Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to clarify ongoing transformations in an organisation's management control systems (MCSs) by investigating the nature and emergence of internal change mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an inductive methodological approach. Data were obtained from focused interviews with managers at different levels in one public and one private Swedish organisation. Various internal and external documents were also analysed. Findings – The findings indicate that one starting point for achieving continuous MCS transformation in organisations is to select specific transformation mechanisms. These mechanisms appear capable of linking various aspects of organisational time and place, and turning general expectations of continuous change into coordinated action through accountability and organisational learning. Research limitations/implications – The study focuses on enablers rather than barriers in MCS transformation processes. Selection of the specific organisations studied was based partly on how well established their practices were in relation to new MCS aspects. Originality/value – The approach of the paper, which goes beyond a rational outcome orientation, focuses on internal mechanisms of change that contribute to an understanding of how and why MCS become dynamic in effect.

In recent years, Swedish sick insurance has become more restrictive. In this article, we analyse how people not being granted payments, despite being seriously ill, are affected. Scholarship on identity formation and sickness stress the importance of constructing narratives in order to come to terms with one’s situation. Our analysis of 30 qualitative interviews with people diagnosed with ME/CFS shows that workfare politics conditions such identity formation and often prevent it from taking place. Interviewees describe extreme stress as a result of their contacts with the Social Insurance Agency (SIA), which results in a perpetual crisis that is renewed with each new denied application. In particular, the sense of not having a future means that it is hard to construct narratives to make sense of one’s situation. To escape the perpetual crisis, some people have politicised their situation, constructing a narrative about themselves as suffering from oppressive politics. Others have escaped by not applying for sick insurance or other social insurances. But generally speaking, the most common effect of being denied sick insurance is an on-going crisis that leads to deteriorating health.  

The prevailing economic world order relies on financial progress and business development, and entrepreneurship is seen as an important means to achieve this. To inspire the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set among citizens, public initiatives through education has improved and consequently entrepreneurship education is booming. Positioning our research within the discussion regarding entrepreneurship as a broader societal phenomenon, our contribution lies within a much less researched context – entrepreneurship in the lower secondary school. In this context we focus on the teachers’ perspective to investigate how they approach entrepreneurship and what they actually do when teaching it. Our results indicate that there has been a change in terminology from entrepreneurship to entrepreneurial learning. Furthermore, there has been a change in practice. The empirics show that an entrepreneurial learning approach includes real-life connected projects, collaboration with the surrounding community and practising entrepreneurial skills. Adding to this, working with entrepreneurial learning has in this context resulted in enhancing the motivation of pupils as well as a changed perspective on teaching and learning. Our theoretical contribution lies within the literature on societal entrepreneurship, providing a conceptual model of entrepreneurship education in lower secondary education which is an attempt to clarify and enrich the discussion the discussion on a definition of entrepreneurship in a school setting.

Performance measurements or appraisals are used within organizations to, among other things, evaluate, improve, motivate, and steer organizations in the desired direction. New Public Management reforms initiated an emphasis on managing and measuring results more efficiently in the public sector. This caused a higher work intensity and increased employee stress levels. Most of the previous research in performance management and performance measurement are based on normal conditions. A crisis puts organizations to the test, and they need to adapt to be able to deal with the crisis. When organizations are put to the test and need to restructure to deal with a crisis, the conditions for measuring performance also change.

To examine how performance measurements are used in a crisis, a qualitative research method has been used to gain a deeper understanding of employees' experiences. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews with ten employees, who work in healthcare and hospitals. The collected empirical data has been analysed using a conceptual analysis tool that is divided into three themes: evaluation, the form of the performance measurement and motivation. The results of the study partly strengthen previous research but also contribute to new insights. The study showed that performance measurement is affected by crises, due to a lack of time, formal performance measurement activities have in most cases been prioritized away. The informal activities have on the other hand been given more space and contributed to more informal and enabling control within organizations. Evaluations are mainly based on subjective values, observations, and rumours, which the employees have mixed experiences about whether a manager can make a fair assessment. This research paper has also shown that employees are motivated by performance measurements when they are linked to incentives such as higher salaries and individual development goals, but on the other hand, there are not enough resources to focus on their goals.

