Laurie L. Burney

Examining Performance Measurement from an Integrated Perspective

This paper introduces system comprehensiveness, a variable reflecting the diversity of performance measurement (PM) categories captured in a PM system. Using this variable, we synthesize the information systems and management accounting literatures into an integrated model of PM systems. Based on survey responses from 646 experienced financial managers, our integrated model results provide evidence that system comprehensiveness partially explains how participation leads to job‐relevant information. Furthermore, our findings indicate that system comprehensiveness is associated with employee outcomes through the mediating effect of jobrelevant information. These results suggest that organizations benefit from PM systems that incorporate a broader set of measures. Also, by linking the two research streams, this paper provides a richer understanding of how participation improves employee outcomes. Along this line, we identify a variety of future research opportunities that, if approached from a cross‐discipli...

Increasing the competency focus using a project-driven strategy

Accounting educators continue to look for efficient ways to introduce personal competencies into the curriculum. Prior literature contains numerous suggestions on how faculty can implement a single personal competency, such as written communication. This chapter describes our strategy for integrating a variety of personal competencies using team projects. We implement this strategy by selecting projects that are content oriented and not only involve critical thinking but also address students’ skills related to written and oral communication, technology, teamwork, and leadership. We offer guidance on how to implement this project-oriented strategy and also provide selected tools for streamlining the assessment of student performance, such as sample grading rubrics and an online survey for evaluating team leader and team member performance. Feedback suggests that students perceived an improvement in their competencies as a result of the courses activities. While we bundled a variety of personal competencies within a managerial cost accounting course, instructors can easily adapt our strategy to any course in the curriculum.

The Intersection of "Bad Apples," "Bad Barrels," and the Enabling Use of Performance Measurement Systems.

ABSTRACT A performance measurement system (PMS) consists of data transformed into performance measures, which is used to control operations and employee behavior. As such, a PMS is embedded within the broader accounting information system (AIS). Existing literature suggests organizations benefit from using a PMS in a way that employees perceive enables them to better perform their job tasks. However, those benefits may not always be realized depending on individual and unit-level ethical characteristics that interact with the use of AIS. The purpose of this study is to examine the intersection of AIS and business ethics by focusing on how a specific type of AIS is used; namely, the PMS. We integrate the extent of perceived amoral manipulation and the ethical work climate with the extent to which the PMS is perceived to be enabling. We document instances when the enabling use of a PMS is not always beneficial, offer implications for organizations in terms of managing the level of counterproductive work beh...

Using a Two-Step Transformation to Address Non-Normality from a Business Value of Information Technology Perspective

ABSTRACT Accounting information systems (AIS) research data may suffer from severe non-normality, which, if not handled properly, may lead to incorrect statistical inferences. To address this problem, we empirically evaluate the relative merits of a Two-Step normality transformation proposed by Templeton (2011) compared to four alternative distributions available to researchers (random-normal, original, natural log transformed, and winsorization transformed). Using 45 corporate financial performance ratios (CFP), we investigated three perspectives on measurement validity: construct validity, reliability, and difference testing. We then examined the efficacy of the Two-Step method in the context of business value of IT research—we regressed four IT investment and three control variables on 31 of theoretically relevant CFP indicators. The preponderance of our evidence shows that the Two-Step method consistently outperforms the prominently used alternatives in achieving statistical normality, retaining origi...