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The moral precursor to the modern corporation a comment on Douglas Stevens: “Revising the theory behind corporate governance and management control - A reflection and roadmap” Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Colin Mayer
Abstract not available
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Editorial | Management Accounting Research - Volume 62 Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Wim A. Van der Stede
Abstract not available
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Revising the theory behind corporate governance and management control: A reflection and roadmap Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Douglas E. Stevens
I reflect on attempts to revise the theory behind corporate governance and management control in light of evolving organizational and market realities. First, I discuss the resistance to early attempts by prominent neoclassical economists to revise the theory of the firm. Second, I discuss the outcome of that resistance—an economic theory that is largely unable to describe common governance systems
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Employee benefits and company performance: Evidence from a high-dimensional machine learning model Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-12-27 Mikko Ranta, Mika Ylinen
By incorporating novel social media data, we analyze in detail how US companies offer different employee benefits and how they are associated with several company performance measures. Benefits such as 401(k), employee discounts, parking, and vision/dental healthcare are the most commonly provided, while free food -related benefits and family-related benefits are the most scarcely offered. Furthermore
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External complexity and the design of management control systems: a case study Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-12-14 Antonio Dávila, Giovanni-Battista Derchi, Daniel Oyon, Maël Schnegg
Increasing complexity and dynamism in technologies and markets are putting new demands on management control systems beyond those that these systems traditionally address. This longitudinal case study traces the experience of a real estate fund management company in addressing the need to make sense of increasing external complexity and its effort to design a management control system to support top
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Performance management and work engagement – New evidence using longitudinal data Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Stefanie Ehmann, Patrick Kampkötter, Patrick Maier, Philip Yang
The value and the impact of performance management systems on employee-level and firm-level outcomes is a widely discussed topic in both academia and practice. In this paper, we investigate the impact of performance management and evaluation practices (PMEPs), such as performance appraisal interviews, formal target agreements and performance-related pay schemes, on employee-level work engagement. Building
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Task assignment and pay dispersion under moral hazard Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-10-12 Clemens Löffler, Christian Schmid
We study a moral hazard problem where a principal assigns tasks that differ in the precision of their performance measures to agents who differ in their risk aversion. We solve for the optimal task assignment and observe that if both tasks are sufficiently easy to measure, the principal assigns the task involving the noisier performance measure to the less risk-averse agent. This assignment results
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How senior managers use interactive control to manage strategic uncertainties: An attention-based view Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-08-06 Rachael L. Lewis, Nicole Sutton, David A. Brown
We adopt an attention-based view to examine how interactive control enables the management of strategic uncertainties. An attention-based view invites consideration of the focus of managerial attention, as well as the situational and structural factors that systematically shape the issues to which managers pay attention. Our theoretical framework extends existing accounts of how interactive control
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Cost decisions of supplier firms: A study based on the customer-supplier link Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Nishant Agarwal, Swetha Agarwal
We examine the association between the cost decisions of suppliers and their key customers. Using a U.S.-based sample of customer-supplier pairs, we document that an increase in the key customer firm’s cost stickiness in the prior period results in a significant increase in their suppliers’ cost stickiness in the current period. This finding suggests that suppliers observe and incorporate the cost
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Out of control? Tracking system technologies and performance measurement Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-05-20 Pier-Luc Nappert, Matthew Bamber
This article explores how sophisticated and intrusive socio-technological surveillance advances, particularly tracking systems, have become normalized in the North American baseball industry. To make sense of the extensive archival and interview data, we draw on a Deleuzo-Guattarian framework. To this end, we argue that baseball has evolved into a society of control, facilitated and maintained by a
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Do costing system design choices mediate the link between strategic orientation and cost information usage for decision making and control? Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-05-18 Piyada Daowadueng, Sophie Hoozée, Ann Jorissen, Sophie Maussen
This study investigates the mechanisms that link strategic orientation to choices regarding the purposes of cost information use. We do so by examining whether costing system design choices regarding complexity and diversity mediate the relationships between an exploitation or exploration orientation and cost information usage for decision making and control. Our hypotheses are mainly based on information-processing
