicit”, comprising talk and communication through co‐location and proximity with customers.

The paper provides a number of insights into the role of accounting as a calculative practice. The observed emergence of novel means of producing accounting numbers outside the domain of the accounting function and within the sales and marketing department has important implications for the practice and study of accounting. In addition, potential limits to the use of accounting in enabling “action at a distance” are identified through the observed contest between “hard” accounting' numbers and softer modes of calculation.

A number of studies across a variety of disciplines call for further research investigating the factors that influence performance measurement (PM) systems and practices. Despite management control systems (MCS) comprising performance measurement as one of its elements, the influence of MCS on PM systems and practices has received little attention. This study attempts to address this need by examining the associations between MCS and PM practices through a survey of large Australian organisations, with MCS characterised in terms of Simons’ (1991; 1995) levers of control (LOC) framework and the objects-of-control (OOC) framework (Emmanuel et al., 1990; Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). We find that MCS approaches and the specific LOC and OOC that these comprise influence both the purpose for which PM systems are used and the selection of KPIs, but has little influence on the use of benchmarking. Also, diagnostic MCS are associated with the design of causally structured PM systems while results-focused MCS are linked with an absence of structure. Adding to the findings are evidence that interactive LOC are not associated with strategic learning, validation and the use of causality in PM systems.

This article focuses on the role of accounting performance measurement in the creation of public value in the context of the network associated with the justice portfolio within the Australian Commonwealth.

We use concepts of bonding and bridging social capital to theorize the use of performance measurement in government networks.

We find that there is relatively little use of performance measures that reported network level performance and the primary emphasis was on building social capital with funders rather than across network partner agencies. We therefore conclude that existing Australian public sector performance measurement practices are not supportive of intra-governmental networks and therefore the notion that improvement in performance measurement will deliver public value needs further reflection.

The research scope is restricted to governmental network performance measures from a justice portfolio budget perspective. Despite the focused attention of the research, the application of the findings has relevance across all government portfolios and broader public management more generally.

Despite calls for accountability and governance innovation where public value is delivered across organizational boundaries through dependency and collaboration, the case environment offers little evidence that forms of performance measurement over the period examined recognize this practicality. The research primarily adds considerable weight to the argument that the delivery of public value by networks requires an evolution in accountability and performance reporting away from traditional institutional forms of performance representation.

The research is highly novel in its unveiling and examination of contemporary performance measurement reporting from a network perspective.

The purpose of this article is to trace the techniques and consulting methods developed and deployed by an Australian project team during an investigation of a client organisation's intellectual capital management, measurement and reporting (ICMMR) practices. The article aims to highlight the benefits of adopting an integrated approach to investigating intellectual capital (IC) and proposes the Intellectual Capital Value Creation (ICVC) framework as an analytical model for extending the breadth and depth of existing management consulting and research practices into ICMMR.

The methods deployed by the project team during the consulting project included semi‐structured interviews and content analyses. Furthermore, the ICVC framework was developed and deployed as an analytical model to facilitate the investigation of the client organisation's ICMMR practices.

To the client organisation, the ICVC framework proved beneficial in that it enabled senior management to visualise their knowledge resources and how these contribute to organisational value creation. To the project team, the ICVC framework facilitated the identification of organisational knowledge management gaps, highlighting weaknesses in the client organisation's utilisation of its knowledge resources. The framework provides a structured approach for investigating organisations’ ICMMR practices and locating and analysing these within a strategic context.

The paper highlights to management consultants and others the importance of investigating client organisations’ ICMMR practices in an integrated manner and demonstrates to organisations the strategic significance of making “visible” their invisible sources of value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how accounting and supply function specialists shape controls in collaborative supply networks (CSNs) and how both might co‐evolve.

This paper is a case study of an Australian metal manufacturer (“SteelBiz”) and its CSN is conducted.

The paper finds changes in both trust vis‐à‐vis formal controls and in intra‐organisational supply‐accounting relations occurred in a mutually constitutive manner. At SteelBiz, a shift to formal controls occurred due to the efforts of the accounting function in contesting organisational visibility. Overall, both intra‐ and inter‐organisational relations were found to co‐evolve.

The limitations of the paper include: an empirical examination of buyer organisations only; a focus on intra‐organisational issues between functional specialists to the relative exclusion of both more “macro” trends and inter‐personal relationships; and the limited generalisability associated with the methodology chosen. Future research should consider both buyer and supplier organisations and whether the “disciplinary alignments” observed here are reflective of more enduring patterns.

The contributions of this paper are two‐fold. First, the paper attempts to fill a gap in the literature pertaining to how intra‐organisational relations might influence network controls. Furthermore, the few studies that do exist describe the “intra‐inter” dynamic as uni‐directional only, whereas this paper reveals how both mutually constitute the other. Second, complexities into the trust‐formal control relationship are revealed while it is proposed that as CSN relations develop, process‐based mechanisms become more important than other relationship‐sustaining devices, with the trust‐formal control dynamic dependent on ongoing negotiation and information as mobilised by intra‐organisational participants.