Cristiano Busco

Exploring How the Balanced Scorecard Engages and Unfolds: Articulating the Visual Power of Accounting Inscriptions

Research on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has questioned whether its adoption generates greater integration between financial and nonfinancial performance measures, supports strategy implementation, increases performance and improves strategic decision making. This research has also highlighted how the BSC often generates effects other than these. Building on studies that portray Performance Measurement Systems as intrinsically incomplete practices of representation, the purpose of this article is to investigate how the BSC engages users because of the organizing work that it stimulates around this incompleteness. Our findings allow us to further articulate the power of specific visual elements of the BSC, such as hierarchical trees, wheels, causal and strategy maps. The article provides material that contributes to a better understanding of how the BSC performs multiple roles within organizations beyond a simple representational functionality and unfolds continuously. It contributes to the growing literature on accounting inscriptions, that is, signs producing incomplete representations, by developing an analytical theoretical framework that defines the BSC as a rhetorical machine composed of four key features: (i) a visual performable space (i.e., a schema generating creative engagement); (ii) a method of ordering and innovation; (iii) a means of interrogation and mediation; and (iv) a motivating ritual.

The causal relationships between performance drivers and outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to speculate on the potentials of the system dynamics methodology to contribute to the balanced scorecard (BSC) design and implementation by producing a detailed causal relationships model that links strategic and operational objectives in a more accurate and effective way.Design/methodology/approach – The work is based on the methodological principles and the operational tools provided by the system dynamics methodology and the BSC framework.Findings – One of the main areas that both the relevant literature and Kaplan and Norton identified as critical in developing the original BSC framework is related to the identification and the quantification of “causal relationships” across the BSC, and to the subsequent opportunity to use a mathematical‐computer model to test and simulate such assumptions and their impacts on strategy implementation. Such issues are addressed in this paper.Practical implications – The paper provides information and consideration on how to mode...

Trust in Project Financing: An Italian Health Care Example

This article focuses on the role of the different types of trust (system, contractual, competence and goodwill) involved in developing effective private finance initiatives (PFI) in Italian health care trusts. Previous work has tended to focus on trust between the public and private partners. The authors show the success of a PFI can also depend on the level of trust between the private firms that make up special purpose vehicles (SPV).

Accounting, accountability, social media and big data: revolution or hype?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to outline an agenda for researching the relationship between technology-enabled networks – such as social media and big data – and the accounting function. In doing so, it links the contents of an unfolding area research with the papers published in this special issue of Design/methodology/approach - The paper surveys the existing literature, which is still in its infancy, and proposes ways in which to frame early and future research. The intention is not to offer a comprehensive review, but to stimulate and conversation. Findings - The authors review several existing studies exploring technology-enabled networks and highlight some of the key aspects featuring social media and big data, before offering a classification of existing research efforts, as well as opportunities for future research. Three areas of investigation are identified: new performance indicators based on social media and big data; governance of social media and big data information resources; and, finally, social media and big data’s alteration of information and decision-making processes. Originality/value - The authors are currently experiencing a technological revolution that will fundamentally change the way in which organisations, as well as individuals, operate. It is claimed that many knowledge-based jobs are being automated, as well as others transformed with, for example, data scientists ready to replace even the most qualified accountants. But, of course, similar claims have been made before and therefore, as academics, the authors are called upon to explore the impact of these technology-enabled networks further. This paper contributes by starting a debate and speculating on the possible research agendas ahead.

Towards Integrated Reporting: Concepts, Elements and Principles

Integrated Reporting is a process that results in communicating—through the annual integrated report—value creation over time. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the idea and the logic underpinning Integrated Reporting, shed light on the reasons that enabled the debate on Integrated Reporting to gain relevance over the recent years, and illustrate the features of the Consultation Draft released by the International Integrated Reporting Council on April 2013. In doing so, we focus our attention on a brief review of the fundamental concepts, content elements and guiding principles proposed within the Consultation Draft. We end the chapter with some reflections on the challenges ahead for Integrated Reporting, and on the potential impact of its adoption on the role of the management accounting function.

