The use of management control mechanisms by public organizations with a network coordination role: A case study in the port industry

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 269-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Marques ◽  
J.A. Ribeiro ◽  
R.W. Scapens
Keyword(s):  
Public Organizations ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Network Coordination

Outsourcing relationship management: accounting in the decision mix

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Mirghani Nimir Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Management Accounting ◽  
Accounting Information ◽  
Relationship Management ◽  
Internal Audit ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Monitoring Cost ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The paper aims to examine the role of management accounting and accounting information in decisions to outsource and manage outsourcing relationships. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a case study method. Data are collected through semi-structured interviews and informal discussions with executives of the participating companies. Official documents and secondary materials were analysed. Findings The findings of these cases present evidence of some roles given to accounting information and varying tasks assumed by accountants and finance staff in the outsourcing projects undertaken. These roles and tasks range from financial evaluation of new outsourcing proposals and alternatives, consultation and price negotiations in the planning and feasibility stages to the management of outsourcing relationships including monitoring, cost analysis, performance measurement, internal audit, design and implementation of risk-reward payment schemes. Managing the outsourced functions in one case involved in the use of informal control mechanisms such as trust, knowledge sharing, mutual understanding and cooperation between partners. Practical implications The paper highlights the role of management accounting and information in outsourcing relationship management and evaluation. The case findings provide the opportunity for management practitioners to understand the strategic role of management accountants in the management of inter-firm relationships. Originality/value The case study presents new empirical evidence of the role of management accounting and accounting information in the management control of outsourcing relationships.

scholarly journals A food recall case study in Australia – Towards the development of food safety applications for consumers

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeola Bamgboje-Ayodele ◽  
Leonie Ellis ◽  
Paul Turner
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Information Platform ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Consumer Perspective ◽  
Food Recall ◽  
Post Purchase ◽  
Safety Applications

Changes in consumer attitudes, behaviours and purchasing preferences towards different types of food highlight the increased demand for better quality information on safety, quality and provenance of food products and on sustainability of food production processes. These changes offer both new opportunities and risks for food producers who require mechanisms to better understand and respond to changing consumers’ decision-making trends on food.  In the area of food safety, investigation of consumer and producer responses during recall incidents provide an opportunity to holistically understand existing information flows and elicit user requirements necessary for the development of more effective consumer food safety applications.This paper reports on a case study conducted with an Australian premium manufacturing company that experienced a food recall in 2014. The investigation confirms that current Australian food recall response mechanisms do not guarantee a closed loop of communication with all purchasers of a recalled product. It also highlights that producers still face difficulties in understanding how best to effectively understand and respond to different types of consumers. It emerges that recovery from a food incident relies on many factors including pre-existing brand reputation, effective information management, control mechanisms and supply chain partner response. From a consumer perspective, it is evident that consumers’ responses are influenced by various factors that require sensitivity around the choice of information modality and information platform adopted to enhance communications during food recall. The paper highlights the need for further research into understanding consumer food safety behaviours post-purchase to improve the development of consumer food safety applications.

Network control and balanced scorecard as inscriptions in purchaser–provider arrangements: insights from a hybrid government agency

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Haiza Muhammad Zawawi ◽  
Zahirul Hoque
Keyword(s):  
Service Provider ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Government Agency ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Network Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThis article examines the power of management control mechanisms as “inscriptions” for bringing the interests of organisations within a purchaser–provider network into alignment.Design/methodology/approachThe study contributes to accounting and accountability literature in hybrid organisations by applying actor-network theory to a case study organisation. This enables an analysis of how a government agency, operating as a social service provider to the community, developed and used management control mechanisms in its intra-organisational units to ensure its operations were aligned with the expectations of inter-organisational networks in a purchaser–provider context. Data were collected using open-ended interviews and by examining internal accounting and management reports, government archival records and newspaper articles.FindingsAnalysis of the results demonstrates that inter-organisational network control was internalised within the provider organisation because of the ability of the controls to function as inscriptions that influenced organisational actions. The authors conclude that the network control travelled across boundaries over time and was assimilated by the provider organisation to become its internal management control mechanisms.Research limitations/implicationsA single case study of a government service provider agency may limit the generalisation of the findings to other hybrid entities or networks. The significant practical essence of this study lies in the diversity within the results that offer a rich representation of the impact of purchaser–provider arrangements on internal organisational systems within a hybrid public sector setting.Originality/valueThe outcomes enhance knowledge of how a hybrid government agency developed, mobilised and institutionalised its management control mechanisms to ensure the activities of one party are consistent with the other parties' expectations within a network.

