If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -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 per se a means to activate the organization. Rather, measurements support those issues that are already important in the organization. In practical terms, a reformulation could be: what gets talked about gets done, especially if there are numbers. 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.
The sociological strand of auditing research has pointed to some difficulties of the American Accounting Association's (AAA) (and mainstream) definition asserting that auditing is about 'objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions' (AAA, The Accounting Review, Suppl., 1972, p. 18). Instead, auditing has been described as rituals of verification that produce comfort. In this paper we seek to widen the understanding of the production of comfort by investigating the processes that end up as an audit. The processes are investigated by addressing the research question: how do auditors perceive the production of comfort? Twenty seniors were interviewed on the subject of identified discomforts in the audit process. The interviews were designed to identify the main allies and foes in the processes that make up an audit. In the presentation of the interviews, comfort theory is employed as a device to interpret the seniors' statements in terms of comfort as state, comfort as relief and comfort as renewal. Our conclusion is that the state of comfort that is demanded to become comfortable with an audit changes in relation to which actors get involved in the comfort production. Attaining a state of comfort involves a decision that sufficient discomforts have been relieved. In addition, as the definition of what it means to attain a state of comfort changes, more or less comfort as relief is required, and the audit, understood as becoming comfortable, is renewed. Suggested by comfort theory, the paper in this way develops the idea of auditing as a comfort-producing activity by examining three dimensions of audit comfort.
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 order to interpret the ambitions and technological and programmatic properties that characterize the development of the indicators. The case builds around an organization that collects human resource data from various organizations and redistributes indicators for benchmarking purposes. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on a case, complemented with a survey. The design of the study is labeled as a case story, since it does not emphasize the organization itself, but rather the empirical material is analyzed to illustrate the production, transmission and reception of human capital measurements. The study thus follows the evolution of indicators in an organization specializing in human intellectual capital indicators. Findings -The main conclusion of the study is that indicators may legitimize, serve as a heuristic tool for learning or mobilize the organization. The paper also suggests that human intellectual capital indicators may be produced, transmitted and received differently in relation to their technological and programmatic logics.Research limitations/implications -The study suggests that there is a need to develop a theory of indicators. Originality/value -By emphasizing that not all that gets measured gets managed the paper's classification makes it possible to understand how indicators may contribute to the organization in different ways.
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