This chapter elaborates on the ways in which intellectual capital (IC) indicators can work. It emphasizes the idea of relevance of numerical representation of an organization's IC. The chapter considers Power's proposition about the limits of indicators by discussing the production, transmission, and consumption of IC indicators. The 'accountingization' of IC is an example of how members of organizations demand numbers to make sense of their activities. The objective of measurements in financial reports is, according to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), for the measurement to be decision useful. The main argument for this is that the IASB develops standards to support investors and other suppliers of financial resources. An alternative approach to IC indicators is to define relevance from a managerial or even strategic perspective. The managerial approach dominates control literature in general, and the balanced scorecard in particular, and the literature emphasizes that measurements should be connected to what is important in the organization.

This paper draws attention to people’s pension savings and their responses to the increasing calls urging them to engage in practices of calculation about their future life as retirees. Recurring studies report that these calculation exercises have turned out to raise problems to people, provoking – at times – frustration or even indifference among pension savers. But why is that so? Why do people not engage in this kind of calculations?

Prior literature suggests that mechanic calculation presupposes a set of conditions. Individual knowledge-based capacity (Lusardi and Mitchell 2007) as well as commensurate translations that enables possibilities for comparisons between different kinds of choices (Espeland and Stevens 1998; Callon & Law, 2005) are but a few conditions that are suggested to be fulfilled in order to make rational calculation feasible. There are situations, however, when calculation is called for and expected to be attended to without controversy, but still turn out as moments where rational principles of calculation do not seem to apply (Espeland and Stevens 1998). Calculating one’s pension might be argued to represent one such situation. Based on our empirical observations, the basis for rational calculation seems to be challenged when pension savers are asked to imagine an existence taking place in a future several decades ahead from the life they lead today. Hence, in order to further explore the reasons to this experienced calculative dilemma, we ask: What role does future play in practicing pension calculations?

The aim of this paper is to extend our understanding of the conditions of calculation. The idea is to investigate situations in which calculation entail dilemmas of rationality. To frame the conditions of calculation, we draw on Jaspers’ idea of boundary situations (2010). A boundary situation is a moment in which a person is faced with discrepancies and contradictions that cannot easily be resolved by means of rational thinking. We suggest that people’s pension management offers such a moment, investigating how people read and understand pension accounts in the light of a future that involves different kinds of ‘deaths’: the termination of professional life; the consequences of physical decay, and the end of life itself.

The study demonstrates that practices of calculations inevitably links to imagining the future but also, and by consequence, how calculations become circumscribed when these future imaginations involve existential concerns that rule out rational reasoning. In such cases, calculations transforms into a practice that stretches beyond rationality, suggesting that when the future is unimaginable, calculation becomes nonsensical or even absurd. This, in turn, adds a time dimension to the conditions of calculation, an issue which to date has not explicitly been addressed in prior accounting literature.

The present study analyses how the composition of calculative technologies is affected by the social setting in which the technologies are situated. Previous studies tend to explain technology’s adoption and abandonment by its functionality and its ability to conceive the object under study. Studying the corporate social and environmental performance analysis conducted by institutional investor analysts and their service providers, the present study instead finds that calculative technologies in themselves have a product quality and are located at an intersection of markets. The resulting pressure from different forms of competition affects the composition of the technology. As a result, the technologies are as a result not particularly stable, which prevents the epistemic object, corporate social and environmental performance, from becoming a technological taken-for-granted object. The technology’s functionality is, rather than inherent and stable, attributed to the technology and continuously negotiated.

Purpose: to analyse the ability and skill of the one enforcing accountability.

Design/methodology/approach: Knowing how to hold to account is viewed from a perspective of knowing as situated accomplished action. The empirical case consists of Nordic investors who seek to hold companies accountable for their social and environmental performance.

Findings: The study finds that holding to account consists of distributed knowing and delegated activities. To coordinate the activities accountability relationships within the holding to account practice develops. Apart from internal relationships and the relationship to the accountable, knowing how to hold to account consists of demonstrating authority and successful practice in situations with important others, such as organizational colleagues, competitors and media. When face-to-face with the accountable, the appropriation of a customised and generalizable vocabulary helps the actors distance discussions from the expertise of the accountable, and facilitates the reorganization of business contexts so that their experiences are ‘transferable’ across these contexts.

Research implications: A depiction of accountability relationships as involving solely the accountable and the one holding to account is too simplistic. As in the present case, the practice of holding to account may include coordinated, multiple actors, even from separate organizations. Rather than focusing on individuals, the study promotes a focus on situations and the actors found therein as the circumstances of the situations will affect any outcome.

Originality/value: The study focuses on the practice of enforcing accountability, a know how that is often taken for granted, although earlier studies have indicated that such practice is not always successful.