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The interaction of subjective and objective performance information in fixed payment schemes Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-05-13 Jörg Budde
I analyse the use of fixed payment schemes when compensation for a group of agents may be based on both objective and subjective performance evaluations. Under purely subjective performance evaluation, the optimal compensation rule entails third-party payments if liability constrains contracting. Verifiable information can improve the contract even if it provides no additional information. For verifiable
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The diffusion of management fashions as software in an intermediated market: The case of continuous accounting Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Grégory Jemine, François-Régis Puyou, Christophe Dubois
Increasingly, management techniques and trends in accounting are incorporated into software. Continuous accounting, understood as the automated processing of firms’ accounting records to deliver real-time financial information, can be seen as a contemporary illustration of a shared belief that newly developed software stand at the forefront of progress in accounting. While such technologies are usually
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The effects of target difficulty and relative ability on managers’ delegation decisions Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-04-29 Victor S. Maas, Bei Shi
Managers often need to choose between handling a task themselves and delegating it to a subordinate. We examine how the difficulty of the performance target set for the task affects such choices. We theorize that while managers tend to delegate more when the subordinate has a higher ability to handle the task, they will also use delegation to influence the perceived responsibility for the task outcome
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Announcement: David Solomons Prize Supported by CIMA Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-03-10
Abstract not available
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Controllers and strategic decision-making: The role of cognitive flexibility in controller-manager collaboration Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Sebastian P.L. Fourné, Daniel Guessow, Maximilian Margolin, Utz Schäffer
Extending research about controllers’ different roles, we develop new insights into how controllers collaborate with line managers and thereby shape strategic decision-making quality and speed. We introduce the concept of cognitive flexibility as an important characteristic of the controller-manager collaboration and hypothesize that the business partner role is positively related to cognitive flexibility
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Compromises and compromising: Management accounting and decision-making in a creative organisation Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-02-27 Paola Trevisan, Jan Mouritsen
This paper explores how actors handle multiple values in decision-making practices in a creative organisation. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s notion of compromise as a situation that includes and transcends multiple principles of value for the sake of a common, yet unarticulated, good, this paper analyses valuation practices that lead to production decisions in an opera house. It proposes compromising
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Organizational constraints and outsourcing under demand uncertainty: Evidence from the Brazilian electricity distribution industry Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-02-08 Rajiv Banker, Soojin Lee, Han-Up Park
This paper examines how public firms’ organizational constraints affect the sensitivity of labor outsourcing to demand uncertainty. We focus on a single industry in which state-owned firms are subject to additional organizational constraints that private firms are not. We mitigate omitted variable bias by considering the endogenous trade-off between insourcing and outsourcing by measuring average labor
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Under which circumstances are enabling control and control extensiveness related to employee performance? Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-01-27 Sander van Triest, Helena Kloosterman, Bianca A.C. Groen
We investigate circumstances that influence the relation between formal controls and performance of operational employees. Building on Adler and Borys (1996), we distinguish enabling control from control extensiveness (few versus many controls). We examine whether and how the relationships of enabling control and control extensiveness with employee performance are moderated by task routineness and
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Green incentives for environmental goals Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-01-23 Giovanni-Battista Derchi, Antonio Davila, Daniel Oyon
This paper examines antecedents of firms’ use of green incentives. We analyse a cross-industry panel of 531 firms from the 2007–2013 Carbon Disclosure Project investor survey. In line with predictions from the management control literature, we find that the use of green incentives is positively associated with a firm’s experience in monitoring environmental performance, supporting a sequential model
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Small sample field study:The effects of team-based recognition on employee engagement and effort Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2023-01-10 Adam Presslee, Greg Richins, Sasan Saiy, Alan Webb
Firms have long used recognition programs to engage and motivate employees. However, minimal research has examined the effectiveness of these programs in actual organizational settings. We predict that the adoption of a team-based recognition program will be associated with improvements in employee engagement and effort. We test our predictions using a pre-post research design administered at six fast-food
