Organisational Control and Accountability: New Frontiers and New Approaches based on evidence from Developing Countries

About

Organizational control, which includes strategic positioning and stakeholder accountability, has been portrayed as “management’s most fundamental problem” (Van Maanen & Barley, 1984: 290). It involves ensuring employees are effectively and efficiently implementing their respective organizations’ strategies and maintaining stakeholder commitment (Anthony, 1956; Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). To achieve this aim, an organization’s senior managers must build effective linkages between their organizations’ systems, structures, and cultures, as well as provide strong (employee) stakeholder accountability (Adler, 2023).

Despite the significant theoretical and empirical strides made in organizational control and accountability research over the past 60 years, these insights, as is true across other parts of the accounting literature, are primarily informed by scholarly work performed in developed countries (Fukofuka and Jacobs, 2018; Moses and Hopper, 2021). This focus on developed country settings is surprising since the theoretical underpinnings of the organizational control, or what is increasingly being referred to as performance management, and accountability literatures emphasise the critical role of context (Otley, 2016). In other words, without an understanding of country context, present conceptual models and management prescriptions are incomplete and possibly misleading. 

The purpose of this special issue is to examine organizational control/performance management and accountability in developing countries. Papers are expected to make contributions to theory and practice by identifying and explaining how different stages of economic development transcend or circumscribe contemporary scholarly thinking. In other words, rather than speaking to issues that are particular to a specific developing country, authors must ensure that they address issues that are of universal concern.
 

Authors looking to gain constructive feedback on how their papers align with and can be better improved to fit the special issue are strongly encouraged to present their papers at the 6th Biennial PMAA, which will be held at Sastra University in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India from 29 November – 1 December 2023. Conference submission guidelines can be obtained from Professor Ralph Adler by emailing him at [email protected].
 

Deadline

The deadline for journal paper submissions is 30 September 2024. Papers must be submitted on the journal’s ScholarOne system, and authors must specifically mention that their paper is being submitted to the special issue. The special issue’s publication is planned for early 2026.
 

Special issue editors

Ralph Adler
University of Otago
[email protected]

Mansi Mansi
University of Tasmania
[email protected]

Rakesh Pandey
University of Tasmania
[email protected]

Konan Seny Kan
Grenoble Ecole De Management
[email protected]