Instead of focusing on ‘new’ modes of governance and their technologies, the present work argues that we should as well study what existed before on a market for governance. In this vein, the present study focuses on the pre-existing, challenged, mode of governance and on how the actors react to competition. It studies the reaction of an existing prominent mode of governance when a new form targeting the same subject- companies- and goal- improved social performance- gains territory. In the encounter with CSR and its corporate policies and reporting, the governance technology coupled with the trade unions - Global Framing Agreements- becomes the point of difference and competition. The concept of qualification (Callon, Méadel, & Rabeharisoa, 2002) is here used to conceive of the actions and steps taken by the pre-existing governance actors, the trade unions. The study finds that in a situation of recognised competition from a mode of governance where the technologies are viewed as the main difference, the pre-existing actors react by qualifying their technology and thereby provide the companies with a basis for preference. The qualifying efforts, however, as well change the technology and what the Global Framing Agreement is.

The present study analyses how accounts become identified as information. Using the empirical case of investor analysts and social and environmental issues, it finds that models’ categories structure the detection of accounts and form what becomes information. The availability of accounts as input to the models in turn limits how elaborate the models can be. Information- together with investor attributes and interpretative models- affects the outcome of any analysis, but should not be viewed as independent of its users or their models. Thereby when we fail to take information into consideration, when not reflecting on what is viewed or not viewed as information, we miss an important factor in explaining the outcome of an analysis or the popularity of certain models. 

Although the literature on internal auditing is only burgeoning, it provides knowledge on the conflicts inherent to the role of internal auditors. Given such circumstances we ask how internal auditors frame their own role and function, in order to understand the basis on which they find support to handle the situations they face. Based on 29 semi-structured interviews with internal audit executives in Swedish public sector agencies this study describes the role of the internal auditor as a bundle of aspects and facets in tension with each other and how internal auditors frame and manage the complexity and precariousness that they find themselves in. In doing this we contribute to the literature on the role of the internal auditor from the perspective of Swedish internal auditors and how they manage conflicting demands.

Tidigare forskning visar på den utmanande och utsatta roll som internrevisorer har i organisationer. Internrevision utövas i komplexa situationer där det fortfarande är oklart vad oberoende betyder och hur det utövas. I den här rapporten riktar vi därför intresset mot internrevisorernas roll genom att fokusera specifikt på oberoendebegreppet och vad det   blir   av   oberoendet   i   de   olika   situationer   de   möter.   Rapporten   tar   upp forskningsfrågan hur oberoende konstrueras i en situation där det är problematiskt. Vi genomför tre delstudier som empiriskt tar sig an internrevision på olika sätt: 1) genom att betrakta  internrevision  som  en  situerad  praktik  som  varierar  i  relation  till  dess inbäddning i revisionsutskottet    eller    organisationens    ledning,    samt    hur    väl internrevisorernas  arbete  är  kopplat  (löst  eller  tätt)  till  organisationens  styrelse  eller ledning; 2) genom att undersöka hur internrevisorer i konstruerar oberoendet genom strategier som bemöter det motstånd mot internrevision de upplever i sin vardag; och 3) genom   att   analysera   hur   internrevisorer framställer   sig   själva   inför   andra   i organisationen och hur det förstärker bilden av oberoendet. Genom projektet bidrar vi till  kunskap  och  förståelse  kring  internrevisorsrollen.  Delstudie  1  är  baserad  på  en textanalys  av  bolagsstyrningsrapporter  i  börsnoterade  bolag  och  bidrar  genom  att beskriva den inneboende komplexiteten som internrevisorerna möter i sin vardag och de risker för oberoendet som vissa situationer medför. Delstudierna 2 och 3 är baserade på intervjuer med internrevisionschefer i myndigheter och ger i sin tur insikter om hur internrevisorer arbetar (delstudie 2) och framställer sig själva (delstudie 3) på sätt somförsvarar oberoendet och värdet av internrevision."

Tidigare forskning visar på den utmanande och utsatta roll som internrevisorer har i

organisationer. Internrevision utövas i komplexa situationer där det fortfarande är oklart

vad oberoende betyder och hur det utövas. I den här rapporten riktar vi därför intresset

mot internrevisorernas roll genom att fokusera specifikt på oberoendebegreppet och vad

det blir av oberoendet i de olika situationer de möter. Rapporten tar upp

forskningsfrågan hur oberoende konstrueras i en situation där det är problematiskt. Vi

genomför tre delstudier som empiriskt tar sig an internrevision på olika sätt: 1) genom

att betrakta internrevision som en situerad praktik som varierar i relation till dess