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Editorial Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-12-28 Wim A. Van der Stede
Abstract not available
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The effect of mood and information sequence on third party evaluation of escalating capital investment projects Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Chang-Yuan Loh, Mandy M. Cheng, Rodney Coyte
Third party evaluation of capital investment projects has been proposed as an effective means of controlling escalation of commitment. Prior research shows that such effectiveness can be limited by cognitive bias or task-related affective reactions but has not examined the influence of moods, known to impact how people process information, on third party evaluation of escalating capital investment
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Measuring management accounting practices using textual analysis Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Fangjuan Qiu, Nan Hu, Peng Liang, Kevin Dow
Management accounting is an important component of managerial decision-making to help guide the overall business strategy in organisations. Appropriate measures of management accounting practices (MAPs) allow academics and practitioners to assess the organisations’ MAP adoption effectively. In this study, based on qualitative information disclosed in annual reports from 2003 to 2019, we construct and
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Cooperate or compete? The impact of vertical wage dispersion on employees’ behavior in tournaments Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-09-18 Lan Guo, Kun Huo, Theresa Libby
We investigate the effect of vertical wage dispersion, defined as the difference in wages between superiors and subordinates, on subordinates’ behaviors in competition. We propose that higher vertical wage dispersion increases subordinates’ desire to reduce the vertical pay gap through collusion against their superiors in a setting where collusion reduces subordinate effort while increasing subordinates’
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Asymmetric responses to multidimensional performance evaluation systems: The role of non-pathological narcissism Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-08-20 Kelsey Kay Dworkis, Lorenzo Patelli
We experimentally investigate how narcissism affects individuals’ responses to multidimensional performance evaluation systems (PES). Because these systems are characterized by cognitive conflict, which inhibits performance, prior research has explored how exogenous control systems, such as the provision of feedback, can enhance task performance. Our experimental evidence shows that narcissism moderates
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Why the type of information observable to peers matters: Peer monitoring and performance measure manipulation Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-08-10 Sabra Khajehnejad, Stefan Linder
We investigate whether and how perceived observability of two types of information to peers – effort and performance – affects an agent’s engagement in performance measure manipulation. We propose that the relation between performance observability to peers and manipulation of performance measures depends on effort observability to peers. Data from two field surveys of mid- and lower-level managers
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The joint effects of performance measurement system design and TMT cognitive conflict on innovation ambidexterity Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-06-02 David S. Bedford, Josep Bisbe, Breda Sweeney
Prior research examining the consequences of specific performance measurement system (PMS) design attributes is largely focused on processes and decisions at an individual level. We extend this research by examining how PMS design attributes interact with group socio-cognitive processes to influence firm level outcomes. Specifically, we examine how the interaction between two PMS design attributes
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Performance, risk, and overflows: When are multiple management control practices related? Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Jan Mouritsen, Isabel Pedraza-Acosta, Sof Thrane
Current research relates multiple control practices as packages, systems, or accumulations. This relationship signifies that management control practices exist as multiplicities and interact in various ways. These interactions strengthen management control practices. However, this generalisation misses the when of relations, which is a problem, as management control practices are not always related
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The influence of organizational structure on value-based management sophistication Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-04-11 Steven Nowotny, Bernhard Hirsch, Christian Nitzl
Despite the widespread use of value-based management (VBM) in European companies, studies investigating the reasons for the differences in its sophistication remain scarce and are predominantly focused on environmental and intra-organizational aspects. Since the structure of a firm as a major organizational determinant is assumed to have a considerable impact on the fit between an organization and
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Announcement: David Solomons Prize Supported by CIMA Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-04-02
Abstract not available
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Price formation through real estate exchange: Informing and mediating evaluation with attachment Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-03-12 Maude Plante
This paper examines the process of price formation in markets. Pricing is explored as a process centrally informed by a plurality of evaluations that draw on calculations and attachment. Building on a range of data sources—36 interviews, 60 market exchange observations, seven hours of shadowing a real estate agent, and a sample of 136 property advertisements on the Sydney real estate market—this study
