Browsing by Author "Baldvinsdottir, Gudrun"

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Don’t Mistake Shadow for Substance: Real-life responsibility
(2003) Johansson, Inga-Lill; Baldvinsdottir, Gudrun; Department of Business Administration
Previous management-control studies have regarded responsibility accounting as the assigned formal authorities of individuals underpinned by other organisational structures. The financial success of, for example, projects, is evaluated through various business ratios extracted from accounting figures. Also, performance feedback to individual managers who are held responsible is crucial to this view. However, what being responsible means is not clarified. This paper reports on a yearlong study of project management at Ericsson Microwave Systems AB in Sweden. The study is of an ethnographical character and is based on a series of interviews with members of a project team and on observations of their meetings. Within the paper the following question is addressed: How is responsibility constructed within companies, and what is the role of accounting information in this regard? The purpose of the study is to enhance the understanding of what types of responsibility constructs organisational members develop, and the role of accounting figures in this respect. A distinction is made between correlated and superimposed control in order to clarify the decisive difference between formal authority and responsibility. The findings indicate greater complexity than mainstream research attributes to accounting and its link to responsibility. By means of a number of illustrations, we show how constructs of responsibility reflect a tension between expectations of (1) what one wants to do versus what one ought to do, (2) responsibility versus formal assigned authority, and finally (3) co-ordination of one’s own needs with the needs of others versus securing one’s self-interest. Contrary to mainstream ideas, in our case accounting figures played a secondary role in project management. However, accounting is an important point of reference for peoples’ actions and for their responsibility. Our conclusions are not in line with previous claims about legitimating and dominating being the most significant aspects of accountability situations. Instead, we add the trust-creation aspect to the sense-making aspect.
The Role of Trust in Accounting Research
(2003) Marton, Jan; Johansson, Kristina; Johansson, Inga-Lill; Hagberg, Andreas; Baldvinsdottir, Gudrun; Department of Business Administration
The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the knowledge about the trust concept and its application within the accounting research context. This is done by examining the different ontological and epistemological assumptions that accounting research are based on, by relating these assumptions to various conceptions of trust used in accounting research, and by revealing the explicit and implicit role that is given to trust in accounting research. The review is based on articles published between 1995 and 2002 in eleven influential accounting journals. The results show that few accounting articles are explicitly related to trust. Our review supports observations regarding the absence of empirical research made in previous research. Our classification of epistemological and ontological assumptions resulted in an even distribution between the mainstream and alternative approaches. The use of trust in the selected articles showed four different types reflecting an increasing role of trust in explaining accounting phenomena. To summarise, our review produces a dissociated impression of the role of trust in accounting research.
Trust Research in Accounting – A Literature Review
(2009-08-24T11:56:28Z) Baldvinsdottir, Gudrun; Hagberg, Andreas; Johansson, Inga-Lill; Jonäll, Kristina; Marton, Jan
Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to provide a structured overview of literature in the nexus of trust and accounting. This can serve as a basis for future research, and thus provide a framework for asking more precise and focused research questions. Design/methodology/approach: All papers published in prominent accounting journals during a 10-year period were scanned. Papers pertaining to the field of trust and accounting were categorized and analyzed in more detail, and qualitatively classified in accordance with selected dimensions. The review was focused on papers explicitly exploring the link between accounting and trust. Findings: The greater part of the papers is in the field of management accounting. The majority of published papers in the field are based on sociological theory, but there are some economics-based papers. Sociologically-based analysis seems to provide more structure, but is also less paradigmatic in nature than economic theory. Only a minority of papers has an explicit definition of the concept of trust. Our conclusion is that the state of research is clearly non-paradigmatic in nature. Origininality/value: This is the only literature review that provides a comprehensive overview of research on trust and accounting. Thus, it is an aid in future research in the area.