Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist

The paper theorizes how a new actor of a firm can drive the institutionalization of a new role for management accountants. Drawing on institutional theory and using insights from a single case study in a German manufacturing firm, the paper analyses the institutionalization of the so-called “business partner” role for management accountants, which was promoted and driven by the case firm’s newcomer CFO. The paper focuses on the micro-processes and especially the institutional work carried out by the new CFO that supported the entrenchment of the ‘business partner’ role within the case firm. In this light, we illustrate that especially three interrelated kinds of institutional work were carried out within the case firm to support the institutionalization of the management accountants’ new role: legitimizing the new ‘business partner’ role, (re-)constructing the management accountants’ role identities and linking the intra-organizational level with an institutional environment in which external actors aim to achieve changes in the management accountants’ role on a broader societal level. In this context, the paper also provides insights into the specific German management accounting context. Overall, the findings suggest that the institutionalization of a new role for management accountants can be understood as the product of purposive actions carried out by actors to support a specific institutional arrangement within the firm.

An Institutional Perspective on the Changes in Management Accountants’ Professional Role

An institutional perspective on the changes in management accountants’ professional role

In the recent past, controllers have become responsible for an increasingly broad range of tasks. The shift is empirically evident, but a theoretical model of these new roles has yet to be developed. This paper describes a framework based on an economic perspective. It combines qualitative and quantitative effects as well as aspects of internal task competition, and shows a pattern of changes compatible with empirical findings. It describes tight linkages between various task levels in relation to content and process, indicating that the stages of development are not merely a reflection of alternative, or even mutually exclusive sets of tasks, but rather, progression to a higher level of additional responsibilities and functions.

The development of controller tasks: explaining the nature of controllership and its changes

The use of management control systems (MCS) is shaped by perceptions of the environment. Next to this traditional view, some studies suggest that MCS use simultaneously shapes environmental perceptions. In other words, there is a reciprocal relationship between MCS use and environmental perceptions. We investigate this relationship in the 2008-2010 economic crisis. This study examines whether the perception of negative external crisis effects affects the interactive use of MCS on the organizational level. It also explores whether an interactive use of MCS during an economic crisis influences the perception of negative external crisis effects. The direction of causality is difficult to assess from cross-sectional data. Thus, we apply a cross-lagged panel design using data from two (time-lagged) surveys. The results show that perception of negative external crisis effects leads to more interactive use of MCS. Moreover, our findings support a positive effect of the interactive use of MCS on senior managers’ perception of negative external crisis effects. Furthermore, we provide practitioner statements that illustrate the interactive use of MCS in times of economic crisis.

An Exploratory Study of the Reciprocal Relationship between Interactive Use of Management Control Systems and Perception of Negative External Crisis Effects

The notion of ‘Controlling’, as it is commonly used in German-speaking countries, may be regarded as an equivalent term for management accounting. At the same time, there have been considerable efforts to establish Controlling as a discipline on its own, rather than to regard it simply as the German synonym of management accounting. This is reflected in many writings on Controlling which have tried to identify a possible ‘core’ or ‘essence’ of the subject. In this paper, we argue that this identity discourse may be interpreted as a strategy of Controlling researchers to achieve cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy of their discipline. Drawing on interview material as well as publication and citation analyses, we show how various institutional pressures and constraints not only influenced the institutionalization of Controlling as an academic discipline but also impacted the form and substance of Controlling research. This raises some important questions for our understanding of academic discip...

Legitimacy and Identity in Germanic Management Accounting Research

The notion of 'Controlling', as it is commonly used in German-speaking countries, may be regarded as an equivalent term for management accounting. At the same time, there have been considerable efforts to establish Controlling as a discipline on its own, rather than to regard it simply as the German synonym of management accounting. This is reflected in many writings on Controlling which have tried to identify a possible 'core' or 'essence' of the subject. In this paper, we argue that this identity discourse may be interpreted as a strategy of Controlling researchers to achieve cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy of their discipline. Drawing on interview material as well as publication and citation analyses, we show how various institutional pressures and constraints not only influenced the institutionalization of Controlling as an academic discipline but also impacted the form and substance of Controlling research. This raises some important questions for our understanding of academic disciplines more generally, some of which we address in this paper.

Calbrecht Becker

Papers

Legitimacy and Identity in Germanic Management Accounting Research

Legitimacy and Identity in Germanic Management Accounting Research