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Identity work of management accountants in a merger: The construction of identity in liminal space Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Martijn Pieter van der Steen
In response to calls for research on the ways in which management accountants make sense of their professional identities in organisational disruptions, this paper explores their identity work during a merger. Drawing on a case study of a merger between two Dutch banks, the paper examines their identity work as they found themselves in a liminal state – i.e. “betwixt and between” workplace identities
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Management control systems and real earnings management: Effects on firm performance Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-02-11 Beatriz García Osma, Jacobo Gomez-Conde, Ernesto Lopez-Valeiras
We examine an unexplored side of management control systems (MCS): their links with real earnings management. We propose that interactive use of MCS supports management in identifying, evaluating, selecting, and implementing real actions that conceptually would be classified as real earnings management (REM). Interactive MCS use is predicted to enhance managerial REM actions that retain the focus of
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Towards interventionist research with theoretical ambition Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Kari Lukka, Marc Wouters
A distinct strength of interventionist research (IVR) is the ability to establish particularly good access to a research partner organization and collect exceptionally detailed information, which may not be available to researchers who employ other approaches. Yet, a challenge of IVR is to exploit this data-gathering opportunity in full, in order to develop a theoretical contribution. We propose the
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The impact of enabling performance measurement on managers’ autonomous work motivation and performance Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-12-20 Evelyn Van der Hauwaert, Sophie Hoozée, Sophie Maussen, Werner Bruggeman
This study shows how performance measurement systems (PMSs) perceived as an enabling formalization may enhance managerial performance. Drawing on self-determination theory, we describe the motivational mechanisms that can explain the relationship between enabling performance measurement and managerial performance. We collected survey data from 186 Belgian managers to empirically test the relationships
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Productivity effects of shared peer effort and relative performance information Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Dimitri Yatsenko
Using an experiment in which workers’ pay depends solely on their performance (output), I examine the interactive effects of sharing peers’ effort duration (time spent on task) and output-based relative performance information (RPI) on productivity (performance per unit of time spent). I predict and find a positive effect of sharing peers’ effort duration on productivity, and a moderation of this by
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Showing off or showing impact? The joint signalling effect of reputation and accountability on social entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding success Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-11-19 Florian Hoos
In the early stages of their ventures, social entrepreneurs often struggle to attract financing in traditional financial markets and therefore use new markets, such as crowdfunding platforms. Based on two experimental studies, I examine how two different signalling strategies—the social entrepreneur’s reputation (based on awards, fellowships, and prizes) and accountability (based on a social impact
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Management control for sustainability: Towards integrated systems Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-11-18 Peter Beusch, Jane Elisabeth Frisk, Magnus Rosén, William Dilla
Companies struggle to integrate sustainability into their corporate strategy and implement it in their business activities. To examine this issue, we develop an extended version of Gond et al.’s (2012) integration typology that considers all four of Simons’s (1994, 1995) levers of control. We then present a longitudinal study of the efforts made by a multi-national industrial firm to align its management
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The impact of haggling costs on the optimal organizational design for sales forces Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-10-28 Matthias Kräkel, Anja Schöttner
We analyze when a firm should delegate pricing authority to a sales agent who is hired to exert non-observable effort in order to search for customers. A successful search yields that the agent becomes better informed than the firm about customers’ willingness to pay, which favors delegation. However, an agent with pricing authority might grant unnecessary price discounts to avoid personal costs from
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Nondyadic control systems and effort direction effectiveness: Evidence from the public sector Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-09-11 Roland F. Speklé, Frank H.M. Verbeeten, Sally K. Widener
One of the main themes in the current management control literature is the study of systems of control practices. While several studies have examined pairwise (‘dyadic’) complementarities in control practices to investigate whether a control system exists, control systems may also be comprised of more than two control practices (‘nondyadic systems’). We examine whether organizations use a complementary
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Bargaining power and budget ratcheting: Evidence from South Korean local governments Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-09-03 Youn-Sik Choi, Mi-Ok Kim, Hyung-Rok Jung, Hyungjin Cho