Sustaining multiple logics within hybrid organisations: Accounting, mediation and the search for innovation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how accounting and control practices contribute to the persistence of the multiple logics that characterise hybrid organizations, i.e. organizations that constantly incorporate elements from different institutional logics at the very core of their identity. Design/methodology/approach - The authors draw on the literature regarding institutional logics and on studies exploring the enabling power of accounting to interpret the findings derived from a longitudinal case study of a hybrid organization operating in the field of brain-computer interface technology. Findings - The study shows that the persistence of conflicting logics and innovation within hybrid organizations can be sustained through the mediating role of accounting and control practices. By engaging different interested parties within processes of innovation, these practices can establish complex interconnections between conflicting perspectives and their objects of concern. Consequently, accounting and control do not address a specific logic but instead contribute to lock different parties to their own logic, allowing them to engage and generate innovation while maintaining their diversity. Originality/value - Whereas previous studies have explored mechanisms for keeping the multiple logics of hybrids separate or for reconciling them, the paper shows that conflicts between these logics do not need to be reduced but can be mediated to generate innovation. Additionally, the authors contribute to the literature on accounting “in action”, by illustrating the role of accounting and control practices as boundary objects that act within a broader “ecology of objects” through which innovation materializes in a context of enduring institutional pluralism.

The Case of Eni

This chapter focuses on Eni, the sixth largest integrated energy company by market value in the world, characterised by a strong position on the oil and gas value chain from the upstream phase of hydrocarbon exploration to the downstream phase of product marketing. The purpose is to shed light on Eni’s recent advances in corporate reporting. Therefore, after having briefly illustrated Eni’s distinctive approach to sustainable value creation, the chapter focuses on the structure and the contents of Eni’s 2012 Annual Report. Issued in May 2013, Eni’s 2012 Annual Report is an Integrated Report, prepared in accordance with the principles included in the prototype Framework developed by the International Integrated Reporting Council. The analysis presented in the chapter highlights the most innovative contents and elements of the report, and focuses on the connections between issues such as the company’s business model, the competitive environment and strategy, the integrated risk management model, and the corporate governance system. The review of the report continues with a brief illustration of the section regarding the Consolidated Sustainability Statement. In particular, sustainability represents one of the fundamental drivers of Eni’s business model, to the point that sustainability has always been conceived as part of the company’s strategy, rather than a separate and distinctive element. The illustration of Eni’s 2012 Annual Report continues with a discussion of the ways in which Eni has interpreted and then operationalized the principle of connectivity of information. Some concluding comments are offered at the end of the chapter.

Performance Measurement Systems and Organisational Culture: Interpreting Processes of Unlearning and Change

This paper explores the intertwined relationship between performance measurement systems and organisational culture. With the aim of interpreting how they evolve across time and space, we intend to understand the way in which systems of measurement and accountability contribute to the ongoing creation and re-definition of organizational culture. Intepreted as a set of rules (the formalised statements of procedures), roles (the network of social positions) and routines (the practices habitually in use), the papers relies on Schein’s work on organisational culture and Giddens structuration theory to portray management accounting systems as socially constructed and institutionalised practices involved in the production and reproduction of organisational order. On this respect, the insights from an explanatory case study will inform the discussion on the role of accounting practices within evolutionary vs. revolutionary processes of unlearning and change, as well as their cognitive vs. behavioural implications.

The Case of Monnalisa

This chapter focuses on Monnalisa, a medium-sized Italian company that operates in the fashion industry. The purpose is to illustrate the way in which Monnalisa has gradually redesigned its Annual Report. To do this, after having introduced the company’s background information, the evolution of corporate reporting in Monnalisa is briefly reviewed. During the last decade Monnalisa has progressively engaged with its key stakeholders in order to develop an Integrated Report that now combines the European Union format of an Annual Report with the triple bottom line reporting that characterises sustainability reports. In particular, since 2009 the information and the key performance indicators presented within Monnalisa’s annual Integrated Report reflect a combination of the requirements of the key stakeholders together with the main strategic objectives of the company. The current structure and some insights into Monnalisa’s Integrated Report are illustrated and discussed in the chapter.