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In selecting the power plant for the Belfast it was considered imperative that the engine and propeller should each have an appreciable background of experience behind them at the in‐service date and should have extensive development lives ahead of them. Shorts did not relish participating in the teething troubles of new engines and were prepared to make small performance concessions to avoid this possibility. Thus a Stage 2 development of the Rolls‐Royce Tyne engine was chosen in preference to Stage 3 which also met the time scale requirements, and the 4/7000/6 de Havilland propeller of 16 ft. diameter was adopted. Though many civil power plants embody the fruits of military experience with broadly similar engines, the Tyne range springs directly from civil stock. In particular, the service experience which Shorts sought for the Belfast engine has been gained on the T.C.A. Vanguard and the Canadair CL‐44.

In recent times, the operating landscape of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) environment can be described as constantly changing. Their performance is more dependent on the managers' ability to implement effective control/management practices suitable for their context and operating environment. Through a multi-site case study, we examine the peculiarities of control/management practices in four SMEs in the city of Bukavu to ascertain whether and how those practices contribute to SMEs' performance. Our findings indicate the predominance of informal practices, which include coordination methods similar to the balanced scorecard, budgeting practices, cost imputation, cash monitoring and inventory management. Compared to the results from literature, these practices did not differ much from those observed in the SMEs of developed countries and are likely to contribute to performance achievement, which corroborates the proposition of the contingency theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of employee empowerment, and the implications for management control systems (MCS), as the style of management changes from a hierarchical, top‐down, style to a more lateral, bottom‐up, orientation, in which workers assume greater responsibility for situated decision‐making and self‐monitoring.

A longitudinal, multiple method, case study explores how empowerment is both understood and applied by management and workers. Simons “Levers of Control” framework is employed as a sensitising device to understand the implications for MCS.

The transformation strategy is largely successful in changing the long‐standing, bureaucratic, public‐sector culture, to a more devolved style in which challenge and participation is encouraged, although actual adoption patterns are uneven and developments are not always linear. By the end of the study period, there is a move back towards centralised control but, significantly, the study is able to confirm Simons' argument that the use of an appropriate mix of levers in a “loose‐tight” manner can still promote empowered working.

The field work consists of a single case, albeit this is a large company with a number of autonomous units and, over time, each developed its own style of management control. At times, it is difficult to establish clear linkages between the empowerment initiative, operational management, actual performance and the MCS due to numerous contextual factors, hence the longitudinal nature of the project.

Whilst practitioner literature has made copious exhortations to empower workers, there is little empirical work on the practical application of empowerment, or the implications for MCS in the longer term. This paper finds that empowerment can, despite some academic reservations, have an honest purpose and indeed outlive its otherwise faddish tendencies.

Drawing on Simons's levers of control (LoC) framework, the primary aim of this study is to advance an understanding of the balance between empowerment and constraint in a non-profit UK organisation. In particular, this study examines the antecedents and manifestations of LoC (im)balance, in relation to employees' level of engagement with the control systems in place.

For this study, 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with different organisational members, from directors to non-managerial staff, to gain an in-depth appreciation of the main differences between managerial intentions in the design of management control systems (MCS) and employee perceptions regarding the role of such systems.

This research reveals that suppression of interactive systems and internal inconsistencies between different types of controls hinder the balance between empowerment and constraint. This imbalance is then found to have important consequences for employee buy-in, in some cases, defeating the purposes of control.

This study enhances our understanding of the gap between the design of control systems and the employee perceptions of it in an unusual organisational setting (non-profit and bringing together clinical and non-clinical staff and operations).

The study of MCS and its role in organisations has long been the focus of both academic and practitioner research. Yet, while extant literature focused on management's perspective on MCS, few studies have explored employees' attitudes and behaviours that accompany the implementation of control. What is more, little is known about the specific uses and behavioural outcomes of MCS in the context of non-profit organisations. Drawing on Simons's LoC framework, this paper addresses these gaps in the literature and investigates the balance between control and empowerment of employees in a UK non-profit organisation with significant clinical remit.

This article deals with how to test for and evaluate interdependence among control practices in a management control system using structural equation modeling. Empirical research on the levers of control (LOC) framework is used as an example. In LOC research, a path model approach to interdependence has been developed. The appropriateness of this approach is evaluated, developed, and compared with the correlation of residuals approach (seemingly unrelated regression) implemented in the wider complementarity literature. Empirical examples of the different models are shown and compared by using a data set on LOC of 120 SBUs in Sweden. The empirical results show that modeling interdependence among control practices in a management control system as non-recursive (bi-directional) paths or as residual correlations evidently affects the conclusions drawn about interdependence in terms of both presence and magnitude. The two models imply different views on how to conceptualize interdependence and are not statistically and empirically comparable. If using non-recursive path models, several model specification issues appear. To be able to identify such models, this needs to be carefully considered in the theory and research design prior to data collection.