Using the actual and budgeted expenditure data of 241 South Korean local governments from 2010 to 2015, we find that budget decreases in the case of underspending are larger than budget increases in the case of overspending, which is in contrast to the asymmetric budget ratcheting pattern documented in prior studies. More importantly, we find that budget increases in the case of overspending are stronger
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Relative performance information and social comparisons: Exploring managers' cognitive, emotional and dysfunctional behavioral processes Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-09-03 Emma Carroll, David Marginson
We explore the cognitive and emotional processes which manifest as a result of social comparisons involving relative performance information. We also explore how and why these processes may invoke dysfunctional behaviors. We mobilize social comparison theory and affective events theory to guide our study. We gather our data from a qualitative field study of a retail organization. Regarding cognitive
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Seduction as control: Gamification at Foursquare Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-08-19 Chris Chapman, Wai Fong Chua, Tanya Fiedler
Post-disciplinary accounting research has drawn attention to the potential for technologies such as big data analytics and social media to enact new forms of surveillance and control, thereby transforming work, identity and producing anxiety. This paper explores these concerns in the context of the growing popularity of the use of game design elements in non-game settings (gamification). By drawing
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Mediating relations between financial and operational concerns when structural interdependencies are significant: The development of pseudo micro-profit centres at Kitanihon Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-08-19 Yves Habran, Satoko Matsugi, Jan Mouritsen
This paper analyses the development of pseudo micro-profit centres (MPCs) at Kitanihon, a Japanese manufacturer. MPCs aim to relate financial and operational concerns by sensitising operators to the financial consequences of their actions and by triggering financial improvements. MPCs, however, also create many small interdependent responsibility centres, which makes it difficult to delegate financial
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Beyond the decision to ally: Constraints on adapting to emergent control risks Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-07-03 Nicole Sutton, David A. Brown
Partners’ efforts to manage risk extend far beyond decisions made when an alliance is formed and continue throughout its lifecycle. As an alliance matures, it is expected that partners will adapt controls to address unanticipated, emergent risks; however, empirical evidence indicates that such changes are relatively rare. This study aims to advance our understanding of the constraints on control adaptation
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The sorting benefits of discretionary adjustment to performance-based pay Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Bart Dierynck, Victor van Pelt
We use an experiment to test the hypothesis that adding discretionary adjustment to performance-based pay strengthens the sorting of employees based on how strongly they identify with the organization’s objectives. Our conceptualization of identification is grounded in identity economics, which predicts that employees who identify strongly with the organization’s objectives exert greater effort toward
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Value-based management control systems and the dynamics of working capital: Empirical evidence Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-05-28 Olena Mavropulo, Marc Steffen Rapp, Iuliia A. Udoieva
We examine the relationship between the use of value-based key performance indicators in a firm’s management control system and the dynamics of working capital (WC). We hypothesize that firms with value-based management control systems (VBMCS) manage WC more cautiously, in particular regarding excessive WC. Theoretically, we link this to the argument that value-based performance measures explicitly
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Economic policy uncertainty and cost stickiness Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-05-23 Xiaolin Jin, Hai Wu
We examine the effect of aggregate economic policy uncertainty (EPU; Baker et al., 2016) on firms’ asymmetric cost reaction to sales changes (cost stickiness). We find that cost stickiness decreases with EPU in the United States (US) after we control for the positive relationship between cost stickiness and election years (Lee et al., 2020). This result is consistent with managers revising down their
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Asymmetric taxation, limited liability, and agency conflicts Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-04-22 Georg Schneider, Andreas Scholze, Fabian Meißner
Current income tax systems are characterized by an asymmetric treatment of gains and losses. This implies that the (effective) tax rate on profits exceeds that on losses. We study the contractural relationship between two parties (the principal and the agent). For example, such a relationship occurs if a franchisee (agent) contracts with a franchiser (principal) or when a new partner (agent) enters
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How managerial accountability mitigates a halo effect in managers’ ex-post bonus adjustments Manag. Account. Res. (IF 4.344) Pub Date : 2021-04-14 Miriam K. Maske, Matthias Sohn, Bernhard Hirsch
To prevent unethical behaviour by employees, many companies include compliance aspects in their compensation schemes. For example, ex-post bonus adjustments allow managers to retract parts of bonuses previously paid to employees in reaction to fraudulent behaviour. We propose that the level of ex-post adjustment due to an employee’s misconduct depends on the employee’s ex-ante objective performance