Purpose -This study aims to consider how emerging management control systems (MCS) form the MCS package of start-up firms. Based on institutional theory, the authors aim to better understand reasons for introducing MCS and the reciprocity between the parts of the firm's overall MCS package. Design/methodology/approach -The authors apply a qualitative cross-sectional field study approach involving 74 interviews with key stakeholders in 20 young start-up firms with venture capital financing. Interview data are fully transcribed, analysed, checked, and triangulated. Findings -The results uncover the main constituents of start-up firms in three different institutional fields (nascent, start-up, post start-up), which substantially impact on the introduction of new MCS and the subsequent MCS packages. The introduction of formal MCS seems to be divided into different phases.Research limitations/implications -This study is subject to the limitations of case-based research. Moreover, the theoretical underpinning of institutional theory potentially underestimates the influence of agency on social behaviour and structures. Practical implications -The study highlights the major drivers of establishing a set of control systems through which the interests of different stakeholders are aligned. A multitude of concrete examples of managing controls are given, including reasons for their introduction and their effects. Originality/value -This paper sheds light on the introduction of MCS in young firms. This complements prior research, which has almost exclusively focused on MCS in more mature and established firms. Moreover, the authors deepen prior insights that are primarily focused on isolated formal components of MCS, by understanding MCS as a package.

Purpose This paper aims to advance understanding of the role of informal controls for governing day-to-day interactions in the execution phase of interfirm collaborations. It explores the nature of these informal controls and how they are used by the firm’s partners during this phase. Design/methodology/approach In-depth case study of a lateral relationship between a car manufacturer and its suppliers, based on interviews, observations and archival material, and using concepts from the field of psychology. Findings The results reveal an interfirm collaboration in which the supplier, in particular, relies on so-called informal interpersonal controls for micro-contracting and solving the control problems of its day-to-day interactions. Specifically, the study finds that the collaboration partners rely on interpersonal influence tactics for influencing behavior, coordinating the activities of the collaboration partners, and mitigating collaborative risks. Depending on the specific individual, in terms of, for example, their “mood”, and the contingencies of the explicit interaction, such as contradicting flanking contractual agreements, the actors engage in different activities, including ingratiation, pressure or rational persuasion. Originality/value This study illuminates the role of informal controls in interfirm settings by distinguishing analytically between interpersonal and interorganizational informal controls. By mobilizing the psychological concepts of interpersonal influence tactics, the extant research in this field is complemented through the illustration of how the actors use informal control mechanisms, depending on their corresponding counterpart, and the specific situation of the interaction. The findings thereby highlight the situated nature of governance, suggesting that governance between collaboration partners is not a static condition, rather an ongoing process in which the actors use, and alternate between, distinct tactics in their daily interactions.

Organizational routines can constitute a temporary settlement of individual actors’ diverging interests, described as a truce that enables the routine as a collective accomplishment to proceed. In this regard, scholars have recognized the central but ambiguous role of artefacts; they may be used to coordinate the interactions in routines but may also be mobilized to serve individual interests. Following this line of thinking, this chapter assumes a process perspective to advance our understanding of how such temporal settlements are continuously formed and in particular, the role artefacts play in this process. Based on a single case study over a period of thirty-three months, it analyses the use of a newly implemented artefact that inadvertently impeded smooth routine functioning as the artefact provided content that gave actors leeway to act out their interests in enacting the routine.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how and why German cost accounting prevails and develops in German multinational organisations despite the various indications in the literature that it will converge towards an anglophone system over time. To analyse this, the authors draw on the ideas of professional practices (Jarzabkowski et al., 2016) and their path dependency (Schreyögg and Sydow, 2011) as a method theory. Design/methodology/approach The authors deploy an exploratory method using multiple case studies to determine similarities and differences between organisations concerning how cost accounting practices developed over time. They conducted interviews with cost accountants, group controllers and managers of German multinational organisations as well as experts from higher education institutions and consultancies. Findings This paper shows the path-dependent development of German cost accounting. It identifies self-reinforcing learning and complementary effects that seem to make it inefficient for organisations to deviate from the learned path as well as economic and normative pressures that affect the design of cost accounting systems. Originality/value By considering German cost accounting a path-dependent professional practice, this paper illustrates how and why the core of German cost accounting prevails, although organisations make adjustments within the existing structures to respond to the pressures they face. This paper hereby highlights the role of cost accountants in defining (and consequently bringing about or preventing changes to) the design of cost accounting systems.

Patience is considered mostly as one-dimensional. In this view it reflects the willingness to defer consumption. This can be represented by a time discount rate. We suggest that patience has a broader, multi-dimensional meaning. This is in contrast to much of the literature. We have identified 19 items to measure patience. Only a small subset of these items is correlated with self-evaluations of patience, which in turn is correlated with the standard economics measure of time discount rate. Our result suggests that patience is indeed a multi-dimensional construct. This could be of interest in many fields, particularly when patience is considered as influencing commercial decisions.