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The Multiplicity of Performance Management Systems: Heterogeneity in Multinational Corporations and Management Sense‐Making

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  • David J. Cooper
  • Mahmoud Ezzamel
  • Keith Robson

Abstract

This field study examines the workings of multiple performance measurement systems (PMSs) used within and between a division and Headquarters (HQ) of a large European corporation. We explore how multiple PMSs arose within the multinational corporation. We first provide a first‐order analysis which explains how managers make sense of the multiplicity and show how an organization's PMSs may be subject to competing processes for control that result in varied systems, all seemingly functioning, but with different rationales and effects. We then provide a second‐order analysis based on a sense‐making perspective that highlights the importance of retrospective understandings of the organization's history and the importance of various legitimacy expectations to different parts of the multinational. Finally, we emphasize the role of social skill in sense‐making that enables the persistence of multiple systems and the absence of overt tensions and conflict within organizations. Multiplicité des systèmes de gestion du rendement : hétérogénéité dans les sociétés multinationales et légitimation par les dirigeants Dans leur étude sur le terrain, les auteurs examinent le fonctionnement de systèmes d’évaluation du rendement multiples utilisés isolément et en commun par une division et le siège social d'une grande société européenne. Ils se demandent comment les systèmes d’évaluation du rendement multiples ont vu le jour au sein de cette société. Ils procèdent d'abord à une analyse de premier ordre visant à expliquer comment les dirigeants légitiment la multiplicité et montrent comment les systèmes d’évaluation du rendement d'une organisation peuvent être soumis à des processus de contrôle concurrents qui engendrent des systèmes variés, qui semblent tous fonctionnels mais dont les principes sous‐jacents et les résultats diffèrent. Les auteurs procèdent ensuite à une analyse de second ordre dans une perspective de légitimation qui met en relief l'importance de la compréhension rétrospective de l'historique de l'organisation et de l'importance des diverses attentes en matière de légitimité pour différentes parties constituantes de la multinationale. Enfin, les auteurs mettent l'accent sur le rôle de l'aptitude sociale dans la légitimation qui permet le maintien de systèmes multiples et l'absence de tensions et de conflits manifestes au sein des organisations.

Suggested Citation

  • David J. Cooper & Mahmoud Ezzamel & Keith Robson, 2019. "The Multiplicity of Performance Management Systems: Heterogeneity in Multinational Corporations and Management Sense‐Making," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 451-485, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:coacre:v:36:y:2019:i:1:p:451-485
    DOI: 10.1111/1911-3846.12416
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    6. Palermo, Tommaso & Power, Michael & Ashby, Simon, 2022. "How accounting ends: self-undermining repetition in accounting lifecycles," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115278, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

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