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Meeting up for management control: bracketing interaction in innovation development

Sirle Bürkland (University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark)
Frederik Zachariassen (University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark)
João Oliveira (School of Economics and Management, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal)

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management

ISSN: 1176-6093

Article publication date: 24 May 2019

Issue publication date: 24 May 2019

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine meetings as a form of meta-practice and investigate their role related to management control of innovation development.

Design/methodology/approach

This research draws on case studies of two biotechnology firms operating in pharmaceuticals and medicine, which represent different contexts regarding the uncertainty and complexity of innovation development.

Findings

The study suggests two distinct roles of meetings in the context of innovation development: meetings as regulating and ordering; and meetings as a resource. In the first role, meetings serve as a regulative mechanism that brings together multiple elements of control into a system. Meetings as a meta-practice regulate and order by bracketing elements of innovation in time and space, rendering the innovation process more manageable and allowing actors to handle the complexity of knowledge. In the second role, meetings are used as a resource, sporadically intervening in the ongoing activities of innovation projects. The study explains how these two roles relate to the uncertainty and complexity of innovation development and have different implications for management control.

Originality/value

The study challenges the instrumental view of meetings by taking a closer look at their structuring potential in the organization. Understanding the roles of meetings provides another perspective on the functioning of management control and opens new avenues for studying the practices of control and decision-making.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the participants at the 9th European Network for Research in Organizational and Accounting Change in Jyväskylä in 2013, European Accounting Association Congress in Tallinn in 2014, and the research seminar at Arhus University in 2015, for their valuable comments on the earlier drafts of this paper. They are also grateful for the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. The authors also thank the interviewees for sharing their time and providing the access to the companies.

Citation

Bürkland, S., Zachariassen, F. and Oliveira, J. (2019), "Meeting up for management control: bracketing interaction in innovation development", Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 144-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-06-2017-0060

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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