This study explores how introducing a permissioned blockchain in a supply chain context impacts accountability relationships and the process of rendering an account. The authors explore how implementing a digital transformation impacts the governance of network transactions.

The authors mobilize 28 interviews and documentary analysis. The authors focus on early blockchain adopters to get an insight into how implementing a permissioned blockchain can transform information sharing, coordination and collaboration between business partners, now converted into network participants.

The authors suggest that implementing a permissioned blockchain impacts accountability across three levers, namely through the ledger, through the code and through the people, where these levers are interconnected. Blockchains are often valued for their ability to enable transparency through the visibility of transactions, but the authors argue that this is an incomplete view. Rather, transparency alone does not help to satisfy a duty of accountability, as it can result in selective disclosure or obfuscation.

The authors extend the conceptualizations of accountability in the blockchain literature by focusing on how accountability relationships are enacted, and accounts are rendered in a permissioned blockchain context. Additionally, the authors complement existing work on accountability and governance by suggesting an integrated model across three dimensions: ledger, code and people.

This study aims to investigate the empowering and constraining effects of performance measurement. The levers of control perspective emphasises the fact that interactive processes play an important role in balancing these effects. This paper proposes to extend the analysis of effects in this literature, by looking at them in conjunction with the role of dialogue.

This paper analyses a longitudinal case study of the use of user satisfaction indicators in the reception of a French local authority. The data were collected using a three-year longitudinal case study method from semi-directive interviews and participations at meetings.

The case study shows that performance measurement was introduced to encourage reception employees to make changes to the experience of service users. Employees were involved in the design phase of the survey and in the development of proposals. The dialogue approach represented a way of encouraging employees to agree to accept changes. However, this dialogue offered greater empowerment of employees by the managers.

Further work would be needed to enrich the characteristics of the dialogue and its effects on other performance measurement systems.

The dialogue between employees and managers was designed to be interactive and created a situation with both empowering and constraining effects. The method of organisation, involving regular meetings with formal tasks to be accomplished at each meeting, appears significant for the evolution of the effects.

We extend the levers of control perspective to demonstrate the importance of the dialogue in balancing the effects. The case study makes it easier to understand how the empowering effects are related to the objective of constraint in the dialogue approach, and how these effects evolve.

WHILE articles have appeared in the technical press from time to time, dealing with the altitude control purely from a design point of view, very little has been written in relation to the construction, testing, and correct method of operation of this important unit, and it is doubtful if many of the present day pilots, mechanics or engine testers have an intimate knowledge of what actually takes place inside the carburettor, when the altitude control is in operation.

This paper aims to evaluate the usefulness of two conceptual frameworks: levers of control (LOC) (Simons, 1995) and performance management systems (PMSs) (Ferreira and Otley, 2009) for studying PM practices using a case study.

A case study method is used whereby data are collected through semi-structured interviews, examination of the group’s annual reports and internal documents.

A key finding of this study is the use of a PMS at the case company which is formally structured and with objectives, mechanisms and processes designed beyond a mere “performance measurement system.” While the case analysis indicates that most of the key components of the two frameworks are featured in the company’s PMS design, the uses of Simons’ (1995) LOC, however, are not consistent with the notion of “balance” as advocated by the model.

The evidence presented in this study is based on one large manufacturing company, and hence the findings cannot be generalized.

The findings of this study can be used in enriching the design of current proposed theoretical frameworks and also in encouraging management accounting researchers to continue the efforts of studying performance management (PM) practices.

A deeper understanding of PM practices using holistic frameworks has yet to receive more contested efforts from management accounting researchers. This paper attempts to contribute to this endeavor and fill in the gap in this area of research.

This paper aims to unpack the relationship between the interactive use of project control systems (PCS) and project performance by examining the role of stakeholder analysis effectiveness in enacting this relationship. A conceptual framework was developed based on the stakeholder theory and the levers of control framework.

Partial least square-structural equation modelling analysis was conducted on the cross-sectional questionnaire data collected from 109 information technology (IT) projects.

The interactive use of PCS enables project managers to effectively deal with the stakeholders-related uncertainty, and stakeholder analysis effectiveness partially mediates the positive relationship between the interactive use of PCS and IT project performance.

This study extends the project control literature by explaining the positive relationship between the interactive use of PCS and project performance. The findings contribute to the stakeholder analysis literature by operationalizing the stakeholder analysis effectiveness construct and identifying it as a new mediator between the interactive use of PCS and project performance.