Research in Management Accounting & Control – serie

Daniel Steiners zeigt, dass verschiedene Arten der Nutzung von Controllinginformationen sich unterschiedlich auf verschiedene Arten des Lernens bei Geschaftsfuhrern und auf den Unternehmenserfolg auswirken.

The starting point of Franz Fischer’s dissertation thesis is the long-established claim to hold people accountable only for what they can control. Whereas early publications take the application of the so-called controllability principle as a matter of course, subsequent works justify the principle’s application with the help of psychological or social psychological findings: The violation of the controllability principle is supposed to have negative motivational effects and thus decreases managers’ effort on the job. Recently, however, doubts have been raised about the principle’s meaningfulness. Also, empirical studies show that the principle is frequently not applied in corporate practice. In short: We do not have satisfactory knowledge about the effects of the principle’s application or nonapplication on managers’ mental models and their behavior. At the same time, we recognize that the question of whether or not to apply the principle is a major issue for management control in organizations of all sizes. In view of this, Franz Fischer’s dissertation thesis contributes to existing literature in at least three ways: First, Franz Fischer successfully adopts a role theory perspective in the investigation of cognitive, affective, and behavioral consequences of (not) applying the controllability principle in managers’ performance evaluation. Thus, he demonstrates that role theory enriches a stream of literature that has so far been dominated by motivational theories. Second, he introduces a new conceptualization and operationalization of the application of the controllability principle which depict this latent variable as a second-order construct.

Manuela Stoll focuses on two strategies to address change: adapting to change and creating change. Using a large-scale survey among top executives of manufacturing firms in Germany, she evaluates the importance of a range of resources, competences, and "isolating mechanisms" (shields against imitation) for the success of these strategies. She shows that adapting to change has an important effect on firm performance and is mainly influenced by a firm's industry foresight abilities. She also illustrates how these abilities can be strengthened.

I owe the idea of creating this scales handbook to Klaus Brockhoff. At the Vallendarer Controlling-Tagung 2002 and with reference to German-language controlling research, he rightly pointed out that methodological approaches aim – among other things – at establishing the intersubjective comparability of research questions. Therefore, differing, unrelated definitions of latent constructs do a disservice to comparative research and cumulative discovery processes. This is where scales handbooks offer a concrete benefit: a quick and concise overview of the relevant constructs and their use in previous studies. Not surprisingly, scales handbooks have existed for quite some time in marketing and other disciplines. Most controlling researchers, however, have traditionally been rather hesitant to engage in rigorous empirical research and to connect to the international scientific community in management accounting. As a consequence, a handbook of management accounting and control-related constructs does not yet exist. However, we were able to build on a smaller compilation of scales which was collected and published by Jürgen Weber, Bianca Willauer and myself in 2003. Against this background, the collection of scales in this book aims at promoting empirical research in controlling by giving researchers a quick and – to the extent possible – concise overview of relevant constructs and their use in previous studies. A significant number of the constructs presented in this collection are based on data sampled in Germany, and have not been translated into English. However, the names of constructs, their descriptions and all the goodness-of-fit measures are given in English.

Foreword Starting point for Sebastian-Dominik Jais’ dissertation is the insight that – despite the relevance of national culture on the one hand and the use of information on the other – there is only little research on the relationship between the two variables. Thus, the author aimed at a better understanding of the influence of national culture on the use of information. To that end, Jais has carried out a survey with asset managers of a renowned global company in Germany, South Korea and the United States of America. Since there is only little relevant knowledge available, the author has chosen an explorative setup. In his research, Sebastian-Dominik Jais finds that differences between the samples are only observable where the adequate type of information use is determined neither by technical necessity nor the task to be fulfilled. Accordingly, national culture can only exert its influence when the information user has some degree of freedom when fulfilling his task. In addition, the findings of Jais’ research provide first evidence for the existence of cross-national effects on the managerial use of information in general. In particular, the results show that power distance and uncertainty avoidance affect the managerial use of information most strongly. This confirms Hofstede’s prediction and underscores the frequently made statement that not all cultural dimensions are similarly important as determinants of managerial behaviour.

