Markus Granlund

University of Turku | UTU · Turku School of Economics

Purpose The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability. Design/method...

Purpose The authors examine how performance measurement systems (PMSs) and academic agency influence the meaning of research quality in practice. The worries are that the notion of research quality is becoming too simplistically and narrowly determined by research quality's measurable proxies and that academics, especially manager-academics, do not...

Management control systems (MCS) have been known to produce unintended, dysfunctional consequences. However, relatively little is known about how MCS can contribute to the inertia and even decline of a firm. Our analysis in the abductive mode was triggered by a surprising case study observation that although Nokia Mobile Phones (NMP) certainly had...

This paper is a critical analysis of the potential implications of adopting a highly established research paradigm in management accounting research. The analysis employs the notion of uncertainty as it is presently used in established contingency-based management accounting (CBMA) research practice. We argue that particular established constructs...

The purpose of this commentary is to initiate discussion on the status of research on the interface between management control, especially management accounting, and information technology, and on how we could proceed to understand this relationship and changes in it. The commentary also points to the need for expanding the sphere of theories and m...

In this article we discuss the motivation for and role of theory in management accounting. We argue that theories in an applied field such as management accounting research should provide explanations that are useful for those we study - managers, organizations and society. We evaluate the nature of theories currently used and developed. Those theo...

This paper investigates how multiple and competing objectives are managed within an organisation, and the role that the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) plays in balancing organisational objectives. The issue of achieving multiple objectives, those which represent the interests of various stakeholders, has come to the forefront of the corporate agenda, as...

It seems that Paolo Quattrone (PQ) shares in his interesting commentary some of the concerns we expressed in our manuscript. In a good post-modernist spirit, he criticizes our work, which of course is far from being beyond critics. But does he provide any solutions or insights on how to overcome those concerns we all seem to share? He credits us fo...

Based on a review of earlier research and empirical data this study suggests that the accounting academia has in general a limited understanding of the current developments in the accounting - information technology (IT) interfaces. This knowledge gap has important implications for as regards what should be studied in the area and how, as well as f...

In this chapter we discuss the relations between information technology, information systems and management control. We argue that important issues can be learned about management accounting and control as we study its relations to information technology. Such relations are many times not only complex but also problematic: information technology is...

The purpose of this study is to describe and explain current management control practices in new economy firms (NEFs). According to our definition, NEFs include businesses targeting at fast growth or already fast-growing firms that operate in the information and communications technology business and biotech (life sciences) industry, and are charac...

Firms operating at the centre of the 'new economy', such as dot-coms, Internet related technology providers, www-site or -portal designers, or content producers, are characteristically organisations with strong culture of technical capability or artistic creativity. These 'new economy firms' (NEFs) have a tendency to operate in a highly flexible ma...

The objective of this longitudinal case study is to study management control problems in corporate mergers and acquisitions. This is executed by analysing the post acquisition merger processes of two companies of equal size, but with different cultures and management accounting systems (MAS). It is argued that the MAS evolution in such a context ma...

The currently most advanced administrative corporate IT solutions have emerged in the form of enterprise resource planning systems (ERPS). The number of adopters of this new integrated information technology is increasing rapidly. Still, we know very little about the practical consequences these new systems have for managerial accounting and contro...

This study is concerned with the explanations that managers give to various company stakeholders, in the case of factory closures for example. More generally, the paper examines the way justifications of managerial action are produced and “consumed”, and how the “legitimacy” on which they are based can change over time. With the help of a longitudi...

The major purpose of this study is to examine the communication structures within the management accounting academia, with a view to illustrating and thereby possibly alleviating the difficulties of dialogue between the different discussion circles identifiable within the field. Research on activity-based costing (ABC) is used as an illustrating ex...

The aim of this longitudinal case study is to examine the reasons behind the often observed fact that accounting systems are difficult to change, despite the influence of significant market changes and other changes which put tremendous pressure on accounting to change. Unlike the bulk of studies on management accounting change, this study focuses...

This paper provides an institutional analysis of the way a set of Finnish firms have used the concept of internationalisation and the EU in justifying major strategic decisions. They have used internationalisation, and in particular the then new possibility of Finland joining the EU, as an argument in support of radical change. An analysis of their...

We argue that there currently is a global tendency for management accounting system designs and general ideas to converge. After offering examples of such homogenization, the drivers of this development are distinguished and analyzed. For this end a framework was developed including both economic and institutional perspectives. The basic explanatio...

The key elements of this study consist of management accounting, communication cultures, and people pursuing management accounting in companies. Based on our evidence, we argue that management accounting practice in Finland is tied to the national culture surrounding it, i.e., Finnishness, and that the Finnish management accounting culture is curre...

Diss. -- Turun kauppakorkeakoulu.

Recent changes in marketing strategies, competition and production environments, and consequent changes in cost structures, have been argued as imposing pressure for change on current cost accounting. Characteristic of the present situation is the serious lack of information concerning the current state of cost accounting practice. The purpose of t...