Carsten Rohde

Purpose: This paper investigates the use of management controls when environmental uncertainty and hostility increase abruptly. Specifically, it explores this in the context of the 2008 financial crisis in six banks located in two countries.Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on 26 qualitative interviews with selected managers employed by the six banks. Eight interview guides were developed based on the typology of controls in Malmi and Brown (2008). Respondents explained which changes in management controls occurred after the crisis.Findings: Both organic and mechanistic management controls were mobilized at the same time to deal with the change. The use of controls played three main roles: (1) guide and control behavior, (2) change internal and external perceptions and (3) discharge accountability. Finally, control use during a crisis evolves as individual managers design and implement controls. There is no “grand design” rationally guiding the design of the overall system of controls.Originality/value: The use of management controls in dealing with an increase in uncertainty and hostility cannot be labeled either organic or mechanistic, but will depend on the specific type of change in environmental characteristics. Management controls evolve by interaction with outside actors, as well as internal techniques.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore and explain how administrative controls have been changed as a response to a significant crisis, using the transition of the three largest Icelandic banks from bankrupt to operational entities after the 2008 financial crisis. The Icelandic banks are compared with three Danish banks to separate crisis-driven responses from simple market-driven reactions. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical data were collected using semi-structured interviews. The participating Icelandic and Danish banks were considered as two units, which formed the basis for a comparative case study between the two countries. Findings: Driven by an understanding of what is expected by the market rather than the need to inform and guide the employees the Icelandic banks implemented a number of revolutionary and formally documented changes. These changes included significant bigger risk management functions and policies and procedures documenting “everything”. However, in both countries, it seems that new values supported by the “tone at the top”, areas with limited formal documentation, are the most important management tools. Research limitations/implications: The study relies on interviews with employees, and the actual changes of administrative controls have not been reviewed. The most important implication is that the situated logics in Iceland driven by external institutional pressure initiated a revolutionary implementation of values bypassing existing routines and formalised rules. Originality/value: Although the use of management controls has been studied intensively, detailed studies of the banking sector have been lacking. Furthermore, there is limited knowledge of how administrative controls changed in response to the financial crisis.

The use of management control systems in large companies remains relatively unexplored. Indeed, only a few studies of senior managers’ use of management control systems consider multiple controls in companies. This paper explores data from a comprehensive survey of the use of management control systems in 120 strategic business units at some of the largest companies in Denmark. The paper identifies how senior management guides and controls their subordinates to meet their companies’ objectives. The presentation and discussion of the results, including citations from executive managers, use Ferreira and Otley’s (2009) conceptual and holistic framework for performance management systems, supplemented by elements of contextual factors and organisational culture. Further, selected researchers’ perceptions of the purpose of using management control systems are related to practitioners’ ideas of the purpose of using such systems. Finally, the paper discusses the usability of the 12 questions in Ferreira and Otley’s framework for exploring empirical survey data.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to critically review the empirical transfer pricing literature as a means of determining the agenda for future research.Design/methodology/approach: – The review is carried out primarily by searching databases, academic journals and books. Second, professional surveys are reviewed to inform the development of research ideas.Findings: – The understanding and ability to explain international transfer pricing in practice remain limited despite a rapidly increasing tax regulatory pressure on multinational enterprises. One important explanatory factor is that accounting and tax research has not been integrated to a sufficient extent. As a consequence, rather isolated research streams and knowledge building have taken place, failing to leverage the synergies of a combined research approach.Research limitations/implications: – A stronger emphasis on the outcome of specific transfer pricing system designs would improve the literature’s current status in terms of whether the objectives aimed at by the system are actually achieved. A new framework and promising research questions are proposed to guide future work on this issue.Practical implications: – The proposed framework may serve as guidance for practitioners seeking to assess the performance of specific transfer pricing systems and potentially provide directions for refinement of current system designs when dysfunctional consequences are identified.Originality/value: – Previous transfer pricing research has taken a rather isolated approach. This paper is an attempt to guide future transfer pricing research towards an inter-disciplinary approach.