Managing institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise – the role of explicated values and other management controls

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate efforts to manage institutional complexity in a state-owned enterprise, the roles of explicated values in these efforts and how these values interact with each other and other influential management controls. Design/methodology/approach Exploratory case study in StateEnt, a state-owned enterprise that faces institutional complexity. The analysis is based on interviews, observations and documents and concepts from the management control literature and institutional logics are applied. Findings Findings from this study suggest that a structural differentiation have separated two logics in different departments and two of the explicated values have become symbols of these logics taking on various roles in negotiations. Tension between the departments is heightened because the departments legitimize logic enactment through mobilizing different socio-technical dyads of management control. The division of responsibility between these departments still ensures that they need to collaborate and make compromises. The study also finds that exogenously imposed constraints have a significant influence on organizational activities, which is further strengthened due to internally developed management controls embedded in the same logic. Research limitations/implications The study contributes with deeper understanding of values as control, and how these interact with other control forms to influence organizational activity. Herein, the importance of regulatory controls in state-owned enterprises is also highlighted. A limitation of this study is the limited size of the organization under investigation. Originality/value The explicit emphasis on values as a control in studies on management control issues in institutionally complex environments is underemphasized in the literature.

Kelp Forests: Catastrophes, Resilience, and Management

Resilient kelp forests provide foundation habitat for marine ecosystems and are indicators of the ecosystems’ sustainable natural capital. Loss of resilience and imperfectly reversible catastrophic shifts from kelp forests to urchin barrens, due to pollution or loss of a top predator, are part of an ecological tipping point phenomenon, and involve a loss in sustainable natural capital. Management controls to prevent or reverse these shifts and losses are classified in a number of ways. Systemic controls eliminate the cause of the problem. Symptomatic controls use leverage points for more direct control of the populations affected, urchin harvesting or culling, or kelp enhancement. There is a distinction between ongoing structural (press) controls versus temporary or intermittent perturbation (pulse) controls, and one between shift preventing versus shift reversing or restorative controls. Adaptive management and the options it creates both focus on reductions in uncertainty and control policies with the flexibility to take advantage of those reductions. The various management distinctions are most easily understood by modeling the predator-urchin-kelp marine ecosystem. This paper develops a mathematical model of the ecosystem that has the potential for two different catastrophic shifts between equilibria. Pulse disturbances, originating from exogenous abiotic factors or population dynamics elsewhere in the metacommunity, can activate shifts. A measure of probabilistic resilience is developed and used as part of an assessment of the ecosystem’s sustainable stock of natural capital. With perturbation outcomes clustered around the originating equilibrium, hysteresis is activated, resulting imperfect reversibility of catastrophic shifts, and a loss in natural capital. The difficulty of reversing a shift from kelp forest to urchin barren, with an associated loss in sustainable natural capital, is an example. Management controls are modeled. I find that systemic and symptomatic, and press and pulse, controls can be complementary. Restorative controls tend to be more difficult or costly than preventative ones. Adaptive management, favoring flexible, often preventative, controls, creates option value, lowering control costs and/or losses in sustainable natural capital. Two cases are used to illustrate, Tasmania, Australia and Haida Gwaii, Canada.

Banks’ risk culture and management control systems: A systematic literature review

Over ten years of a debate about the best ways to make banks safer have led to the conclusion that improving their risk culture is one venue to achieve this goal. Consequently, different disciplines discuss topics related to risk culture from varying methodological angles. This effort of many scholars provides a rich basis of theoretical and empirical evidence to guide business practice and improve regulation. However, the application of many approaches and methods can result in fragmentation and loss of a comprehensive perspective. This paper strives to counteract this fragmentation by providing a comprehensive perspective focusing particularly on the embeddedness of risk culture into banks’ management control systems. In order to achieve this goal, we apply a systematic literature review and interpret the identified findings through the theoretical lens of management control research. This review identifies 103 articles, which can be structured along three categories: Assessment of risk culture, relation between risk culture and management controls (with the subcategories embeddedness of risk culture in overall management control packages, risk culture and cultural controls, risk culture and action controls, risk culture and results controls, as well as risk culture and personnel controls) and development of banks’ risk culture over time. Along these categories the identified findings are interpreted and synthesized to a comprehensive model and consequences for theory, business practice and regulation are derived.

INTERNAL AUDIT QUALITY AND PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA

The broad objective of the study is to empirically examine the impact of internal audit quality on public sector management in Nigeria. Specifically, the study examined the relationship that existed between some variables of internal audit such as financial controls, management controls, public sector efficiency and public sector management. In the study, primary data was utilized through the administration of 150 copies of questionnaire to respondents in internal audit, ministries, departments, agencies, parastatals and commission in Ondo state, but 144 copies were received. Simple percentage, descriptive statistics and categorical (general) least square were used as data analysis techniques. The findings of the study revealed that; internal audit quality such as internal audit competence (COMP), internal objectivity (OBJEC), internal audit challenges (CHAL), and internal audit performance (PERF) had a positive and statistically significant relationship with financial controls in the selected public entities in Nigeria. Internal audit quality such as internal audit competence (COMP), internal audit objectively (OBJEC), internal audit challenges (CHAL), internal audit performance (PERF) had a positive and a statistically significantly relationship with the effective management controls in the selected public entities in Nigeria. Internal audit quality such as internal audit competence (COMP), internal audit objectively (OBJEC), internal audit challenges, internal audit performance (PERF) had a positive and statistically significant relationship with public sector service delivery in the selected public sector entities in Nigeria. The study recommends that both the internal auditors and the public sector management team should participate actively in the management of public sector entities thus lead to enhance managerial performance. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0787/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

THE ADOPTION OF MANAGEMENT CONTROLS FROM A COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether self-organisation predicts of adoption of management controls in manufacturing firms. The study employed the lens of complex adaptive systems theory to investigate the research question. The study used a cross-sectional survey to collect data from 202 manufacturing firms with the use of a multi-dimensional self-administered questionnaire Data were analyzed quantitatively using PLS-SEM. The findings indicate a positive relationship between innovativeness, emergence and adoption of management controls. The hypothesis for networks of interaction was not supported.

Diving Deeper into Wreck Diver Motivations and Attitudes

Increased demand by dive tourists for high-quality underwater wreck sites requires managers to balance heritage conservation and tourism at these vulnerable sites to ensure quality diving experiences while protecting underwater cultural heritage. Integral to effective management is a comprehensive understanding of wreck diver characteristics, motivations, and attitudes. This paper reports the outcomes of an international survey of 724 wreck divers including demographics, dive experience, motivations to wreck dive and attitudes to underwater cultural heritage protection. Wreck divers are motivated to see historic shipwrecks, artefacts, and marine life. Most are generally supportive of management controls to protect underwater cultural heritage. Conceptual models of wreck divers’ motivations and attitudes were developed to illustrate nuanced complexities in motivations and attitudes, which can inform management strategies to support operational decisions and destination marketing.