Masdar Ryketeng, Samsinar, Hariany Idris, Anni Suryani · 5 authors
This study examines the emergence of double-entry bookkeeping, memoranda, journals, and ledgers as the foundations of modern accounting from an accounting historiography perspective. Using a qualitative approach, the research employs a non-systematic literature review (non-SLR) of 26 national and international journal articles, supported by primary historical sources on accounting record systems. Data were analyzed through identification, classification, literature synthesis, and thematic analysis. The findings show that double-entry bookkeeping evolved gradually from medieval Italian trade through the development of memoranda, journals, and ledgers as tools for transaction recording, economic control, and trade documentation. This evolution was driven not only by commercial and technical needs but also by social, cultural, political, legal, and economic factors. The study also identifies a historical continuity between traditional ledger systems and contemporary accounting developments, including blockchain-based distributed ledger technology. It concludes that memoranda, journals, and ledgers form part of the multidimensional evolution of accounting knowledge that has shaped accounting practices from the medieval period to the modern digital era.
This study aims to analyze the role of autonomous agent-based Information Systems in Accounting (ISA) in managing the decentralized accounting cycle using a socio-technical systems approach in the private sector. The background of this research lies in the increasing demand for speed, accuracy, and transparency in financial reporting within the competitive digital business ecosystem. This study adopts a qualitative method through in-depth interviews and document analysis, supported by thematic analysis for data interpretation. The findings reveal that autonomous agent-based ISA enhances transaction-processing efficiency, reduces recording errors, strengthens internal control, and provides real-time financial information for strategic decision-making. However, its effectiveness depends on the alignment between technological and social dimensions of organizations, including digital competence readiness, employee acceptance of automation, and role restructuring. This research concludes that agent-based accounting systems are not merely digital tools, but strategic infrastructures that shape long-term competitive advantage for private-sector firms
Abstract In this contribution to the Organization Zoo series, we examine Buurtzorg, a highly successful Dutch home care organization with over 14 thousand employees that operates without any supervisors or middle management. Given its size, it is a rare example of a self-managing organization that has radically decentralized decision-making to empower autonomous teams to operate highly independently while growing to thousands of employees. Buurtzorg’s case sheds light on the role of supportive structures, including purpose-built information and communication technology and a small team of internal coaches, that the firm uses to scale up a self-managing organization of over 900 independent teams.
Massimo Sargiacomo, Daniel E. Martínez, Stefania Servalli, Antonio Gitto · 5 authors
Purpose This study aims to examine how hospitals and regional and local health authorities in the Italian region of Marche accounted for and reported the use of emergency funds from the EU, the Ministry of Economic and Finance and administrative bodies called actuator subjects. Unlike a sudden impact disaster, such as an earthquake, the pandemic was slow moving and novel. This meant that the guidelines for medical, legislative, financial and administrative action were not as developed as those for sudden impact emergencies with which the Italian state was, unfortunately, experienced. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates the Italian public healthcare setting since the declaration of the State of Emergency until its end—that is, from January 2020 to July 2021. We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with nine key-actors working for national, regional and local administrative bodies. A range of related official documents were analyzed. Findings We show a non-linear and emergent account of standardization and coordination. We show how different state and transnational actors developed their own procedures to standardize COVID-related cost classifications and reports. These attempts also involved coordinating assemblages, at the center of which are templates imposed on hospitals and regional authorities by national state entities for cost-reporting practices and aggregation. Importantly, templates’ visual features enabled coordination across the different standardization initiatives that populated the emergency response effort. Research limitations/implications The paper provides academics and policy makers with insights into the role played by accounting tools, templates, reports and guidelines to coordinate different cost standardization initiatives. Originality/value Accounting guidelines that standardize costs are known to be deployed hierarchically by states and transnational organizations for coordination purposes. We highlight, however, the emergence of not only hierarchical forms of coordination but also their interrelation with decentralized forms of coordination. These two types of coordinating assemblages, each standardizes cost through the accounting templates that they use. We demonstrate the emergent nature of coordination even within hierarchical entities like the state. Reporting templates are pivotal for understanding this coordination process. However, when a centralized coordinating body is absent, it is the visual features of accounting, rather than its imposition, that enable coordination.
Abstract Performance management in the public sector is both multifaceted and convoluted. This is particularly pertinent in hospitals, which are complex institutional organizations. Our paper explores the key drivers compelling Irish public acute‐care hospitals to monitor their performance. The context of our study is located against the unique historical backdrop of the Irish health service, whose evolution over time reflects religious control, underfunding by the State and reliance on a decentralized structure up until the early 2000s. This study was conducted during 2009–2010, in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–2009. Interviews were conducted with members of the hospital executive management team, comprising clinical and nonclinical senior managers, using the framework of Kelly et al. (2015) to explore and analyze respondent perspectives. We propose that a combination of key forces, emanating from new public management, the institutional environment, and its constituent elements spurs hospitals to monitor their performance. The confluence of these forces reveals a perceived change in the institutional logic underpinning hospital performance management. This change involved the substitution of autonomous clinical decision‐making for a more team‐based managerial logic whereby clinicians engaged as part of a multidisciplinary executive unit and accepted responsibility for hospital performance. This paper contributes to the literature on performance management in public services and, more specifically, builds on and addresses the paucity of research on Irish acute‐care hospitals.
