► We study professional role and role identity change of management accountants. ► A Newcomer CFO carried out three kinds of institutional work within the firm. ► (1) Legitimising the new ‘business ...partner’ role. ► (2) (Re-)constructing the management accountants’ role identities. ► (3) Linking the intra-organisational level with an institutional environment.
The paper theorises how a new actor of a firm can drive the institutionalisation 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 institutionalisation 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 institutionalisation of the management accountants’ new role: (1) legitimising the new “business partner” role, (2) (re-)constructing the management accountants’ role identities and (3) linking the intra-organisational 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 institutionalisation 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.
Using data from an in-depth case study of a manufacturing firm, this paper examines management accountants' efforts to position themselves as business partners. We regard this as an identity project ...that is influenced not only by operational managers (as the main addressees of business partnering), but also by other organizational actors with whom management accountants (indirectly) interact. Drawing upon Goffman, our study demonstrates how backstage and frontstage interactions with various actors allow management accountants to develop ideational and experimental storyable items, which help them render a vague aspirational identity meaningful. We emphasize the interplay between frontstage and backstage performances and highlight both achievements and experiences of fragility in their identity work. Our paper illuminates not only the micro-dynamics of accountants' identity work; it also shows how the identity project of a particular occupational group is embedded in broader organizational concerns with 'value creation', from which it draws part of its inspiration.
How do accountants experience and respond to increasing productivity pressure and a corresponding measurement regime monitoring their work? Drawing on case research in an international technology ...company, our study problematizes that productivity measurement tends to build on the assumption that accountants perform primarily routinized and standardized tasks that are amenable to quantification. However, this assumption can contradict their business partner identity, which they perceive as entailing complex, varying, and strategically oriented tasks that are difficult to measure and evaluate in standardized units. We find that accountants’ realization of this ambiguity in productivity measurement can make them recognize the (potential) unwanted self that an unreflective subordination to those measures might give rise to. We further illustrate how, to protect their aspired identity against the entrenchment of such an unwanted self, accountants (subtly) resist productivity measures. We thus show how accountants resist the very technologies that otherwise form their tools of the trade and shape a crucial part of their occupational identity and status. Overall, by focusing on the ambivalent role of productivity measurement, this study contributes to our understanding of the organizational dynamics that make accountants’ business partner identity fragile. We demonstrate how productivity measures can produce a false sense of clarity and direction and an incomplete representation of an occupational identity, which also renders problematic the transparency and comparability that those measures produce.
The paper does not purport to present a ready-made framework that can be instrumentally applied. Previous research forms the backdrop against which new research demonstrates its originality. In other ...words, how can existing ideas (from one domain) be used to not only explain but also challenge and problematize phenomena from various domains. While Vollmer’s piece uses ideas from micro-sociologists like Garfinkel and Goffman to help us reflect on accounting practices, the contributors to this special issue picked different backgrounds, against which to think about Vollmer (2019).
Focusing on multidivisional companies, this paper analyzes the hardening of local forecasts at the intersection of business units (BUs) and the corporate finance function. It investigates how BU ...controllers, accountable to both local management and the corporate finance function, seek to establish themselves as competent and trustworthy forecasters vis‐à‐vis their functional superiors. Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical sociology, we demonstrate how these encounters constitute episodes in a multiperiod hardening game feeding into the management of forecast quality and anticipatory control. We illustrate how expressive performances of their competence and trustworthiness are vital for BU controllers to manage vertical information flows between the local and the corporate level and for aligning corresponding interests. Convincing performances can reinforce BU controllers' status as stewards of the forecasting process and help to maintain a “truce” between the local and the corporate level, assuring corporate controllers that the unit's future is under control.
Résumé
Crédibilité des contrôleurs d’unités fonctionnelles et renforcement des prévisions à l’échelle locale
La présente étude, qui porte sur les entreprises comptant plusieurs divisions, analyse le renforcement des prévisions à l’échelle locale à l’intersection des unités fonctionnelles (UF) et de la fonction financière de l’entreprise. Elle examine la façon dont les contrôleurs d’UF, qui rendent des comptes aux équipes de gestion locales et aux responsables de la fonction financière de l’entreprise, cherchent à s’établir comme prévisionnistes compétents et dignes de confiance face à leurs supérieurs fonctionnels. En nous appuyant sur la sociologie dramaturgique de Goffman, nous montrons comment ces interactions constituent des épisodes d’un jeu de renforcement qui s’échelonne sur plusieurs périodes et qui alimente la gestion de la qualité des prévisions et le contrôle anticipé. Nous illustrons comment la manière dont les contrôleurs d’UF manifestent leur compétence et leur fiabilité est vitale pour leur permettre de gérer les flux d'informations verticaux entre les UF et l'entreprise, et d’harmoniser les intérêts correspondants. Des manifestations convaincantes peuvent renforcer le statut des contrôleurs d’UF en tant que gardiens du processus prévisionnel et contribuer à maintenir une « trêve » entre les unités et l’entreprise, garantissant ainsi aux contrôleurs à l’échelle de l’entreprise que l’avenir de l’unité fonctionnelle est sous contrôle.
