Cyril Tomkins

Interdependencies, trust and information in relationships, alliances and networks

Abstract The last decade has been characterised by the increased development of cross-company relationships, alliances and more complex business networks. This paper examines fundamental concepts that relate to the needs for information, including accounting information, in these interactive structures. It considers, initially, some consequences for accounting when planning and control is to be exercised across organisational boundaries, but the main thrust of the paper is to focus on the fact that all relationships depend to some extent on trust. The interaction between trust and information in personal relationships is explored to serve as a template against which to consider whether the information needs of inter-organisational relationships are similar. Having examined information needs of business relationships in general, the analysis is developed to consider the needs of different forms of corporate alliances and then wider business networks. This paper is an attempt to create a debate on new questions that seem to be fundamental to the design of information and accounting systems. It is not claimed to have provided definitive answers, but it is proposed that the lack of a well-developed theory of the interaction between trust and information has been a fundamental gap in our knowledge.

The everyday accountant and researching his reality

Abstract It is the contention of this paper that accounting researchers have been dominated in thier research methodology by methods supposedly adopted from the natural sciences. It is argued that it is time that attention was paid to the possible use of radically different “naturalistic” (or “interpretive humanistic”) research approaches in order both to focus research more closely on the concerns of practitioners and to give greater insight into everyday effects of accounting and the practices of accountants themselves.

Quality failure costs in civil engineering projects

A methodology was developed to measure cost of quality failures in two major road projects, largely based upon a work‐shadowing method. Shows how the initial data were collected and categorised into definable groups and how the costs were estimated for each of these categories. The findings suggest that, if the projects examined are typical, the cost of failures may be a significant percentage of total costs, and that conventional means of identifying them may not be reliable. Moreover, the costs will not be easy to eradicate without widespread changes in attitudes and norms of behaviour within the industry and improved managerial co‐ordination of activities throughout the supply chain.

Can Target Costing and Whole Life Costing be Applied in the Construction Industry?: Evidence from Two Case Studies

Building on the results of a far-reaching action research project we discuss an attempt to introduce target costing in the UK construction industry. After examining some of the issues facing the UK construction industry, we examine the case for using target costing as a way of supporting supply-chain integration in view of an improvement of the level of profitability and quality of the industry. After presenting evidence from two pilot projects we propose some considerations on target costing and its applicability to the UK construction sector and derive directions for future research.

Top Executive Pay in the United Kingdom: A Corporate Governance Dilemma

This study represents a first attempt in the UK literature to split total pay into salary, annual bonus and share options for the purpose of empirically verifying how each is related to executive performance. As predicted from earlier studies on total pay, salaries were found primarily determined by firm size. Contarary to prior research, however, our findings suggest a pronounced link does exist between performance and pay over both the short- and long-term. This is manifested particularly by the magnitude of the coefficient estimates found between changes in shareholders return and changes in executive share options. This finding strongly suggests that the leverage executives achieve, on average, in their rewards as share prices increase may well be substantial; a finding that has not been captured in previous research on executive remuneration and which is of considerable relevance to the current corporate governance debates.

“The everyday accountant and researching his reality”: Further thoughts

Abstract Since we wrote the first draft of “The Everyday Accountant …” (1983) nearly two years ago we have benefitted from comments and criticisms of many individuals and, no doubt, will continue to do so. The types of arguments we have received do, however, fall into fairly distinct groups and are well summarised by the three articles the editor of this journal has decided to publish as critiques of our paper. On one side of the debate are those, like Abdel-khalik & Ajinkya (1983), who wish to retain the existing dominant “scientific” paradigm of accounting research supplemented, perhaps, by using “naturalistic” approaches to focus their enquiries and hypotheses on problems of more interest to practitioners. On the other hand, others, like Willmott (1983) and to a lesser extent Morgan (1983) seem to be warning us that, before trying to move accounting research into a new everyday arena, we would do well to learn more about the language, rules and norms of those more accustomed to researching “everyday life” and the underlying philosophies of such research practices. Both Morgan (1983) and Willmott (1983) do, however, support our call for a greater “naturalistic” contribution to accounting research. First, we wish to stress that we see much in the comments of our critics with which we sympathesize. As we participated in seminars on our paper, we admit that we found ourselves learning more and developing our views and we do not believe we were alone amongst accounting researchers in having this experience. Nevertheless, there are still some key points upon which we would like to express different opinions from those of both sets of our critics. Our following replies, therefore, focus more on the differences between us rather than the areas of agreement. By arguing out these differences we may eventually achieve sufficient of a consensus upon which to build a broaer approach to accounting research.

A cost of quality analysis of a building project: towards a complete methodology for design and build

A number of studies have been published that claim to carry out cost of quality (COQ) studies on construction projects. These studies, however, have largely ignored the contribution of prevention and appraisal costs to COQ, and have limited their analysis to the impact of quality failures on the main contractor. This paper presents a methodology for assessing the ‘complete’ COQ for construction projects and reports on the findings of a building project in the UK on which the methodology was piloted. The company that applied this approach has now extended it to other projects.

A work role perspective of accountants in local government service departments

Abstract In most of the largest U.K. local authorities the financial control function is highly centralised with no qualified accountant or controller located in each spending department. There now may be the beginnings of a trend towards employing accountants within service departments. The paper analyses how this new segment of public sector accounting appears to be becoming established, how the role of these accountants is being developed and the contrasting occupational values of accountants in service departments and those in the finance department. It is also shown how the existence of a strong accounting profession in local government can lead to different aspects of both the financial control structure and process in comparison with central government such that research results on the latter may not automatically hold at local level.

CEO Age and Top Executive Pay: A UK Empirical Study

This study examines the implications that CEO age has onexecutive pay regarding data collected in a UK setting. Whereprior research has typically focused on total pay (salary plusbonus), this study offers a more complete conceptual model bysplitting pay into salary, annual bonus, and share options. Indoing so, we found that the relationship between CEO salaries andage are significantly related with this association weakeningover time. Another interesting finding not captured by priorresearch was that the relationship between CEO age and bonusappears to be non-linear in nature. Figures 2 which depicts thisnon-linear function suggest at about age 53, the proportion ofbonus as a percentage of salary begins to decrease at anincreasing rate. As a whole, these findings suggest corporate paycommittees should consider family and the financial circumstancesof the executive when designing remuneration schemes.

Decentralised site management—a case study

Where projects are complex, there may be a need for greater decentralisation of control in order to avoid the bureaucratic inefficiencies of central direction. Decentralisation does not, however, dispense with the need to co-ordinate activities. This paper shows how a major UK construction company successfully implemented a balance between cellular autonomy and overall project risk management in a major road project.