“Feeling in Control”: Optimal Busyness and the Temporality of Organizational Controls

This study extends prior research seeking to understand the reproduction and persistence of excessive busyness in professional settings by addressing the relationship between organizational controls and temporal experiences. Drawing on 146 interviews and more than 300 weekly diaries in two professional service firms, we develop a framework centered on the emerging concept of optimal busyness, an attractive, short-lived temporal experience that people try to reproduce/prolong because it makes them feel energized and productive as well as in control of their time. Our findings show that individuals continuously navigate between different temporal experiences separated by a fine line, quiet time, optimal busyness, and excessive busyness, and that optimal busyness that they strive for is a fragile and fleeting state difficult to achieve and maintain. We show that these temporal experiences are the effect of the temporality of controls—that is, the ability of controls to shape professionals’ temporal experience through structuring, rarefying, and synchronizing temporality. Moreover, we find that professionals who regularly face high temporal pressures seek to cope with these by attempting to construct/prolong optimal busyness through manipulating the pace, focus, and length of their temporal experiences, a process we call control of temporality. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the reproduction of busyness by explaining why professionals in their attempts to feel in control of their time routinely end up overworking.

#IStayhome and Guarantee Seismic Surveillance and Tsunami Warning during the COVID-19 Emergency in Italy

The continuity of monitoring operations at national earthquake centers during crisis is an important challenge. In 2020, because of the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) health emergency, monitoring centers all over the world faced new, unexpected problems. In Italy, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) has the duty to perform earthquake and volcano monitoring, seismic surveillance and tsunami alerting, and maintaining effective communication with the National Civil Protection agency and the public. During the lockdown, that started on 9 March 2020, INGV set up a series of sanitary and organizational measures and improved the technological infrastructures in the control room in Rome for remote use of software for seismic network monitoring, seismic surveillance, and tsunami alerting. Our main goal was to protect the researchers and technicians on duty as much as possible and develop the remote use of software tools necessary to perform service activities when needed to limit the presence in the control room to the essential. In the first month of lockdown, we implemented the organizational controls, the health aids, and the tools for remote surveillance and alerting, and gave online training courses for about 100 shift workers. At the end of March 2020, most of the technicians, researchers, and tsunami experts on duty were able to access the new monitoring tools from home. During these months, the shifts in the control room were done in person and we performed remote seismic surveillance and tsunami alerting only during the weekly disinfections of the control room and at the beginning of each week. The tools developed during the COVID health emergency are going to be useful in the future especially in the case of other emergencies including the occurrence of a strong earthquake.

Intertwined institutionalization: pressures on Vietnam’s accounting profession during transition to IFRS

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the institutionally driven changes impacting organizational accounting manipulation in Vietnam’s emerging transitional economy. Specifically, this study explore how Vietnamese accountants and regulators explain questionable accounting transactions and their rationalization for those practices, especially during the period of accounting system transition from Vietnamese accounting standards to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Design/methodology/approach The study uses interview-based methods involving 22 Vietnamese accountants, financial managers, audit partners and regulators. Findings This study have found dysfunctional approaches to revenue and expense recognition underpinned by institutional theory. At play is a combination of opportunities relating to weak accounting standards and organizational controls; management pressure; and a desire to avoid unwanted scrutiny from Vietnamese regulators. Research limitations/implications This study does not include the views of non-financial managers or other accounting users. Future research could focus more on the perceptions of these other stakeholder groups. Practical implications Accounting manipulation can be collusive, therefore, regulators should have a stricter view and broader examination in the monitoring process. Originality/value This study examine accounting manipulation through the lens of New Institutional Sociology and also share the views of the accountants and regulators. This study argue that weak accounting standards are not the only factors contributing to accounting manipulation. When evaluating the existence of accounting manipulation, this paper find a combination of factors including: opportunities for manipulation, pressure from management and the rationale behind the conduct. These factors should be interpreted in context.

PenQuest: a gamified attacker/defender meta model for cyber security assessment and education

Attacks on IT systems are a rising threat against the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical information and infrastructures. At the same time, the complex interplay of attack techniques and possible countermeasures makes it difficult to appropriately plan, implement, and evaluate an organization’s defense. More often than not, the worlds of technical threats and organizational controls remain disjunct. In this article, we introduce PenQuest, a meta model designed to present a complete view on information system attacks and their mitigation while providing a tool for both semantic data enrichment and security education. PenQuest simulates time-enabled attacker/defender behavior as part of a dynamic, imperfect information multi-player game that derives significant parts of its ruleset from established information security sources such as STIX, CAPEC, CVE/CWE and NIST SP 800-53. Attack patterns, vulnerabilities, and mitigating controls are mapped to counterpart strategies and concrete actions through practical, data-centric mechanisms. The gamified model considers and defines a wide range of actors, assets, and actions, thereby enabling the assessment of cyber risks while giving technical experts the opportunity to explore specific attack scenarios in the context of an abstracted IT infrastructure. We implemented PenQuest as a physical serious game prototype and successfully tested it in a higher education environment. Additional expert interviews helped evaluate the model’s applicability to information security scenarios.

Outsourcing, information symmetry and governance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of retailers’ organizational controls and controls of their boundary personnel on manufacturers’ outsourcing performance. It further assesses the moderating impact of information symmetry in this context. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 230 Indian apparel manufacturers engaged in outsourcing activities with two international retailers. Organizational control is scrutinized as formal and informal controls, and outsourcing performance is studied in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The partial least squares approach is used to test the proposed research model. Findings First, the retailers’ and the boundary person’s formal controls have a direct, positive effect on outsourcing efficiency. Second, although no significant effect of the boundary person’s formal controls on outsourcing effectiveness is identified, a significant effect of retailers’ formal controls on effectiveness is seen. Third, the boundary person’s informal controls are associated with a decrease in efficiency, whereas they have a positive effect on effectiveness. Fourth, although the retailers’ informal controls enhance outsourcing effectiveness, they negatively affect efficiency. Fifth, information symmetry is statistically significant in enhancing outsourcing efficiency and effectiveness. Practical implications The results have important implications for retailers and retailers’ boundary persons who are keen to improve their relations with manufacturers. This paper offers practical insights into the ways that manufacturers, boundary personnel and retailers can exercise control mechanisms in order to achieve effective and efficient outsourcing outcomes. Originality/value The effect of organizational control and information symmetry on outsourcing performance in typical outsourcing practices in manufacturer‒retailer relationships is shown.

The effects of organizational controls on innovation modes: An ambidexterity perspective

Some critical limitations of prior research on organizational controls stem from the scant theory identifying the coexistence of contradictions and interrelations between differing organizational controls and exploring how the contradictory but interrelated controls affect innovation modes. To address this gap, this research links Hitt’s internal control system framework and the ambidexterity perspective by building on their focus on the interplay and tensions between different organizational controls. Using survey data from 182 Chinese firms in innovation-intensive industries, the results show that besides the independent use of strategic control, both the combined and balance use of strategic and financial controls are important for internal innovation. For firms specializing in cooperative innovation, however, financial control is more effective, and the combined use of strategic and financial controls has negative effect on cooperative innovation. These findings contribute to our understanding of organizational control itself and its connection to the ambidexterity perspective and innovation theory.