Gene and Ilsa: A Case of Interpersonal Conflict in a Public Organization

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Charles Terry Angelo
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Interpersonal Conflict ◽  
Public Organizations ◽  
Public Organization ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics

In this fictional case study, the author presents a rich tapestry of interpersonal dynamics in complex public organizations. Contrasting styles of leadership, organizational behavior, and communication are highlighted in a brief drama meant to illustrate how difficult it is sometimes to move beyond such issues to the more fundamental tasks of defining and executing one's responsibilities to serve the greater public good.

scholarly journals A Design of the Resilient Enterprise: A Reference Architecture for Emergent Behaviors Control

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (22) ◽  
pp. 6672
Author(s):  
Rob Bemthuis ◽  
Maria-Eugenia Iacob ◽  
Paul Havinga
Keyword(s):  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Reference Architecture ◽  
Systems Of Systems ◽  
Supply Chain Resilience ◽  
Physical Systems ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Emergent Behaviors

The sooner disruptive emergent behaviors are detected, the sooner preventive measures can be taken to ensure the resilience of business processes execution. Therefore, organizations need to prepare for emergent behaviors by embedding corrective control mechanisms, which help coordinate organization-wide behavior (and goals) with the behavior of local autonomous entities. Ongoing technological advances, brought by the Industry 4.0 and cyber-physical systems of systems paradigms, can support integration within complex enterprises, such as supply chains. In this paper, we propose a reference enterprise architecture for the detection and monitoring of emergent behaviors in enterprises. We focus on addressing the need for an adequate reaction to disruptions. Based on a systematic review of the literature on the topic of current architectural designs for understanding emergent behaviors, we distill architectural requirements. Our architecture is a hybrid as it combines distributed autonomous business logic (expressed in terms of simple business rules) and some central control mechanisms. We exemplify the instantiation and use of this architecture by means of a proof-of-concept implementation, using a multimodal logistics case study. The obtained results provide a basis for achieving supply chain resilience “by design”, i.e., through the design of coordination mechanisms that are well equipped to absorb and compensate for the effects of emergent disruptive behaviors.

Automating attendance recording of contingent labours at a large construction site

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Saroj Koul
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Radio Frequency Identification ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Large Power ◽  
Content Type

Subject area Operations and human resourcing. Study level/applicability This case study is intended for use in graduate, executive level management and doctoral programs. The case study illustrates a combined IT and HR driven participative management control system in a flexible organization structure. It is intended for a class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Case overview The case describes the situation of managing unskilled workforces (≥14,000 workers) during the construction phase of the 4 × 250MW power plants both for purposes of turnout as well as due compensation, in the event of an accident. The approved labour forces appointed for 45 × 8 h. Man-days after a rigorous fitness test and approvals of the safety officer are allocated housing and other necessary amenities and a commensurate compensation system. Expected learning outcomes These include: illustrating typical organizational responsibility structure at a construction site of a large power plant; illustrating the planning and administrative control mechanism in implementing strategy at a construction site of a large power plant; offering students the opportunity to understand and view a typical operational (project) structure; allowing students to speculate adaptations in the wake of an ever-changing business and company environment; and providing an opportunity to introduce a power scenario in India, Indian labour laws and radio frequency identification technology and to relate this to the case in context. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

Comparison and Evaluation of Organizational Transactions for Continuous Auditing and Business Compliance

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Rui Pedro Marques ◽  
Henrique Santos ◽  
Carlos Santos
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Continuous Auditing ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Ontological Model ◽  
High Level ◽  
Execution Pattern

This article presents a comparator module which aims to compare, in real time, executions of organizational transactions with patterns of behaviors of these transaction executions, allowing the determination of which execution pattern is being followed by running each transaction. This is according to information received by the internal control mechanisms, which continuously monitors the transaction executions. A possible application using this module was deployed and results were obtained from a case study. The results prove effectiveness of the module, mainly because it is able to assess business compliance and the qualitative risk associated to each transaction execution while it is running, enabling an efficient continuous auditing application. The innovation of this article is ensured by the use of an ontological model to represent organizational transactions, which can be applicable to any type of transaction in any business area in order to audit transactions at a very low level, contrary to what happens in traditional auditing, which occurs at a high level (e.g. compare whether a completed transaction has followed a set of procedures). Besides the conceptualization, this work presents some technical details of development and discussion of results from the case study.

scholarly journals Management Control in Inter-organizational Relationships: The Case of Franchises

Innovar ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (58) ◽  
pp. 23-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Cordobés Madueño ◽  
Pilar Solde
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Personal Relationship ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Organizational Relationships ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Organizational Relations ◽  
The Relationship

There is great interest in the role of management control on theoretical and practical developments within the field of Inter-organizational Relations. This research aims to contribute at verifying how relationships between firms affect the management control tools used, as illustrated in a specific case: the relationship between the franchisor and its franchisees, which has not received much attention to date. As indicated by previous research, case studies can be helpful to determine the factors affecting the type of management control tools that should be established to manage inter-firm relationships.Results have found that the franchisor uses quantitative control mechanisms in order to avoid common types of opportunistic franchise behavior related to royalty payments and other financial requirements, as well as qualitative tools to assure the fulfilment of agreement-related conditions regarding knowhow, to resolve unexpected non-economic problems and to encourage personal relationship and trust. This study also provides an outline on franchisor-franchisee relationships in the model proposed by Van der Meer-Kooistra and Vosselman (2000). To test this model, the franchisor's perspective (outsourcer) has been taken into account as performed when building the model. Findings indicate that this relationship shows many similarities to the pattern based on bureaucracy and a few similarities to patterns based on trust.

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