inbäddning i revisionsutskottet eller organisationens ledning, samt hur väl

internrevisorernas arbete är kopplat (löst eller tätt) till organisationens styrelse eller

ledning; 2) genom att undersöka hur internrevisorer konstruerar oberoendet genom

strategier som bemöter det motstånd mot internrevision de upplever i sin vardag; och 3)

genom att analysera hur internrevisorer i framställer sig själva inför andra i

organisationen och hur det förstärker bilden av oberoendet. Genom projektet bidrar vi

till kunskap och förståelse kring internrevisorsrollen. Delstudie 1 är baserad på en

textanalys av bolagsstyrningsrapporter i börsnoterade bolag och bidrar genom att

beskriva den inneboende komplexiteten som internrevisorerna möter i sin vardag och

de risker för oberoendet som vissa situationer medför. Delstudierna 2 och 3 är baserade

på intervjuer med internrevisionschefer i myndigheter och ger i sin tur insikter om hur

internrevisorer arbetar (delstudie 2) och framställer sig själva (delstudie 3) på sätt som

försvarar oberoendet och värdet av internrevision.

Background and problem: Goodwill arises as a result of a business combination when the purchase price exceeds the net book value of acquired assets. Today, goodwill represents one of the dominant assets recorded on the companies’ balance sheets. The introduction of IFRS/IAS in 2005 has contributed to an increase in demand for qualified auditors. The auditor is increasingly becoming a valuable economic resource who’s main role is to ensure quality of information and build trust between stakeholders.

IFRS/IAS contains greater elements of subjective principles and assessments compared to the previous regulatory framework. The accounting and valuation therefore becomes a matter of judgment which lays in the auditors’ hands.

The thesis research question is: “How is the auditing process of goodwill performed by auditors in practice?”

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to study how auditors apply the regulatory framework, IFRS/IAS, when reviewing goodwill. Furthermore the purpose is to give attention to auditors’ perception of the audit work of this increasingly important asset and discuss the risks and opportunities in the assessment of goodwill.

Method and methodology: The research is based on an inductive interpretive perspective and a qualitative approach in which 8 semi-structured interviews (with 2 experts, 4 auditors and 2 evaluation specialists) form the design of the study.

Analysis and conclusions: The research indicates 6 phases in the auditing process of goodwill in practice, which corroborates the theoretical framework. The respondents in this study believe that goodwill is a difficult item to audit because it contains subjective assessments where no right or wrong exist. Furthermore goodwill is often a prestige issue, in which management’s and the auditor’s opinions differ. The underlying purpose of IFRS/IAS regarding the accounting and valuation of goodwill is good, but is not being fully applied in practice, which makes the auditing process more difficult.

This study explores dairy farmers’ accounts of farm animals in a context heavily influenced by the concept of farm animal welfare (FAW). We illustrate how external demands linked to FAW, performance concerns, and proximity to animals shape farmers’ formal and cognitive accounts of animals. We explain how different accounts underlie farmers’ accountability for animals. Using FAW as an example of a referent concept, we propose that accountability can be limited conceptually by its referent. This limit is not a matter of its (in)ability to account fully for all lived experiences. Rather, it is a matter of what one is or is not accountable for—such as the mortality rate but not culling—as well as assumptions regarding the referent—such as the nature of animal welfare and how it can be assessed and safeguarded. Even when it is conceptually bounded in this way, self-accountability has potential to alter farming practices by reflecting on caring about animals and on what this implies for oneself and the animals.

I kapitlet diskuteras frågor om ansvar, fred och styrning i försvarsmakten i förhållande till statsmakt, riksdag och regering.

Purpose - This study aims to formulate recommendations for business-to-business (B2B) researchers, with the potential to increase the extent to which B2B research is relevant to managers.

Design/methodology/approach - These recommendations are derived from and inspired by the grounded theory methodology.

Findings - In this article, we argue that conceptualizations which are potentially relevant to managers are those that discover new perspectives, simplify complexity, enable managers to take action and have an instant grab. To accomplish this as researchers, the authors emphasize fostering a beginner's mind, creating umbrella models, increasing the level of abstraction of concepts and finding the core process in data.

Originality/value - In this article, we translate the basic principles within the grounded theory methodology into more general recommendations that can be used by B2B researchers.

