This paper explores the knowledge transfer between a Western head office and its subsidiaries in the former Soviet Union with a focus on accounting-related knowledge. A framework of knowledge translation (Choi and Eriksson, Business Network Learning, pp. 69-88 (Amsterdam: Pergamon, 2001)) is applied and refined to structure the results, which show the development of the management accounting and control system in the knowledge translation process. The role of accounting as a mediator changes in the different phases of the process and accounting itself also translates due to local discretion. At the very beginning of the cooperation the role of accounting is emphasised in order to ensure satisfactory reporting, but personal cooperation within the matrix structure mainly replaces accounting in the intensive knowledge translation. Social capital is created in the translation phase, enabling later on local autonomy and head office's control at a distance based on accounting numbers. Thus the results suggest that management control through accounting information alone, without active channels for personal contacts, may not work in the former Soviet Union because of the prevailing business traditions and personal networking.

PurposeThis study seeks to add to the knowledge of the formation of social positions and power of individuals and their effects on the role of accounting in the development of management control systems (MCSs).Design/methodology/approachDrawing on institutional and the mobilization of power frameworks, the case analysis explores the development of the role of accounting in the MCS.FindingsThe results show that loose coupling between management control routines and formal accounting leaves room for individuals whose roles are important in the development of the MCS. These individuals with central social positions are the glue which enables loose coupling to persist through changes. The organizational culture of a family‐led firm may facilitate the individuals to mobilize power, so that they with central social positions mediate the encoding of institutions into rules and routines as well as the reproduction of the formal rules and informal routines and the relationship between them. Similarly, their own social positions may reproduce.Originality/valueThe paper is of value in showing how the power of an individual over (and in) accounting can be constructed in the MCS. In addition, the discussion is linked to operating in certain transitional economies.

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The HBS and NACA score had substantial inter-rater reliability. In addition, the rater-against-reference values were acceptable, though large differences were observed between individual raters and references in some clinical cases.

Visualising a "good game": analytics as a calculative engine in a digital environmentPurpose This research concerns the use of analytics as a calculative engine enabling coordination and control for the development process in a creative digital business environment. Design/methodology/approach This research employs an explorative field study approach, using interview data from professionals working with free-to-play mobile game development. Drawing on the concepts of cycles of accumulation, accounting as an engine and mediating instruments, this study examines how organisational actors using the analytics in a digital business environment participate in the data generation that accumulates knowledge about and new insights into the desired outcome. Findings The real-time metrics provided the means for organisational actors to continually monitor, visualise and if necessary intervene in the creative "good game" development process. Timely quantification and visualisation of user actions, collected as digital traces, enhanced the cycle of information accumulation. This new knowledge resulted in a desire for improvement and perfection, which directed the actions towards the organisational objectives. Originality/value This study furthers our understanding of the performativity of accounting as an engine and the user behavioural data traces as its "fuel" in a digital product development. It highlights the role of analytics as a "fact-generating" device, capable of transforming the raw user behavioural data, the fuel, into powerful explanations through visualisations of ideals. The real-time metrics, understood as mediating instruments, enable the generation of new insights and accumulation of knowledge guiding the further development towards the desired outcome, the "good game".