دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی ثبات سیستم های مدیریت عملکرد: مشروح فاکتور انسانی - بخش دولتی ایتالیا - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to examine the institutional context during the emergence of New Public Management (NPM), which created pressure on public sector organizations to implement performance management systems (PMSs), such as the balanced scorecard (BSC). Drawing on Granlund's framework (2001) and Giddens' (1979) structuration theory, we engage insights from a longitudinal case study of an Italian local authority to show how managers exercise agency before the mandated implementation of the BSC. This analysis suggests a re-interpretation of Granlund’s (2001) factors of inertia (human, institutional and economic) in terms of balance among the three factors, and inclusion of a historic and culturally specific perspective. The findings also encourage a broader consideration of the agency of managers in a public entity before the design and enhancement of a NPM tool.

7. Conclusion

This study responds to the call of Bracci et al. (2017), Cooper et al. (2017), Järvenpää and Länsiluoto (2016) to examine the role of individuals and/or organizational groups in explaining accounting change. It embraces the possibility of the co-existence of stability and change in organizations (Aroles & McLean, 2016), supporting Granlund (2001), and Scapens and Macintosh's (1996) observation that management accounting change depends on a deep understanding of the dynamics, rationale and agency involved in the maintenance of a social order. This is consistent with Englund et al.'s (2011) and Stones' (2005) work, which notes the importance of considering human agency in relation to both accounting stability and change. This provides a clearer understanding of the relationships between external structures and organizational agents. Our results emphasize the role of the human factor (individuals) with respect to institutional and economic forces, and establishes the role of human agency as strictly interconnected with the normative aspects of the institutional category. We shed light on the actions of organizational actors to maintain their interpretative schemas amid the inherent reproduction of social routines, for reasons rooted in the history of public administration. The analysis and conclusions of our 2008–2010 study have also been informed by, and benefited from, recent work in the field (noted above) and a closer look at the “management” side of the performance management in the public sector (Arnaboldi et al., 2015). This study makes a number of contributions. First, we offer an interpretation of Granlund's (2001) framework through our operationalization of the economic, institutional and individual (human) forces that affect change or stability. We also use this systematization to examine both the macro environment of external pressures, and the micro environment of the case organization. Second, we introduce a historical recounting and a longitudinal evaluation of the interrelations between these forces in a publicsector context, showing how they interacted in the trend of Italian NPM reforms, and in changing or maintaining the stability in the case analyzed. The analysis reveals that Granlund's (2001) systematization of the factors of stability is not fully applicable to the public-sector.