How management control systems can facilitate a firm's strategic renewal and creation of financial intelligence

This chapter presents how management control systems and financial intelligence can facilitate a firm’s strategic renewal. Although the strategic accounting literature has recognized the importance of financial intelligence to a firm’s strategic decision making and formulation of strategy, the question of how a management control system (MCS) can help a firm to revamp and reallocate its resources has been overlooked in the prior strategy literature. In response, this chapter presents a conceptual model, which presents how advanced management accounting systems can foster a firm’s strategic renewal in light of the available theoretical foundations (the strategy implementation view, the dynamic capability perspective, and management accounting). This chapter advances managers’ understanding of firm’s renewal practices through the use of an MCS. Practical examples have been used to illustrate how firms renew their business operations in practice.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Variability in practices for drinking water vaccination of meat chickens against infectious laryngotracheitis

Context: Drinking water vaccination of young meat chickens with Infectious Laryngotracheitis (ILT) vaccine is problematic. Vaccine failure and adverse vaccine reactions are frequently reported. Variations in the technique of applying ILT vaccines by this mass vaccination method need to be understood to contribute to improving the success of vaccination. Aims: This study aimed to examine variations in the techniques of application of Infectious Laryngotracheitis vaccines via drinking water for young meat chickens. Methods: Drinking water vaccination techniques were observed and recorded across 52 broiler flocks during ILT outbreaks in three geographic areas of Australia. Descriptive statistics for all variables were computed and variations between integrator company procedures were statistically compared. Key results: Despite rigorous standard operating procedures, wide variations were observed in time of water deprivation prior to vaccination (3–15 min), time drinking water was stabilised prior to addition of vaccine and the type of stabiliser product used, time to activate the flock following filling of the water lines with vaccine (10–127 min), time for the vaccine to be consumed (36–226 min) and the volume of drinking water per bird used to provide the vaccine (11–48 mL/bird). Conclusions: Variation in vaccination technique can affect the success of drinking water vaccination against ILT in young meat chickens. Implications: Understanding the importance of the variable factors in vaccine application method can improve the success of water vaccination against ILT

Systemic importance of financial institutions: regulations, research, open issues, proposals

In the field of risk management, scholars began to bring together the quantitative methodologies with the banking management issues about 30 years ago, with a special focus on market, credit and operational risks. After the systemic effects of banks defaults during the recent financial crisis, and despite a huge amount of literature in the last years concerning the systemic risk, no standard methodologies have been set up to now. Even the new Basel 3 regulation has adopted a heuristic indicator-based approach, quite far from an effective quantitative tool. In this paper, we refer to the different pieces of the puzzle: definition of systemic risk, a set of coherent and useful measures, the computability of these measures, the data set structure. In this challenging field, we aim to build a comprehensive picture of the state of the art, to illustrate the open issues, and to outline some paths for a more successful future research. This work appropriately integrates other useful surveys and it is directed to both academic researchers and practitioners

Leaders' sensemaking under crises:emerging cognitive consensus over time within management teams

When facing a crisis, leaders' sensemaking can take a considerable amount of time due to the need to develop consensus in how to deal with it so that vision formation and sensegiving can take place. However, research into emerging cognitive consensus when leaders deal with a crisis over time is lacking. This is limiting a detailed understanding of how organizations respond to crises. The findings, based on a longitudinal analysis of cognitive maps within three management teams at a single organization, highlight considerable individual differences in cognitive content when starting to make sense of a crisis. Evidence for an emerging viable prescriptive mental model for the future was found, but not so much in the management as a whole. Instead, the findings highlight increasing cognitive consensus based on similarities in objectives and cause-effect beliefs within well-defined management teams over time

Management control systems in innovation companies: A literature based framework

Past research has traditionally argued that management control systems (MCSs) may present a hindrance to the creativity of innovation companies. This theoretical paper surveys the literature to focus an investigation on the MCSs of innovation companies. Within the object of control paradigm the paper develops and presents a theoretical model of the impact of eleven external, organisational and innovation related contingency factors on the MCSs in companies that engage in innovation activities. We also suggest measures for further empirical research. By formulating hypotheses on 43 potential interactions the model predicts contradictory influences on two direct control categories, results and action control, but stresses the importance of two indirect categories, personnel and cultural control. More specifically, the high levels of technological complexity and innovation capability in this type of company are expected to be negatively associated with the application of results and action control, whereas personnel and cultural seem to be more appropriate. Furthermore, important sources of finance, venture capital and public funding, are both hypothesised to be positively associated with the application of results, action and personnel control; whereas only public funding is predicted to be positively related to the application of cultural control. The principal contribution of this paper lies in synthesising the literature to provide a model of the impact of a unique set of eleven contingency factors for innovation companies on a broad scope of controls. In addition, the contingency model, if empirically validated, would add value by inferring the particular forms of management control which would be beneficial in innovative company settings. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg