Knowledge that Transforms

This paper reports the results of a web-based perception study of the ranking of peer reviewed accounting journals by UK academics. The design of the survey instrument allows an interactive selection of journals to be scored. The web-based format is unique in that it also includes a step in which respondents classify the journals according to methodological perspective (paradigm). This is depicted graphically in the paper in a bubble diagram that shows the “positioning” of journals according to perceptions of both paradigm and quality.

This paper analyses the effects of implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) upon management control in two multinational organisations. How ERP was configured in each corporation created different forms of distance and relations between headquarters and the scattered subsidiaries. The construction of spatial and temporal separations (i.e. distance) and how they were understood and managed had profound effects on management control. In one organisation the ERP reproduced existing structures and distance which permitted conventional accounting controls based on action at a distance to be maintained. The second organisation used ERP to collapse distance through real-time information in a matrix structure. This did not increase centralisation but rather produced constantly changing loci of control and managerial feelings of ‘minimalist’ control.