From cost accounting to strategic cost management: The experience of Italian higher education

From cost accounting to strategic cost management: the experience of Italian higher education cost management in public services has often been viewed with disenchantment. The perception of costs is associated with spending reviews and cuts in personnel, disregarding their strategic role. This chapter re-positions cost management at the strategic level. This repositioning is central to revaluate costs in their true essence: the calculation of how we use resources. This strategic view has two main benefits. The first is related to the results of cost allocation, that offer insights on how we consume our resources for service delivery. The second is related to the process for calculating these costs. There are several decisions in the process that might change the results; these decisions are not purely technical: they are a constitutive process in which managers, if involved, reflect on the services and products but also the organization and their responsibility centres. This chapter poses the attention on these issues, presenting the experience of the Good Practice project. Good Practice is an Italian benchmarking initiative in which state universities voluntarily provide their costs, within the same protocol, in order to have a reference for their strategic management. The project started in 1999 under the initiative of the Italian Government, but from 2003 it has been brought forward and financed by universities directly. The project overall has involved more than 50 state universities during its 20-year life. The chapter focuses in particular on three cases that are representative of how universities adopted a strategic approach to cost management. Three types of cost-strategizing configurations are identified: organizational reshaping, service balance and resource programming. The study offers a picture that is very distant from the often-employed cost-cutting approach. Cost data are instead part of a more strategic vision, although always coupled with other data. The chapter is organised as follows. The next section illustrates the context and the method. Then, the distinctive features of the strategic approach to cost are presented. The empirical cases are illustrated in the third section, followed by a discussion of the managerial implications

Accounting, accountability, social media and big data: Revolution or hype?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an agenda for researching the relationship between technology-enabled networks â such as social media and big data â and the accounting function. In doing so, it links the contents of an unfolding area research with the papers published in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. Design/methodology/approach: The paper surveys the existing literature, which is still in its infancy, and proposes ways in which to frame early and future research. The intention is not to offer a comprehensive review, but to stimulate and conversation. Findings: The authors review several existing studies exploring technology-enabled networks and highlight some of the key aspects featuring social media and big data, before offering a classification of existing research efforts, as well as opportunities for future research. Three areas of investigation are identified: new performance indicators based on social media and big data; governance of social media and big data information resources; and, finally, social media and big dataâs alteration of information and decision-making processes. Originality/value: The authors are currently experiencing a technological revolution that will fundamentally change the way in which organisations, as well as individuals, operate. It is claimed that many knowledge-based jobs are being automated, as well as others transformed with, for example, data scientists ready to replace even the most qualified accountants. But, of course, similar claims have been made before and therefore, as academics, the authors are called upon to explore the impact of these technology-enabled networks further. This paper contributes by starting a debate and speculating on the possible research agendas ahead

Shaping cultural participation through social media

AbstractThe public sector has embraced a user‐orientation paradigm, which has expanded through the open and democratic medium of social media. Although the potential of this digital technology and its visible outcomes have been analyzed in previous studies, there is virtually nothing on the complexity behind its implementation. This paper uses a case study involving three Italian museums to explore how social media strategy is shaped and enacted through their day‐to‐day business and activity. Museums are an ideal field for this kind of research because of the central role played by cultural participation and social media's critical function in pursuing new audiences. The study reveals a deep change to practice, touching praxes and practitioner skills, and modifying strategies planned around the user's approach, in the duality between authoritative and democratic voices. The findings disclose an emergent heterogeneity that is mapped along social media practices and the various associations linked to the praxes, opening the way for future studies concerned with the link between a user's (traditional) physical experience on social media and the level of democracy in user engagement

The dynamics of (dis)integrated risk management: a comparative field study

Drawing on a comparative case study of enterprise risk management, and building on the literature on boundary objects, this study sheds light on the ‘dynamics of (dis)integrated risk management’. Our analysis of enterprise risk management in two large organisations reveals a set of pressures that undermine the ideals of enterprise risk management mobilised by practitioners and their promise for ‘integrated’ control practices. While the two cases show how enterprise risk management is shaped in different forms, in both cases the attempt to create a shared context for the identification and communication of enterprise-wide risks makes visible and active residual elements that contribute to generate dissatisfaction and calls for change to integrated risk management. The discussion of the dynamics of (dis)integrated risk management contributes to extending research that is critical of procedural forms of enterprise risk management, as well as recent work that draws attention to the role of ‘risk talk’ in enterprise risk management. We also suggest that our study of enterprise risk management sheds light on some key tensions of infrastructure formation, thus contributing to recent theory-building research that draws attention to the accretion of processes, roles, and governance structures into an infrastructure that enables the production of accounts of performance

On humans, algorithms and data

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers in this special issue on humans, algorithms and data. The authors first set themselves the task of identifying the main challenges arising from the adoption and use of algorithms and data analytics in management, accounting and organisations in general, many of which have been described in the literature. Design/methodology/approach: This paper builds on previous literature and case studies of the application of algorithm logic with artificial intelligence as an exemplar of this innovation. Furthermore, this paper is triangulated with the findings of the papers included in this special issue. Findings: Based on prior literature and the concepts set out in the papers published in this special issue, this paper proposes a conceptual framework that can be useful both in the analysis and ordering of the algorithm hype, as well as to identify future research avenues. Originality/value: The value of this framework, and that of the papers in this special issue, lies in its ability to shed new light on the (neglected) connections and relationships between algorithmic applications, such as artificial intelligence. The framework developed in this piece should stimulate scholars to explore the intersections between “technical” as well as organisational, social and individual issues that algorithms should help us tackle

Modernizing public services:Subtle interplays of politics and management

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the trajectory of public management reforms in Italy. This experience indicates the complexity of managerialism in countries with a legalistic system and where public administration cultures have been, and continue to be, embedded in politics. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis of managerial reforms in Italy was carried out with a documentary analysis. In addition to official reports and acts of parliament, the analysis was based on monitoring the government websites and innovative channels (e.g. Facebook) which communicated the progress of the later reforms. Findings - The paper shows how modernization of public services has been a continuous priority in the agenda of the Italian Government across four phases: An early attempt in the late 1970s; a lively, phase for Italian managerial reforms in the 1990s; a later advocacy in the 2000s of a specific new public management (NPM) element - performance management; an after-crises reform aimed at reducing public expenditure. Originality/value - The paper takes a historical and long-Term perspective to analyse the success and failure of NPM reforms implementation in Italy. Differently from previous studies, this papers analyses NPMreforms in a longitudinal perspective, to show how the legalistic culture of Italy continues to affect the implementation of NPM reforms