PurposeThe paper's aim is to examine processes used to control the management of knowledge resources in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and to compare the findings with the underlying assumptions and prescriptions of intellectual capital guidelines designed for SMEs.Design/methodology/approachAn in‐depth case study of a successful Australian SME is conducted to identify the means used to control strategizing and the management of knowledge resources.FindingsIt was found that informal, intensive dialogue based processes, structured by an overriding management philosophy, governed strategization and the management of knowledge resources. These governance processes were affected by a combination of formal and informal controls and serendipitous outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper examines only one organization and the study can be extended to other SMEs to develop more detailed specific policy recommendations.Practical implicationsIntellectual capital management guidelines developed for SMEs may have little benefit due to assumptions of resource availability and the fundamental importance of formalization of strategy and control, ignoring possible scarcity of resources and the benefits of flexibility and responsiveness afforded by informal controls in SMEs. The research shows that knowledge harvesting is affected through the way knowledge is used rather than what is developed.Originality/valueThe paper empirically examines the management of knowledge resources in an Australian SME and outlines the way formal and informal controls were interwoven in organizational practices to manage knowledge harvesting. It provides a critique of intellectual capital guidelines in SMEs, highlighting a potential mis‐match between practice and key assumptions underlying the guidelines.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how an enabling management control system (MCS) affected intellectual capital (IC) development in an organisation. The study explores the effect of a change from a coercive to an enabling control system on situated learning and the development of IC. Design/methodology/approach A case study was conducted in a large manufacturing organisation to explore the effect of a redesigned MCS on IC development. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit understanding of the effect of the new system on situated learning and valuable local knowledge and relationship development. Findings The enabling way in which the MCS was designed introduced empowerment and accountability for financial and operational performance at all levels of the organisational hierarchy, which stimulated situated learning in a way that developed the organisation’s IC. Originality/value New insight is provided into the way management accounting practice can deliver valuable outcomes to organisations. First, into how MCSs design can stimulate the development of valuable local knowledge and relationships as IC. Second, into how MCS design can affect non-management employees. While prior studies have focussed on managers, this research is novel in showing how enabling controls affect non-management employees.
Non-government funders (NGFs) are major contributors to the third sector. Literature on this private philanthropic world is limited and access to stakeholders and practices within these institutions is a barrier to empirical research. With public oversight limited to nominal federal tax law disclosure, issues of accountability are under-researched. We examine how NGFs 'account' for their grant making decisions in an Australian context. Focused on how NGFs assess likely success, it finds that assurance is constructed as part of the decision-making process through a more socialising form of accountability, based on personal interaction, in contrast to a reliance on hierarchical accountability and transparency.
T his paper presents the results of an empirical study of management accounting practices relating to the management and control of capital expenditure in a large Australian public sector organisation. Specifically, management accounting practice is viewed through relationships between rules and routines, where rules relate to 'the ways things should be done' and routines relate to 'the ways things are done' . These relationships are examined through a framework established by Burns and Scapens (2000) that was informed by institutional and structuration theory (Giddens 1979). Research inspired by this framework (for example, Hyvönen and Järvinen 2006; Lukka 2007; Nor-Aziah and Scapens 2007) has sought to understand how rules and routines are coupled, and how this explains stability and change within management accounting practices. Existing theory around the coupling of rules and routines is enhanced by drawing from work in the organisational studies literature on the impreciseness of rules (for example, Reynaud 2005; Clegg 2006).This work follows previous interpretive approaches in the area that separates management accounting rules from routines, and this separation is necessary in order to determine whether management accounting practice has changed. For example, if a management accounting rule changes, but the routine remains the same (or vice versa), it is questionable whether management accounting has changed. By separating management accounting rules and routines, and then examining changes in the relationship between them, practitioners are better able to understand how stability and change can (paradoxically) coexist, where stability is reflected in the routines and change is reflected in the rules (or vice versa).Burns and Scapens (2000) provide a framework (BSF) for modelling management accounting rules and routines, both as theoretical constructs and as empirical phenomenon. This paper extends previous empirical research informed by the BSF, which explores how rules and routines are coupled (for example, Siti-Nabiha and Scapens 2005; Ribeiro and Scapens 2006; Nor-Aziah and Scapens 2007), as well as the extent to whichThis study examines change in management accounting practices as change in rules and routines. Informed by the institutional theory-inspired framework of Burns and Scapens (2000), the rules and routines relating to capital expenditure controls in a capital-intensive organisation are analysed. We explain how preciseness of rules affects not only the coupling of rules to routines, but also the emergence of multiple routines, enhancing the understanding of how management accounting practices remain stable and/or change over time. These results extend and refine recent research relating to management accounting change and offer new empirical insights into practice.
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