PurposeData science promises new opportunities for organizational decision-making. Data scientists arguably play an important role in this regard and one can even observe a certain “buzz” around this ...nascent occupation. This paper enquires into how data scientists construct their occupational identity and the challenges they experience when enacting it.Design/methodology/approachBased on semi-structured interviews with data scientists working in different industries, the authors explore how these actors draw on their educational background, work experiences and perception of the contemporary digitalization discourse to craft their occupational identities.FindingsThe authors identify three main components of data scientists’ occupational identity: a scientific mindset, an interest in sophisticated forms of data work and a problem-solving attitude. The authors demonstrate how enacting this identity is sometimes challenged through what data scientists perceive as either too low or too high expectations that managers form towards them. To address those expectations, they engage in outward-facing identity work by carrying out educational work within the organization and (paradoxically) stressing both prestigious and non-prestigious parts of their work to “tame” the ambiguity and hype they perceive in managers’ expectations. In addition, they act upon themselves to better appreciate managers’ perspectives and expectations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research on data scientists as well as the accounting literature that often refers to data scientists as new competitors for accountants. It cautions scholars and practitioners alike to be careful when discussing the possibilities and limitations of data science concerning advancements in accounting and control.
Coordination under uncertainty Goretzki, Lukas; Messner, Martin
Qualitative research in accounting and management,
01/2016, Volume:
13, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how managers use planning meetings to coordinate their actions in light of an uncertain future. Existing literature suggests that coordination under uncertainty ...requires a “dynamic” approach to planning, which is often realized in the form of rolling forecasts and frequent cross-functional exchange. Not so much is known, however, about the micro-level process through which coordination is achieved. This paper suggests that a sensemaking perspective and a focus on “planning talk” are particularly helpful to understand how actors come to a shared understanding of an uncertain future, based upon which they can coordinate their actions.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds upon a qualitative case study in the Austrian production site of an international manufacturing company. Drawing on a sensemaking perspective, the paper analyses monthly held “planning meetings” in which sales and production managers discuss sales forecasts for the coming months and talk about how to align demand and supply.
Findings
The authors show how collective sensemaking unfolds in planning meetings and highlight the role that “plausibilization” of expectations, “calculative reasoning” and “filtering” of information play in this process. This case analysis also sheds light on the challenges that such a sensemaking process may be subject to. In particular, this paper finds that competing hierarchical accountabilities may influence the collective sensemaking process and render coordination more challenging.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the hitherto limited management accounting and control literature on operational planning, especially its coordination function. It also extends the management accounting and control literature that draws on the concept of sensemaking. The study shows how actors involved in planning meetings create a common understanding of the current and future situation and what sensemaking mechanisms facilitate this process. In this respect, this paper is particularly interested in the role that accounting and other types of numbers can play in this context. Furthermore, it theorizes on the conditions that allow managers to overcome concerns with hierarchical accountabilities and enact socializing forms of accountability, which is often necessary to come to agreements on actions to be taken.
Controllers' use of informational tactics Goretzki, Lukas; Lukka, Kari; Messner, Martin
Accounting and business research,
09/2018, Volume:
48, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Controllers typically have a 'dual accountability' towards the finance function and operational management, respectively. This dual accountability at times confronts them with conflicting ...expectations. In this paper, we suggest that 'informational tactics' constitute an important resource which controllers rely on so as to handle these expectations and to successfully present themselves vis-à-vis their different internal stakeholders. Drawing upon interview data, we demonstrate that informational tactics relate to different dimensions of information control (i.e. 'when', 'how' and 'what' information is to be exchanged) and that they depend on the respective room for manoeuvre a controller has in a given situation. Overall, our analysis adds a more nuanced picture to the literature on controllers' handling of information and demonstrates the fundamental role of informational tactics for their everyday work.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how remote (i.e. global, regional or divisional) management accountants communicate in interpersonal contacts with operational managers when trying to exert ...influence on them.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic field study focusing on budgetary control meetings between regional management accountants and operational managers is used as the basis for a micro-level analysis of situated face-to-face interactions and communicative influence tactics.
Findings
Remote management accountants mainly use soft rather than hard influence tactics. They, furthermore, employ what is referred to as “panoramic knowledge” gained explicitly from their structurally as well as physically removed “meta-positioning” to suggest certain measures to operational managers that have proved successful in other units and – by doing so – try to exert influence on these managers. Moreover, they use information that they gain in their position in between senior and operational managers by acting as “double agents” – that is, informing operational managers about senior managers’ focus as well as making transparent to operational managers that they will inform senior management about specific operational matters. By doing so, they try to prompt operational managers to address these issues. Additionally, strengthening their verbally articulated suggestions, as “minute takers” they are able to document their suggestions by moving from spoken to a more binding written text. Through these purposeful and rather unobtrusive tactics, remote management accountants try to take influence on operational managers without generating their resistance.
Originality/value
The paper shows how remote management accountants (as staff members) can skillfully turn their apparently powerless position within the organization into a source of strength to exert influence on operational managers.
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