B852 tutorial - last one

Only two of us were there for our last B852 tutorial, V & I
We had some tasks:

1. get as far as we could in the block V readings


2. prepare two exercises

Being as the course doesn’t finish for another few weeks, it’s been a bit of a struggle to keep ahead with the readings. Nevertheless, I skim read the last two readings in the Accounting & Finance block.

Reading 5, which is long, was about the fabrication of accounts in the NHS in the nineties. By ‘fabrication’ I mean, the creation or construction of management accounting systems, and the word is taken from a paper by a French man, so probably doesn’t have the connotations of ‘fabrication’ as in a tissue of lies!

There was little in the way of management accounting in the NHS before the 1990s so little knowledge of financial data or control of costs so some form of accounting system had to be created. However, in conclusion the author points out that a descriptive theory such as agency theory does not explain change, and that “interests are discovered through the fabrication process, and may shift through the fabrication of budgeting systems.”

Reading 6 was from Kaplan, the chap who wrote about the balanced scorecard. In this article he describes how use of action research helps both theory development of such theories as the balanced scorecard, and communication of management of management accounting processes, improving on theories through teaching and publishing.

The first task we discussed was:

Please prepare a brief outline of a research question that you would like to pursue. You should cover:

1. the research question itself


2. Why you think it is worth pursuing.


3. Who might be interested in the research?

Keep it brief (for example you do not need to go into detail on the research design).

V had put some thought into this. His research question is:

“What non-market soft assets play a role in the standardization vs. adaptation decision in selected organisations in England?”

We said that its utility was that it was very useful for practitioners because of the gaps in the literature about effectiveness of strategy because we know only about related benefits of standardising and adaptation. The methods part of the research is evolving, anticipating the use of scales and open ended questions.
My research question arose from last week’s supervisory discussion: the production of projects in the public sector- should it be the responsibility of the clients or of the consultants or is it a chain of accountability?
It seems worth pursuing for the following reasons:

1. there is ambiguity in accountability


2. it is financially costly if the joint enterprise goes wrong


3. media interest


4. public money


5. political decisions of how we use public money, public or privatised services


6. purchase of costly systems, usually IT


7. purchase of management advice that might save e.g. road building contracts can be better negotiated following consultant’s advice or BPR of processes in a county council to reduce e.g. application for disabled parking stickers from a 30 day turn round to 4 days.
   

Who might be interested in this research? Politicians, public servants, media, consultants.

The other task from last week was:

Each student to (briefly) introduce their chosen paper:

1. Why was it chosen?


2. Outline research question(s) posed


3. Explain methods used – quantitative/qualitative?


4. Try to explain methodology, theoretical perspective and epistemology


5. Critique

V has written up part of his proposal, but hasn’t yet chosen his paper. OTH, I had identified several papers but I needed to discuss ideas with people. Up to yesterday, I had thought that the best thing for the ECA was to critique a piece of quantitative research and propose something qualitative. Consequently, I had chosen several pieces that I’d found when drafting my literature review. I chose 3 quantitative papers (Gable, Ginsberg, Deakins & Dillon) about consultants and spent all Saturday and Sunday analysing them, identifying their research questions, the participants and methods. I critiqued some way, but one of them seemed to be a classic (Ginsberg 1986) and that Gable (1996) had won a prize so was pretty good. Suddenly, I could see how I could critique this fascinating paper by Kaarst-Brown on symbolic roles of consultants. It is a retrospective participant observation piece of research so open to criticism of bias, and lack of generalisability. However, discussion with tutor J, and with colleague V, makes me realise that it would take me too long to design my quantitative research that could stem from Kaarst-Brown’s work, so I’m back to using the quantitative, probably the Gable one, and will design qualitative research that uses case studies and in depth interviews, probably with a view to eliciting K-Brown’s symbols when I come to do the dissertation.