In consonance with increasing recognition of firms' ‘social’ bottom-line, we have witnessed scholarly and commercial advocacy for employee satisfaction measurement as crucial component of proper management control. Extant research, both within and beyond the accounting domain, has been characterized by functionalist-prescriptive viewpoints, to the detriment of a phenomenological perspective that illuminates how groups of actors interpret and enact the means and ends of employee satisfaction measures in situated and emergent patterns of use. We address this concern based on a qualitative case study investigating the application of an employee satisfaction measurement system in a large camping chain undergoing a post-merger integration. Our analysis highlights how the organizational role of an employee satisfaction measurement system is not determined a priori by its intended purpose or inscribed structural features, but subject to actors' sensemaking. We demonstrate how the ways actors make sense of an employee satisfaction measurement system can vary due to heterogeneous socialization backgrounds materializing in distinct frames underpinned by certain assumptions and expectations about the motives and uses of those systems. We discuss how such ‘frame incongruence’ can elicit unintended, and potentially dysfunctional, organizational dynamics and how these complexities relate to the “evocative gestalt” of employee satisfaction measures.

随着对公司“社会”底线的日益认可，我们目睹了学术和商业倡导将员工满意度测量作为适当管理控制的关键组成部分。现有的研究，无论是在会计领域内还是在会计领域之外，都以功能主义规定的观点为特征，损害了现象学观点，该观点阐明了行为者群体如何解释和制定员工满意度测量的手段和目的在情境和新兴模式中。利用。我们基于一个定性案例研究解决了这个问题，该研究调查了员工满意度测量系统在一个大型露营连锁店中的应用，该连锁店正在进行合并后的整合。我们的分析强调了员工满意度测量系统的组织角色如何不是先验地由其预期目的或铭刻的结构特征决定，而是受制于行为者的意义建构。我们展示了参与者理解员工满意度测量系统的方式如何因异质的社会化背景在不同的框架中实现而有所不同，这些框架由对这些系统的动机和使用的某些假设和期望所支撑。我们讨论了这种“框架不一致”如何引发意想不到的、可能功能失调的组织动态，以及这些复杂性如何与员工满意度测量的“令人回味的格式塔”相关联。我们展示了参与者理解员工满意度测量系统的方式如何因异质的社会化背景在不同的框架中实现而有所不同，这些框架由对这些系统的动机和使用的某些假设和期望所支撑。我们讨论了这种“框架不一致”如何引发意想不到的、可能功能失调的组织动态，以及这些复杂性如何与员工满意度测量的“令人回味的格式塔”相关联。我们展示了参与者理解员工满意度测量系统的方式如何因异质的社会化背景在不同的框架中实现而有所不同，这些框架由对这些系统的动机和使用的某些假设和期望所支撑。我们讨论了这种“框架不一致”如何引发意想不到的、可能功能失调的组织动态，以及这些复杂性如何与员工满意度测量的“令人回味的格式塔”相关联。