IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jmgtco/v29y2018i1d10.1007_s00187-018-0261-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Between cost and benefit: investigating effects of cost management control systems on cost efficiency and organisational performance

Author

Listed:
  • Ulf Diefenbach

    (EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht
    Rheinische Fachhochschule Köln)

  • Andreas Wald

    (University of Agder)

  • Ronald Gleich

    (EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht)

Abstract

Although the importance of cost management for organisational performance is frequently stressed in the literature, attempts to develop an integrative framework for a cost management system remained on a conceptual level without empirical validation. Additionally, previous research on cost management systems fails to draw on findings from another, theoretically more pronounced stream, i.e. management control systems. To fill this gap, this paper develops a model for a cost management control system (CMCS) relying on both, cost management and management control systems literature. Based on a sample of 251 European companies, we investigate the impact of CMCS on cost efficiency and organisational performance using structural equation modelling. Our results indicate that CMCS increase organisational performance and that this effect is mediated by cost efficiency. For the relative importance of the individual components of CMCS we find statistical differences between the weights. Five elements are important for the establishment of a CMCS, but two groups can be separated. Creating a cost-conscious culture and the right set of CM-methods both have the highest impact on the formation of a CMCS. A moderation analysis further reveals that the effects of CMCS on organisational performance and cost efficiency are higher for radically than for incrementally innovative firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Ulf Diefenbach & Andreas Wald & Ronald Gleich, 2018. "Between cost and benefit: investigating effects of cost management control systems on cost efficiency and organisational performance," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 63-89, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jmgtco:v:29:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s00187-018-0261-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s00187-018-0261-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00187-018-0261-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00187-018-0261-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefan Hofmann & Andreas Wald & Ronald Gleich, 2012. "Determinants and effects of the diagnostic and interactive use of control systems: an empirical analysis on the use of budgets," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 153-182, December.
    2. Ax, Christian & Greve, Jan & Nilsson, Ulf, 2008. "The impact of competition and uncertainty on the adoption of target costing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 92-103, September.
    3. Andreas Nicolaou, 2003. "Manufacturing strategy implementation and cost management systems effectiveness," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 175-199.
    4. Widener, Sally K., 2007. "An empirical analysis of the levers of control framework," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 757-788.
    5. Henri, Jean-François & Boiral, Olivier & Roy, Marie-Josée, 2016. "Strategic cost management and performance: The case of environmental costs," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 269-282.
    6. Ittner, Christopher D. & Larcker, David F., 1997. "Quality strategy, strategic control systems, and organizational performance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 293-314.
    7. Bedford, David S. & Malmi, Teemu & Sandelin, Mikko, 2016. "Management control effectiveness and strategy: An empirical analysis of packages and systems," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 12-28.
    8. Kallunki, Juha-Pekka & Laitinen, Erkki K. & Silvola, Hanna, 2011. "Impact of enterprise resource planning systems on management control systems and firm performance," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 20-39.
    9. Carsten Hahn & Michael D. Johnson & Andreas Herrmann & Frank Huber, 2002. "Capturing Customer Heterogeneity Using A Finite Mixture Pls Approach," Schmalenbach Business Review (sbr), LMU Munich School of Management, vol. 54(3), pages 243-269, July.
    10. Cruz, Inês & Scapens, Robert W. & Major, Maria, 2011. "The localisation of a global management control system," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 412-427.
    11. Antonio Davila & George Foster & Daniel Oyon, 2009. "Accounting and Control, Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Venturing into New Research Opportunities," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 281-311.
    12. Waal, A. de & Nijkamp, P. & Kourtit, K., 2009. "The relationship between the level of completeness of a strategic performance management system and perceived advantages and disadvantages," Serie Research Memoranda 0015, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    13. Cepeda Carrión, Gabriel & Henseler, Jörg & Ringle, Christian M. & Roldán, José Luis, 2016. "Prediction-oriented modeling in business research by means of PLS path modeling: Introduction to a JBR special section," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4545-4551.
    14. Chenhall, R. H. & Langfield-Smith, K., 1998. "The relationship between strategic priorities, management techniques and management accounting: an empirical investigation using a systems approach," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 243-264, April.
    15. Jarvis, Cheryl Burke & MacKenzie, Scott B & Podsakoff, Philip M, 2003. "A Critical Review of Construct Indicators and Measurement Model Misspecification in Marketing and Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 30(2), pages 199-218, September.
    16. Dekker, Henri & Smidt, Peter, 2003. "A survey of the adoption and use of target costing in Dutch firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 293-305, June.
    17. Alexander Himme, 2012. "Critical success factors of strategic cost reduction," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 183-210, December.
    18. Chenhall, Robert H., 2003. "Management control systems design within its organizational context: findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(2-3), pages 127-168.
    19. Waterhouse, J. H. & Tiessen, P., 1978. "A contingency framework for management accounting systems research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 65-76, February.
    20. Banker, Rajiv D. & Bardhan, Indranil R. & Chen, Tai-Yuan, 2008. "The role of manufacturing practices in mediating the impact of activity-based costing on plant performance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 1-19, January.
    21. Chapman, Christopher S., 1997. "Reflections on a contingent view of accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 189-205, February.
    22. Grabner, Isabella & Moers, Frank, 2013. "Management control as a system or a package? Conceptual and empirical issues," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 407-419.
    23. Hoque, Zahirul, 2004. "A contingency model of the association between strategy, environmental uncertainty and performance measurement: impact on organizational performance," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 485-502, August.
    24. Jazayeri, Mostafa & Scapens, Robert W., 2008. "The Business Values Scorecard within BAE Systems: The evolution of a performance measurement system," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 48-70.
    25. Abernethy, Margaret A. & Brownell, Peter, 1997. "Management control systems in research and development organizations: The role of accounting, behavior and personnel controls," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 233-248.
    26. Davila, Tony & Wouters, Marc, 2005. "Managing budget emphasis through the explicit design of conditional budgetary slack," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(7-8), pages 587-608.
    27. Michael J. Tippins & Ravipreet S. Sohi, 2003. "IT competency and firm performance: is organizational learning a missing link?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(8), pages 745-761, August.
    28. Henri, Jean-Francois, 2006. "Management control systems and strategy: A resource-based perspective," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 529-558, August.
    29. Xinshu Zhao & John G. Lynch & Qimei Chen, 2010. "Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and Truths about Mediation Analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(2), pages 197-206, August.
    30. Sheng, Margaret L. & Chien, Iting, 2016. "Rethinking organizational learning orientation on radical and incremental innovation in high-tech firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 2302-2308.
    31. Anderson, Mark & Asdemir, Ozer & Tripathy, Arindam, 2013. "Use of precedent and antecedent information in strategic cost management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(5), pages 643-650.
    32. Otley, David T., 1980. "The contingency theory of management accounting: Achievement and prognosis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 413-428, October.
    33. C. J. McNair & Lidija Polutnik & Riccardo Silvi, 2001. "Cost management and value creation: the missing link," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 33-50.
    34. Bisbe, Josep & Batista-Foguet, Joan-Manuel & Chenhall, Robert, 2007. "Defining management accounting constructs: A methodological note on the risks of conceptual misspecification," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 789-820.
    35. Erik Strauß & Christina Zecher, 2013. "Management control systems: a review," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 233-268, February.
    36. Chenhall, Robert H., 2005. "Integrative strategic performance measurement systems, strategic alignment of manufacturing, learning and strategic outcomes: an exploratory study," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 395-422, July.