Across industry and academia, there is currently much discussion about the implications of blockchain for accounting. We contribute to these ongoing discussions by critically investigating the claim that blockchain exists as a novel and foundational accounting technology. We do so by examining the central imaginaries associated with blockchain and investigating their incomplete crystallisations in the application of Bitcoin. This leads us to highlight three central features of blockchain accounting related to the changes in modes of organization, governance and trust, which we contextualize in relation to theoretical and empirical work. By doing so, we gain a nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which blockchain accounting and the processes and professional tasks commonly associated with accounting coexist and may interact.
This study was about the civil service leadership role to implement civil service reform in Tigray Region. In Ethiopia, civil service leaders are required to contribute towards the development of public sectors. To this regard, the district level decentralization in Ethiopia let civil service leaders to provide high quality public services and to ensure freedom of choice and customer participation since early 1991.The 1990s was the period of change in government from Central Planning to Federal system. It was during this time that the government has tried to restructure the civil service system as a structural adjustment with federal outlook. Not only theoretically but also in practical discipline, civil service leaders have the responsibility to implement effectively government policies and strategies. It was with this intention that, the autonomous Ethiopia civil service institutions in general and that of Tigray region’s in particular were established and the civil service leaders were begun to operate independently the civil service organizations. It is believed that, a successful leadership is the cornerstone of government institutions to implement public policy which intern can have a direct impact on the development performance of a nation. However, some empirical evidence indicates that, the civil service leadership approach is inhibited by many administrative bureaucracies. Therefore, the objective of this journal article was to examine leadership role in implementing civil service reform in Ethiopia: the case of Tigray regional state. To examine the leadership role, the relevant data was collected both from primary and secondary data sources. Finally, the factors that impede the role of leadership to implement the civil service reform were identified and the discussion was concluded that regardless of the institutional framework in-place, the civil service leaders were ineffective and were not played their role effectively as a result of the inadequate appointment of civil service officials and process owners.
ABSTRACT This study focuses on three broad Finance organization roles: reporting, compliance, and internal control/risk management (RCCR); performance management; and strategic partner. Using data from a global survey of 832 firms, we examine the determinants of the various roles' importance and their relation with Finance effectiveness. While the effects of organizational change, market growth, international operations, firm size, decentralization, and industry on Finance responsibilities vary depending upon the role, we find little evidence of tradeoffs between the various roles. Instead, we find evidence of complementarities between roles, whereby greater emphasis on one role is associated with greater Finance effectiveness in the other roles. Additionally, we find that information system integration (ISI) not only has a positive direct impact on effectiveness in all three roles, but also interacts with the importance placed on RCCR and performance management roles to improve the Finance organization's effectiveness at carrying out these responsibilities.
The competitive position of companies is increasingly linked to their capacity to attract and retain competent personnel. Human resources management, in particular compensation, is a crucial component of this quest for competencies. Yet companies must choose between several types of compensation policies. They must determine on which basis to select a policy so as to maximize the effectiveness of the compensation system. These choices may be linked to external strategies of the company, e.g. diversification, differentiation, or internal strategies such as autonomous work teams, total quality and participative management. This article therefore attempts to analyze the extent to which external and internal strategies identified by companies dictate their choice of compensation policies. In other words, do companies that adopt particular external and internal strategies also opt for differentiated compensation policies?The data were collected by a questionnaire mailed to vice-presidents and human resources managers of Quebec companies in competitive sectors. We received 252 usable questionnaires, equal to an 11.4% response rate. The variables have been grouped into four main categories: compensation policies, external strategies, internal strategies and control variables. By means of a multiple regression analysis using the forced entry method we have tested the contribution of each category of variables, thus allowing for verification of the hypotheses formulated. The control variables were entered first in a single block, followed by the external strategies and internal strategies. Utility tests were performed to verify whether the order of entry of the variables influenced the results obtained.The principal findings suggest that internal strategies dictate the choice of compensation policy to a much greater extent than do external strategies. In effect, companies seek above all to create internal coherence among their HR policies and organizational development strategies. For example, companies that rely heavily on autonomous work teams, engage in more participative management and promote quality management have compensation systems that are less traditional and characterized by a greater emphasis on performance, transparency of information provided to employees and, to a lesser extent, leader pay policies and decentralization of decision-making, which is consistent with the literature. Regarding the impact of external strategies, our results are more mitigated. Only competitive strategies emanating from business units exert a slight influence on the choice of compensation policies. Moreover, corporate strategies such as degree of diversification do not affect the choice of compensation policies. This type of strategy is apparently too far removed from the concerns of HR managers. Lastly, of the control variables examined, unionization plays the most determining role in the choice of compensation policies. In fact, this variable is the most consequential in our analytical model. This result raises important questions about the importance of the strategic approach to human resources management and reinforces the relevance of exploring institutional approaches to compensation policies.