Under these conditions, experts are hired to design the “one best way” to produce a product. Management’s objective is to insure that the “one best way” is implemented efficiently. This has led to a MBE approach to operational management forming part of the organization’s culture within which employment contracting takes place. One example of MBE practices is to establish material and labor standards that define the most efficient way to complete processes. It is assumed that these standards represent the “one best way” that cannot be improved upon. Meeting the standards is part of the employment contract and sets the boundaries for management activities.
Standard costing systems have been used to assign costs to these standards and annual budgets are prepared to assist management in its planning and control functions. Standard costing and budgeting systems, based on these principles and the assumption that existing practices are nearly optimal, allow organizations to 1) contract efficiently based on accounting data, 2) reduce uncertainty in the coordination and communication of activities, 3) allocate resources, and 4) focus problem-solving efforts on exceptions, or variances, from the established standards.
Structured responsibility center accounting systems of this type create the boundaries for rational decision making. Contracting based on accounting data determines the limitations required for analyzing operating decisions. The accounting information that results from such decisions then becomes the normative criteria for the business culture, oftentimes referred to as “how we do things around here.” However, how and where to best design technological process improvements is debatable. One view is that this should occur “off-line” in a controlled environment before implementation. Another approach assumes that only the in-process “laboratory of the shop floor” is efficient (Leonard-Barton 1992). This paper is limited to examining the latter process: in-process CI activities.工商行政管理局办公室文员实习报告
CONTROL CULTURE: EFFICIENT PRODUCTIVITY CHANGE
When an accounting system is closely aligned with an organization’s business strategies, an efficient basis for employment contracting can be established. Over a period of time, the scientific method of management produces, reinforces, and, its critics would say, coerces an efficient culture of control which assumes that few improvements should be made during the operating period. The components of this control culture in a manufacturing environment typically include:
1. Engineered factory production lines with “practical standards,” that are accepted as the “one best way” to operate,
2. Specialized responsibility centers coordinated through production schedules to manage and control operations, and
3. A centralized annual budgeting system through which participants establish implicit contracts and commitments with one another to work cooperatively.
Such a culture, in which employees and managers share expectations about future behavior (Luhmann 1979), has been effective in reducing uncertainty and 本文来自辣.文,论-文·网原文请找腾讯32.49114 control culture supported by standard costing and annual budgeting is less efficient whenever changing market conditions require the firm to respond, adjust, and capitalize on new opportunities for future survival and growth. In this control culture, changes in operating capabilities are mainly managed annually as part of the capital budget. They are not anticipated during the operating cycle. In-process improvement is rare since operations are presumed to be designed in the “one best way.” This creates the tendency of the MBE system to control and shape innovation, rather than sparking or inspiring learning and improvement (Ahrens and Chapman 2004, pp. 296-297) as required in a CI culture.
To counter such a tendency, this paper attempts to go one step further than merely enabling innovation. Instead, an AIS is proposed that directs productivity expansion (as in target costing) through change and innovation by systematically identifying high priority problems or events that can be improved in-process, i.e., within the operating cycle. This AIS also serves as one of the critical components of a culture-changing MCS. Modifying the traditional MCS in this way will allow accounting-based employment contracts to support CI and, at the same time, reduce cultural resistance to change.
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