Foreword Starting point of Tanja Prinzessin zu Waldeck’s dissertation thesis is the insight in the relevance of strategic sensemaking in top management teams. Consequently, Prinz- sin zu Waldeck investigates how the composition of the team may influence the cor- sponding activities. Different from previous research, her study takes a broader - proach in two respects. First, it describes top management teams more compreh- sively. Instead of focusing only on demographics such as age, tenure, or functional backgrounds, it also explores the personalities of the team members, the leadership style and team culture. In this context, it transfers knowledge from other research fields such as psychology to sensemaking research. Second, the study does not only concentrate on specific sensemaking activities, for instance scanning or information sharing, but tries to draw a more holistic picture of the sensemaking process. Finally, the study controls for the effects of the organizational context. It explores how varying the organizational size, involvement of owners in the management of an organization and ownership status changes the findings about the team composition and its effect on sensemaking. As a result, the work of Prinzessin zu Waldeck offers several interesting new insights and at least three substantial contributions to the relevant literature: It offers new ideas about how the composition of top management teams affects the strategic sensemaking of teams differently. It furthermore provides evidence that organizational factors might influence the composition of teams and consequently also their sensemaking.

Daniel Kauer studies the effects of managerial experiences on the strategic sensemaking of top management teams. He shows that it is very important to distinguish between the depth and breadth of managerial experience, as these discrete dimensions have different effects on strategic sensemaking on the individual as well as on the organizational level. While diversity represents a team's potential to be successful in strategic sensemaking, the team must realize this potential through effective interaction. Therefore, the author also analyzes decisive interaction factors and describes how teams can best leverage their members' experience.

Foreword rtation thesis is the insight that man- ers need to identify and understand strategic issues in order for their companies to s- cessfully cope with strategic change. Information from management accounting s- tems (MAS) can be helpful in this process fined as formal s- tems that provide information from the internal as well as the external environment. Consequently, the desire to better understand the role of these systems in the process of strategic sensemaking comes to mind. It is even intensified when considering the impression from management accounting practice that the tool box pecially the traditional one, us sensemaking. Due to the explorative nature of the research questions, and the objective of studying strategic sensemaking in its natural setting, the empirical approach of this dissertation is based on a multiple-case study design und generates an array of interesting findings. Heidmann shows, for example, that managers do not primarily use MAS to identify or implicitly assumed in most studies on st- tegic sensemaking: instead, they use management accounting systems to search for - ditional information that help them to make sense of these issues. In addition, the study at hand underlines the relevance of communication several times. This is true for the communication processes in the context of adaptation and preparation of management accounting systems as well as for their actual use.

Foreword With early warning of CEOs in small and medium-sized companies, Andreas Kirschkamp has found a highly relevant and, up to this point, mainly unexplored research area as a field for his dissertation thesis. In a first step, he confirms the results of traditional contingency theory which show a strong link between environmental uncertainty and strategic sensemaking. In a second step and as the actual core of this study, he elaborates on the link between personality traits of CEOs and their strategic sensemaking. Thus, he sees his study in the tradition of an “extended contingency theory”. The underlying framework originates from Lewin/Stephens 1994 who distinguish eight attitudes as determinants of organizational design. Kirschkamp empirically shows that six of these attitudes have significant explanatory influence on the design variables. However, egalitarianism and degree of moral reasoning do not have any explanatory power within this context. Regarding the relationship between early warning behavior and success, Kirschkamp finds that successful CEOs differ in their use of sources from their less successful peers. They use internal, impersonal and external, personal sources more than managers of organizations with low success in early warning do. The managers with effective early warning behavior scan with a broader scope, delegate less, interpret with more and different partners, and more intensively. However, no difference can be observed as for the frequency of scanning, tool support and fixity of time for interpretation.

Foreword agement accounting information (MAI) in organizational settings. In this context, mining managerial performance. VI Foreword Finally, Heinemann looks into the potential moderating influence of supervisors' - wer bases, selected subordinates' characteristics (job locus of control and job se- efficacy), as well as task uncertainty. Here, as well as in the other parts of his study, Heinemann provides highly interesting findings, which may serve as a stimulus for future research. Utz Schäffer Preface VII Preface sons: VIII Preface I further want to express my gratitude to my girlfriend Christina who has had to live through all of my ups and downs and has supported me throughout the entire process. My deepest gratitude, however, belongs to my parents and my grand-mother for their encouragement and unconditional support during every phase of my life. I dedicate this book to them. Patrick Heinemann ab Tl e o f C t en o n IX t s Table of Contents Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII List of Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XVII A Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. Motivation and Objective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Course of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 B Social Influence and Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. Influence Strategies as a Means to Exercise Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. 1 Social Influence and Influence Strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. 1. 1 The Role of Social Influence in Organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. 1. 2 Means to Exercise Influence in Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1. 1. 3 Outcomes of Influence Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1. 1. 4 Factors Affecting the Outcomes of Influence Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .