IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eureri/1807.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Accounting for the alignment of interest and commitment in interfirm transactional relationships

Author

Listed:
  • Vosselman, E.G.J.
  • van der Meer-Kooistra, J.

Abstract

Control in interfirm transactional relationships has, inter alia, the purpose of mitigating potential opportunistic behaviour. For an individual actor the power-base to exercise control over the (output of) the behaviour of another actor in the relationship is a contractual arrangement. From a contractual perspective control systems are designed, thus providing contractual instruments to align interests and to prevent future opportunistic behaviour from occurring. Transaction cost economics proves to be a powerful tool for designing these instruments, which from this theoretical perspective are based on 'credible commitments' and 'credible exit threats'. The paper argues that the design and potential use of these instruments are efficient in the presence of the legitimate mistrust for which they have to compensate. However, given fundamental uncertainty, these designs do not suffice in attenuating opportunism and have to be complemented by trust building. Drawing on insights from cognitive social psychology and sociology, the paper clarifies that in self-regulating processes of rational interaction guided by a principle of enlightened self-interest, trust is built via mutual relational signalling. Partners voluntarily and deliberately signal to each other that they are trustworthy. The paper argues and gives evidence that instrumental control system design embedded in an institutional environment and atmosphere is a necessary flank for a trust building process to work properly. The (interrelated) roles of accounting in a contractual realm as well as in self-regulating processes of relational signalling are examined.

Suggested Citation

  • Vosselman, E.G.J. & van der Meer-Kooistra, J., 2004. "Accounting for the alignment of interest and commitment in interfirm transactional relationships," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-095-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:1807
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/1807/ERS%202004%20095%20F&A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spicer, Barry H. & Ballew, Van, 1983. "Management accounting systems and the economics of internal organization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 73-96, February.
    2. van der Meer-Kooistra, Jeltje & Vosselman, Ed G. J., 2000. "Management control of interfirm transactional relationships: the case of industrial renovation and maintenance," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 51-77, January.
    3. Camille Chaserant, 2003. "Cooperation, Contracts and Social Networks: From a Bounded to a Procedural Rationality Approach," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 7(2), pages 163-186, June.
    4. Swieringa, Robert J. & Waterhouse, John H., 1982. "Organizational views of transfer pricing," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 149-165, April.
    5. Dekker, Henri C., 2004. "Control of inter-organizational relationships: evidence on appropriation concerns and coordination requirements," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 27-49, January.
    6. Oliver E. Williamson, 2000. "The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(3), pages 595-613, September.
    7. Radner, Roy, 2000. "Costly and Bounded Rationality in Individual and Team Decision-Making," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 9(4), pages 623-658, December.
    8. Hakansson, Hakan & Lind, Johnny, 2004. "Accounting and network coordination," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 51-72, January.
    9. Tomkins, Cyril, 2001. "Interdependencies, trust and information in relationships, alliances and networks," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 161-191, March.
    10. Daniel Kahneman & Jack L. Knetsch & Richard H. Thaler, 1991. "Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 193-206, Winter.
    11. Covaleski, Mark A. & Dirsmith, Mark W. & Samuel, Sajay, 2003. "Changes in the institutional environment and the institutions of governance: extending the contributions of transaction cost economics within the management control literature," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 417-441, July.
    12. Hopwood, Anthony G., 1996. "Looking across rather than up and down: On the need to explore the lateral processing of information," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 589-590, August.
    13. William M. Dugger, 1996. "The Mechanisms of Governance," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 1212-1216, December.
    14. Anderson, Shannon W. & Glenn, David & Sedatole, Karen L., 2000. "Sourcing parts of complex products: evidence on transactions costs, high-powered incentives and ex-post opportunism," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 723-749, November.
    15. Gietzmann, Miles B., 1996. "Incomplete contracts and the make or buy decision: Governance design and attainable flexibility," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 611-626, August.
    16. Spicer, Barry H., 1988. "Towards an organizational theory of the transfer pricing process," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 303-322, April.
    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. Habib Affes & Fatma Ayadi, 2014. "The Impact of New Management Accounting Practices on Strategic Buyer–Supplier Relationship within the Supply Chain: An Empirical Analysis within the Tunisian Context," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 4(2), pages 185-200, April.

    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. Vosselman, Ed & Meer-Kooistra, Jeltje van der, 2009. "Accounting for control and trust building in interfirm transactional relationships," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 267-283, February.
    2. Mahama, Habib & Chua, Wai Fong, 2016. "A study of alliance dynamics, accounting and trust-as-practice," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 29-46.
    3. Wai Fong Chua & Habib Mahama, 2007. "The Effect of Network Ties on Accounting Controls in a Supply Alliance: Field Study Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(1), pages 47-86, March.
    4. Juan M. Ramon-Jeronimo & M. Concepcion Alvarez-Dardet Espejo & David Naranjo-Gil, 2008. "Effects of management control systems on commitment in inter-organizational relationships," Working Papers 08.03, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Business Administration.
    5. Giovanna Centorrino & Guido Noto & Daniela Rupo, 2022. "Management control in inter-firm relationships: Opportunities and challenges of blockchain technology adoption," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(3), pages 65-88.
    6. O'Connor, Neale G. & Schloetzer, Jason D. & Romero, Jorge & Wu, Anne, 2022. "How multi-sourcing can influence management control: Case study evidence from the electronic products supply chain," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(5).
    7. 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.
    8. Dekker, Henri C., 2004. "Control of inter-organizational relationships: evidence on appropriation concerns and coordination requirements," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 27-49, January.
    9. Juan Manuel Ramon-Jeronimo & Raquel Florez-Lopez & Maria Angeles Ramon-Jeronimo, 2017. "Understanding the Generation of Value along Supply Chains: Balancing Control Information and Relational Governance Mechanisms in Downstream and Upstream Relationships," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-31, August.
    10. Berry, A.J. & Coad, A.F. & Harris, E.P. & Otley, D.T. & Stringer, C., 2009. "Emerging themes in management control: A review of recent literature," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 2-20.
    11. Miller, Peter & Kurunmäki, Liisa & O'Leary, Ted, 2008. "Accounting, hybrids and the management of risk," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 942-967.
    12. Speklé, R.F., 2002. "Towards a Transaction Cost Theory of Management Control," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-06-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    13. Caglio, Ariela & Ditillo, Angelo, 2008. "A review and discussion of management control in inter-firm relationships: Achievements and future directions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 865-898.
    14. Damien Bo, 2009. "Inter-Organizational Controls in Public Land Concession Contracts," Working Papers hal-00462488, HAL.
    15. Spekle, Roland F., 2001. "Explaining management control structure variety: a transaction cost economics perspective," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 419-441.
    16. Fayard, Dutch & Lee, Lorraine S. & Leitch, Robert A. & Kettinger, William J., 2012. "Effect of internal cost management, information systems integration, and absorptive capacity on inter-organizational cost management in supply chains," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 168-187.
    17. Mouritsen, Jan & Thrane, Sof, 2006. "Accounting, network complementarities and the development of inter-organisational relations," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 241-275, April.
    18. Antonio Leotta, 2016. "Inter-firm coordination as an Information problem. The case of a divisionalized company," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 167-188.
    19. Suresh Cuganesan, 2006. "The role of functional specialists in shaping controls within supply networks," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 19(4), pages 465-492, July.
    20. Hakansson, Hakan & Lind, Johnny, 2004. "Accounting and network coordination," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 51-72, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    accounting; control; instrumental design; relational signalling; trust;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
    • 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:ems:eureri:1807. 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: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.html .

    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.