Tensions in managerial attention in a company in crisis: How tightening budget control resulted in discomfort zones for line managers

The purpose of this paper is to understand how in a situation of a crisis can Management Accounting Systems (MAS) create tensions in attention to information between top and line managers.

The study is based on a field study.

The findings based on an attention-based view on organizations demonstrate how change to an MAS introduced to handle the crisis failed to integrate top and line managers’ attention toward the common issues. Tightening of budget control was an expected response in such a situation. However, this change produced rather the opposite result – attention to information articulated by the top and line managers became even more disintegrated. This was visible in terms of different interpretations of both the reasons and the strategy of how to get out of the crisis – this is what we call a tension in attention.

The study is subject to the usual limitations of case-based research.

Implications from the study is that there is a need for caution about how managers move in the beginning of the crisis because the initial response sets a tone and trajectory of the crisis. In practice, this means that sense making processes are important in an early stage of a crisis to avoid tensions in attention between different groups in the organization.

The authors argued that little research has been conducted so far regarding what information managers focus their attention on in organizations under financial distress conditions. The originality is the use of an attention-based view together with organizational psychology to understand this area.