A strategic transformation process of a Swedish agency, i.e. the Swedish Public Employment Service, is discussed from a trust framework. Lately, the agency has been heavily criticized internally (by managers and employees) and externally (by different stakeholders) for failing in fulfilling its goals and deliver inadequate services. In 2014, the agency launched a new strategy – to become trustworthy and to deliver better services to its customers. It was the agency’s attempt to move away from the old authoritarian bureaucratic management style towards introducing trust-based management control. The old and the new way of managing the agency creates tensions that are difficult to overcome and where mistrust at different levels within the organization is a major obstacle affecting the ongoing transformation process. The aim of this paper is to shed light on how trust is reconstructed in vertical and horizontal relationships within a public service delivery agency that experiences an extensive transformation process. Drawing upon a processual case study approach, we have conducted 65 interviews, observations and document studies. The results show how the agency have suffered from low levels of trust in both vertical and horizontal relationships and that low levels of trust in vertical relationships seem to have negative impact on horizontal collaborations within the agency. The paper contributes to previous research in the following ways. First, the reconstruction of trust is discussed from a time perspective, pointing at the importance of discussing the development of trust in terms of a past, a present and a future. Second, within the paper, trust is discussed in both vertical relationships (i.e. relationships between employees/managers) as well as horizontal relationships (i.e. relationships between co-workers) within the same analytical framework, which enables a discussion about the impact of trust development in vertical relationships on the development of trust in horizontal relationships and vice versa.

Over the past decade, a host of donor organizations implemented transparency systems to make international development aid more transparent to the public. These initiatives have met with little public interest, but their proliferation and development show no sign of diminishing. This article shows how internal importance to the political system, fueled by formal rankings and the exhibition of transparency systems as a flagship initiative, can replace relevance to the public as a driving force for sustainable development. The article concludes by discussing the possibility of a future development where transparency systems finally do connect with user groups, such as citizens of both donor and recipient countries, and gain a relevance even beyond original intentions.

Purpose - The purpose of this Editorial is to reflect on the potentials and challenges of qualitative research in financial accounting and introduce the four papers included in this Special Issue.

Design/methodology/approach - The authors draw on and discuss extant literature and the papers included in the Special Issue to develop our assessment of the current state of the field of qualitative financial accounting research and possible future paths ahead.

Findings - The authors observe that qualitative research on financial accounting is still an emerging field with substantial further research potential.

Research limitations/implications - The authors outline future potentials for qualitative accounting research.

Originality/value - This Editorial contributes to studies on the state of academic research in (financial) accounting.

To defy interpretation, delay sense making and accommodate a process view, I propose metonymy as an alternative/complement to metaphor in organization studies. By way of three examples I attempt to show how the unpacking of metonymies, i.e. metonymic reading, can delay metaphorical interpretation to allow for the inclusion of alternative views of concrete experience. Thus, although metonymy ultimately yields to metaphor, it seems worthwhile to dwell on and delve into. 

This study reports on an attempt to remove management accounting’s calculative practices at the operational level of a Swedish Public Agency. Using a Habermasian perspective, the study shows how the agency has attempted to replace the previous accounting practice, which involved target setting, performance management and measurement with a new leadership philosophy, and accounting practices that aim at generalizing the individual’s private interest toward organizational interests. The result is interpreted as an attempt to make the individual responsible for the welfare of the collective in which, in its absence, the kind of validity that accounting’s calculative practices enable is very much present as a longing to soothe the anxiety and uncertainty brought about by the responsibility to lead oneself.

This papers concerns strategic management accounting (SMA) in public sector agencies. The paper focuses on the challenges of strategy formation in the public sector through an analysis of the strategizing effects of the management accounting techniques in relation to the public-sector context. The paper answers calls for studies on the strategizing effects of costing practices in the public sector in relation to other public-sector goals. The paper broadens the scope beyond cost and efficiency aspects and includes other management accounting aspects that include the role of the government and mass media in the strategy formation of a public-sector organization. The paper suggests that to understand SMA in the public sector, involves a contextual understanding of the governance system in which SMA is situated. This context includes formal governance bodies such as the government as well as other external actors such as mass media. These actors are important to bring into the analysis because their actions toward public sector agencies in many ways influence the choice of management accounting tools whose strategizing effects constitute of strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the field of management accounting and control of inter-organizational collaboration by researching how they are managed and accounted for. We turn thus to the management accounting and control practices in an inter-organizational collaboration called “Robotdalen”, a Swedish robotics initiative that aims at “enabling commercial success of new ideas and research within robotics and automation” (Robotdalen 2012) and ask: how is Robotdalen managed and accounted for? The results of the study show how Robotdalen turns aspects of the inter-organizational relation into intra-organizational ones by among others things, developing its own identity.