Allan Hansen

Management Accounting and Operations Management: Understanding the Challenges from Integrated Manufacturing

Abstract Innovations in operations management, like just-in-time, total quality management, automation, have produced a new manufacturing paradigm that challenges management accounting design and practices. The new manufacturing paradigm, which we conceptualise as integrated manufacturing, focuses upon the lateral flow of products and services, and thereby confronts management accounting ideals of hierarchical flows of information for planning and control. In this chapter, we take a closer look at management accounting research and the responses that have been made to the challenge from the new operational practices. We examine the extent to which changes in management accounting practices are observed, and the way in which design changes are recommended within organisations committed to the new manufacturing paradigm. Furthermore, we reflect upon the role of accounting as a management tool in integrated manufacturing, and on possible future research questions, so as to enrich our knowledge of the management accounting/operations management interface.

Relating performative and ostensive management accounting research: Reflections on case study methodology

Purpose - The methodological debate relating to accounting research using actor-network theory (ANT) has primarily focused on how ANT generates performative studies that significantly differ from ostensive studies. These discussions have in many ways (and for good reasons) distanced performative from ostensive research. Recently, however, several scholars have emphasized the interdependencies between ostensive and performative aspects when it comes to knowledge development, thereby underlining the need to coordinate ostensive and performative studies and bring them closer together. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the methodological opportunities and limitations for ANT researchers who seek to move closer to ostensive research. Design/methodology/approach - The basis for exploring the opportunities and threats stemming from integration at the methodological level is a comparison of performative and ostensive case study methodologies as they have been presented in research. Robert K. Yins case study methodology is chosen to represent an ostensive view whereas performative case study methodology is represented by the methodological reflections of Bruno Latour, John Law, and Michel Callon. Findings - The paper illustrates how the process is a balancing act. On the one hand, it requires performative researchers to relate more closely to aspects decisive for ostensive researchers; yet, on the other, they need to preserve the distinctiveness of the performative approach. Originality/value - This paper exemplifies these issues with reference to management accounting research and contributes by clarifying the methodological implications of moving performative research closer to ostensive research.

On the Effectiveness of Incentive Pay: Exploring Complementarities and Substitution between Management Control System Elements in a Manufacturing Firm

Abstract Extant research already emphasises that complementarities and substitution involving incentive pay and other elements of an organisations management control system play an important role in terms of explaining the effectiveness of incentive systems. Despite this awareness calls continue for more research addressing the need to better understand how interdependencies arise among management control system elements and how they affect organisational effectiveness. Based on an in-depth case study on the implementation of a new incentive system in a manufacturing firm, we seek to provide more research and insight into how incentive pay features in complementary and substitutional relationships in an individual organisational setting. Greater insight can help illustrate how complementary and substitutional relationships unfold in even more complex ways than current research indicates, as well as how the effectiveness of the incentive system in the individual organisational setting is determined by these relationships.

Line-Item Budgeting and Film-Production: Exploring Some Benefits of Budget Constraints on Creativity

Purpose - – This paper aims to explore the role of line-item budgeting in film production in an effort to illustrate the positive effects that budgetary constraints can have on creativity. Design/methodology/approach - – Using Elster’s (2000) constraint theory as a basis for the research, this paper conducted a case study on the making of a Danish adventure film and analysed the role budgeting plays from the film director’s point of view. Findings - – This paper suggests that the constraints of the line-item budget imposed on the director had positive effects in terms of the pre-commitments entailed, which aided in protecting the director against the negative aspects of passion (e.g. distorted thought processes, myopia and weakness of will) in the creative process and in terms of the ability of the constraints to channel creativity in certain directions, thus preventing the availability of too many options from hampering the creative process. Originality/value - – The paper contributes to management control research in two ways. By addressing calls to provide more insight into the positive effects management control constraints might have on creativity, this study explores somewhat ignored aspects of line-item budgeting, adding greater insight into the interrelations between creativity and control. By exploring the ways in which line-item budgeting might take on the role of pre-commitment advice and devices in the creative process, this paper further exposes the links between accounting constraints and self-control.