Kirsi-Mari Kallio

• Professor/ Ph.D. Accounting and Finance
• Professor (Associate) at University of Turku

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to synthesize insights from previous accounting, performance measurement (PM), and accountability research into the rapidly emerging field of knowledge-intensive public organizations (KIPOs). In so doing, it draws upon insights from previous literature and other papers included in this special issue of Accounti...

Purpose This purpose of this study is to understand how the spread of audit culture and the related public sector reforms have affected Finnish universities’ organization principles, performance measurement (PM) criteria and ultimately their reason for being. Design/methodology/approach Applying extensive qualitative data by combining interview da...

Purpose Employing institutional logic and institutional work as its theoretical framework, this study analyzes scholars' reactions to performance measurement systems in academia. Design/methodology/approach Large datasets were collected over time, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements. The data were gathered from a two-wave survey i...

Higher education has been subject to substantial reforms as new forms of performance management are implemented in universities across the world. Extant research suggests that in many cases performance management systems have disrupted academic life. We complement this literature with an extensive mixed methods study of how the performance manageme...

The article focuses on the effects of management-by-results from the perspective of the work motivation of university employees. The study is based on extensive survey data among employees at Finnish universities. According to the results, performance measurement is based on quantitative rather than qualitative measures, and the current management-...

Purpose The purpose of this article is to assess the continuing relevance of Olson et al .’s (1998) four primary concerns regarding the future development of New Public Financial Management (NPFM) in public service organizations. A particular focus is on understanding changes in the formal systems governing the performance management of universitie...

Purpose- This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in making up such practices. It studies how academics come to accept and even identify with the quantitative representations of themselves in a translation process. Desi...

Fixed-term employments among academic personnel at Finnish universitiesThis study focuses on fixed-term employments in Finnish universities. The relative amount of fixed-term employments in different career phases, universities and fields are described. The analyses reveal that the fixed-term employments are considerably more common in universities...

This study delves into the idea of data analytics and investigates the rhetoric through which its qualities are rendered accessible to people. It poses the following research question: How is data analytics and its relationship to organisations made attractive through rhetorical strategies? The analysis is based on 16 articles on data analytics pub...

Purpose This article studies the tensions between universities' accountability and autonomy in response to the demands of public steering mechanisms coordinating higher education institutions. Design/methodology/approach Demonstrating the tension between accountability and autonomy, the impact and relevance of public steering mechanisms coordinati...

This paper describes the implementation of corporatized shared services (CSS) in Finnish municipalities and the shift of operating logics. The diffusion of the new logics gradually proceeded to two levels: the individual level and the collective level. At the individual level, identity and cognitive skills were important to the diffusion of the new...

Performance measurement (PM) is now common in Western universities. This is also the case in Finland, where a new funding scheme was implemented to ensure that quality was included in universities’ PM. However, this paper shows that the quality indicators in use are, in practice, quantitative. The paper is based on a large survey and has implicatio...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the potential positive effects of the design of a physical organisational environment on the emergence of an organisational culture conducive to organisational creativity. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on an in-depth, longitudinal case study, the aim being to enhance understandin...

The practices and problems of performance management and measurement in HR departments The ways in which human resource management and human resource (HR) departments can add strategic value to organizational performance is a topic of lively discussion in the literature on strategic human resource management. The expectations of shareholders as pr...

Purpose This article explores the potential positive effects of the design of a physical organisational environment on the emergence of an organisational culture conducive to organisational creativity. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on an in-depth, longitudinal case study, the aim being to enhance understanding of how a change in p...

The themes related to creativity have dominated the Finnish political debate during the past few years. While the Finnish population is aging and the blue-collar jobs are drifting to China and to other low-cost countries, the basic tenet of the politicians’ seem to be that in order to maintain the Finnish welfare society, creativity and especially...