    37. Hopwood, Anthony G., 2009. "The economic crisis and accounting: Implications for the research community," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 797-802, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haibing Liu & Serhat Yüksel & Hasan Dinçer, 2020. "Analyzing the Criteria of Efficient Carbon Capture and Separation Technologies for Sustainable Clean Energy Usage," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-12, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bedford, David S. & Malmi, Teemu & Sandelin, Mikko, 2016. "Management control effectiveness and strategy: An empirical analysis of packages and systems," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 12-28.
    2. Christoph Feichter & Isabella Grabner, 2020. "Empirische Forschung zu Management Control – Ein Überblick und neue Trends [Empirical Management Control Reserach—An Overview and Future Directions]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 72(2), pages 149-181, June.
    3. Bedford, David S. & Bisbe, Josep & Sweeney, Breda, 2019. "Performance measurement systems as generators of cognitive conflict in ambidextrous firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-37.
    4. Granlund, Markus & Lukka, Kari, 2017. "Investigating highly established research paradigms: Reviving contextuality in contingency theory based management accounting research," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 63-80.
    5. Carl Deschamps, 2019. "Stages of management control in a large public organization: from top to frontline managers," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 153-184, July.
    6. Gerdin, Jonas & Johansson, Tobias & Wennblom, Gabriella, 2019. "The contingent nature of complementarity between results and value-based controls for managing company-level profitability: A situational strength perspective," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Bellora-Bienengräber, Lucia & Derfuss, Klaus & Endrikat, Jan, 2023. "Taking stock of research on the levers of control with meta-analytic methods: Stylized facts and boundary conditions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    8. Henri, Jean-François & Wouters, Marc, 2020. "Interdependence of management control practices for product innovation: The influence of environmental unpredictability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    9. P. Maik Hamann, 2017. "Towards a contingency theory of corporate planning: a systematic literature review," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 227-289, August.
    10. Ashish Varma & Adnan Khan, 2023. "Simons levers of control disentangled: A quasi-experiment into the competitiveness of hybrid firms," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2023(2), pages 19-41.
    11. Teemu Malmi & David S. Bedford & Rolf Brühl & Johan Dergård & Sophie Hoozée & Otto Janschek & Jeanette Willert, 2022. "The use of management controls in different cultural regions: an empirical study of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Nordic practices," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 273-334, September.
    12. Demartini, Maria Chiara & Otley, David, 2020. "Beyond the system vs. package dualism in Performance Management Systems design: A loose coupling approach," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    13. Christina Boedker & Kar Ming Chong, 2022. "The mediating role of accounting controls between supervisors' empowering leadership style and subordinates' creativity and goal productivity," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(4), pages 4587-4614, December.
    14. Greve, Jan & Ax, Christian & Bedford, David S. & Bednarek, Piotr & Brühl, Rolf & Dergård, Johan & Ditillo, Angelo & Dossi, Andrea & Gosselin, Maurice & Hoozée, Sophie & Israelsen, Poul & Janschek, Ott, 2017. "The impact of society on management control systems," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 253-266.
    15. Chenhall, Robert H. & Moers, Frank, 2015. "The role of innovation in the evolution of management accounting and its integration into management control," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 1-13.
    16. Bellora-Bienengräber, Lucia & Radtke, Robin R. & Widener, Sally K., 2022. "Counterproductive work behaviors and work climate: The role of an ethically focused management control system and peers’ self-focused behavior," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    17. Andrea Fried, 2017. "Terminological distinctions of ‘control’: a review of the implications for management control research in the context of innovation," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 5-40, February.
    18. Iryna Alves & Sofia M. Lourenço, 2022. "The use of non-financial performance measures for managerial compensation: evidence from SMEs," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 151-187, June.
    19. Bisbe, Josep & Kruis, Anne-Marie & Madini, Paola, 2019. "Coercive, enabling, diagnostic, and interactive control: Untangling the threads of their connections," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 124-144.
    20. Journeault, Marc & De Rongé, Yves & Henri, Jean-François, 2016. "Levers of eco-control and competitive environmental strategy," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 316-340.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cost management; Management control system; Cost management control system; Cost efficiency; Performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jmgtco:v:29:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s00187-018-0261-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.