Managing systemic uncertainty: The role of industry-level management controls and hybrids

Abstract

We study how multiple firms voluntarily design inter-firm mechanisms to manage industry-level systemic uncertainty. Facing a threat of systemic uncertainty that cannot be addressed by any one firm, we explain how the Australian cotton industry mobilised hybrids and boundary spanners to develop an industry-level solution at the inter-firm level. We apply resource dependence theory to extend Miller, Kurunm€ aki and O'Leary ( 2008), and identify a broader range of hybrid characteristics (novel, inter-firm, public/private and open source) than currently acknowledged in accounting studies. We use these characteristics to explain how hybrid organisational forms and hybrid control processes operate at the inter-firm level to develop and share a solution to systemic uncertainty, which are subsequently applied at the firm-level. Our findings also show how boundary spanners can operate with less tension in larger industry-level collaborations, explained using our resource dependence conceptualisation. This responds to Dekker's (2016) calls for more inter-firm research clarifying how controls operate beyond the firm.

Accounting in and for hybrids. Observations of the power of disentanglements

“…Our empirical case is not about how an accounting system is introduced in a hybrid setting (Kurunmäki, 2008), or how accounting forms part of one element (Kaufman and Covaleski, 2019). Rather, it is a case of how accounting as a design idea was essential in mobilizing a hybrid setting (Thambar et al , 2019). Rather than an integrated design idea put in practice, we observed the emergence of a semi-integrated system.…”

“…As an example, in their study of how hybrid organizations deal with incompatible logics, Pache and Santos (2013, p. 986) showed how “intact elements”, including accounting, were incorporated in hybrid organizations in a process of selective coupling rather than through compromise or avoidance. However, a few researchers (Kurunmäki, 2008; Thambar et al ., 2019, p. 6) have stressed the importance of recognizing how hybridization affects accounting practices. Miller et al (2008) describe this as the “dual hybridization process” where accounting provides accounts of hybrids, while also being hybridized because of new and changing encounters.…”

“…Accounting transforms and is transformed. Still, we know very little of how “hybrid control processes might manifest from hybrid organizational forms” (Thambar et al , 2019, p. 6), and how accounting mediates while being mediated (van Erp et al ., 2019). This emerging theorizing of the potential dual hybridization of accounting provides the leading rationale for this study.…”

“…We study the emergence of accounting and the mobilization of a hybrid setting since “newness” has been identified as a characteristic of hybrid arrangements (Miller et al , 2008; Thambar et al , 2019). Also, before being “black boxed” (Latour, 2005), the political dimension of mediation and disentanglements is likely more easily observable.…”

Change agents’ enactment of management control systems: shaping strategic change in a telecommunications organisation

“…Wilson (1997) argues that the role of MCS is to serve the needs of strategic management. Hiebl (2018), Ferry and Ahrens (2017), Thambar et al (2019), Sharma and Hoque (2001) and Thomas (2016) have emphasised the complex dynamic roles of MCS, as they become a means to learn about possible alternatives and hence facilitate the effective implementation of strategic change. Despite the focus on the learning aspect of strategic change, this research strand tends to assume that MCS are subordinate to strategy, assisting in the implementation of strategies already decided (Skaerbaek and Tryggestad, 2010; Chenhall and Moers, 2015; Mio et al , 2015; Tucker and Parker, 2015; Aliabadi et al , 2021).…”