Bino Catasús

What gets measured gets … - on indicating, mobilizing and acting

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationship underlying the often used adage “what gets measured gets managed”. Design/methodology/approach - The paper starts by reviewing the critique of the adage and then testing it by surveying 109 managers from 41 organizations. The paper includes the idea of mobilizing in the adage in order to highlight that there are other factors than indicating, which affect acting. In the positive test the paper uses the linear structural relations (LISREL) method to analyze the data. Findings - The paper finds that that the relationship between indicating and acting is not significant and that the introduction of mobilizing gives a better model fit. As a result the reformulation of the adage is: “What gets mobilized gets managed, especially if it gets measured”. Research limitations/implications - The paper shows that measuring is not Practical implications - The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it finds no significant relationship between indicating and acting; and second, it introduces mobilizing to explain the relationship between indicating and acting. Originality/value - The paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom encapsulated in the adage and by introducing mobilizing as an additional variable. The findings suggest that the adage needs to be reformulated.

Intangibles and credit decisions: results from an experiment

The question in this paper is whether the inclusion of intangibles is meaningful in a credit decision context. To examine this issue we conducted an experiment with forty loan officers. The loan officers were presented with a situation of a company that required a credit of 5 million Swedish kronor. Half of the loan officers were given a traditional annual statement in which intangibles were treated as costs while the other half received a balance sheet in which brand, R&D and education were capitalized. The loan officers were asked to give their opinion regarding the credit decision and the importance of extra information. They were also confronted with four short cases where extra information about the company appeared. Statistical analysis revealed that none of three hypotheses relating to the statement that ‘accounting for intangibles does not matter’ could be falsified. Still, the acquired qualitative data that emerged from the study makes it possible to suggest another finding. The study shows that accounting for intangibles is accepted if the accounts were seen as reliable. The conclusion is that if it is possible to create reliable data about intangibles, accounting for intangibles is meaningful for credit decisions.

Indicators: on visualizing, classifying and dramatizing

Purpose – This study aims to follow the development of human intellectual capital indicators over a six-year period and to bring forward the production, transmission and reception of indicators in ...

Construction of intellectual capital – the case of purchase analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is seek to analyze how models emanating from the managerial discourse of intellectual capital (IC) relate to how firms disclose IC in accordance with Internation ...

Towards the next generation of public management: A study of management control and communication in the Swedish Armed Forces

Purpose – This paper aims to present an empirical case where fundamental changes in the environment have forced an organization to re‐evaluate its management control systems and possibly search for destabilizing supporting routines in order to unlearn the established ways of measuring and controlling within the organization. The problem, however, is that organizational technologies often work in the other direction, i.e. they promote stability in organizational routines. The paper seeks to increase understanding regarding the importance of destabilizing, or, as the authors like to call them, sensebreaking activities within organizations that are present in rapidly changing environments.Design/methodology/approach – The authors used multiple sources and multiple techniques to collect data; interviews with managers, participation in meetings, and document analysis such as annual reports, pamphlets, speeches and Swedish Armed Forcess (SAFs) web site.Findings – The study is clearly presented in a design‐ori...

The communication of human accounts: examining models of sensegiving

Abstract:Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to reflect on how sensegiving cues are encapsulated in models of reporting for human resources. This has been by investigating elements, arguments and ...

Institutional contradictions at and around the annual general meeting : How institutional logics influence shareholder activism

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to examine how a shareholder association prepares for and later act at the annual general meeting. It focusses on how the association evaluates corporate proposals to pay dividends and how they vote on equity distributions at the annual general meeting. Design/methodology/approach - – This paper relies on observation of the shareholder association before the annual general meeting as well as at the meeting. The analysis is informed by institutional analysis as a way to make sense of how the association experience tension in the setting of the stock market and how it activates responses to these tensions. Findings - – The shareholder association failed to target companies that comply with an institutionalized view of good ownership despite those companies distributing more equity than the association deems to be in line with sound governance. This the authors understand to result from institutional tensions between a traditional stewardship model of governance and the more recent financial investor logic that emphasizes equity distributions as mean to create shareholder wealth. As good ownership is often equated with long-term committed owners, which makes the association fail to target non-traditional companies that are similar to companies with traditional ownership in terms of dividend ratios. Research limitations/implications - – The paper demonstrates how institutional logics influence micro-level action in offering guidance to individual members. There are two relevant aspects to this. First, it offers guidance in terms of how to identify whether a corporate proposal is in line with the associations’ policy. Second, institutional logics influence micro-level action because deviations from it require explanations. Originality/value - – There are so far little qualitative research on how participants in governance mechanism use accounting to take decisions. In this way, the paper adds insight to both investor communities as well as behind the doors of the AGM.

Accounting and the Hope of Action

Abstract The paper discusses the role of hope in the construction of an accounting technology to realize a program, by looking at a process of choosing non-financial indicators in an effort to achieve healthier workplaces. By exploring the literature dealing with the concept of hope and by drawing on the debate on the relationship between accounting and action, we highlight the features of three hope-related concepts (hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope). We also highlight how these concepts relate to different areas of uncertainty (validity, accuracy, and relevance) in the development of accounting technologies. Evidence collected through particiapant observation of a team involved in the construction of indicators offers empirical material to investigate the interplay between hopelessness, naïve hope, and reflective hope in relation to uncertainties concerning the link between accounting and action. Beyond analyzing how team members move from a naïve to a reflective hope in making the accounting–action link, the paper shows that among practitioners it is accepted that unintended consequences constitute the rule rather than the exception in the accounting–action link.