Fitting Management Control Systems to Competitive Advantage

Recent publications suggest that existing management accounting and control systems prevent business unit managers realising their desired competitive advantage. Although the concept of competitive advantage has already been thoroughly discussed in strategy literature, it has not yet been integrated in the management accounting and management control frameworks. Only a limited number of researchers have concentrated on contingency research in this area. Contingency theory simply states that organization structure, process and management control systems are contingent upon various internal and external factors, such as industry, technology, size, culture and strategy (Anthony and Young, 1988; Anthony et al., 1992). This article is an attempt to identify and investigate the management control – strategy relationship. We report the results of our exploratory field research in 18 companies (32 business units). Based on our results, we formulate some hypotheses on the observed characteristics of the management control process in case of low-cost strategy, differentiation strategy in a standard product environment and differentiation strategy for customized products (make to order, engineer to order).     

Index of Authors Volume 50, 2000

Authors Index

Index of Authors Volume 50, 2000     

Assessing the predictive value of a binary surrogate for a binary true endpoint based on the minimum probability of a prediction error

The individual causal association (ICA) has recently been introduced as a metric of surrogacy in a causal‐inference framework. The ICA is defined on the unit interval and quantifies the association between the individual causal effect on the surrogate (ΔS) and true (ΔT) endpoint. In addition, the ICA offers a general assessment of the surrogate predictive value, taking value 1 when there is a deterministic relationship between ΔT and ΔS, and value 0 when both causal effects are independent. However, when one moves away from the previous two extreme scenarios, the interpretation of the ICA becomes challenging. In the present work, a new metric of surrogacy, the minimum probability of a prediction error (PPE), is introduced when both endpoints are binary, ie, the probability of erroneously predicting the value of ΔT using ΔS. Although the PPE has a more straightforward interpretation than the ICA, its magnitude is bounded above by a quantity that depends on the true endpoint. For this reason, the reduction in prediction error (RPE) attributed to the surrogate is defined. The RPE always lies in the unit interval, taking value 1 if prediction is perfect and 0 if ΔS conveys no information on ΔT. The methodology is illustrated using data from two clinical trials and a user‐friendly R package Surrogate is provided to carry out the validation exercise.     

Expenditure Decentralization and Citizen Satisfaction with Healthcare: Evidence from Urban China

There has been considerable debate whether fiscal decentralization improves the provision of public goods. Based on individual-level data from a nationally representative survey and county-level data from national compendiums of financial statistics and demographic statistics, this study analyzes the effect of expenditure decentralization on citizen satisfaction with public healthcare in urban China. The results indicate a significantly positive effect of expenditure decentralization on citizen satisfaction with public healthcare. We also find evidence that the impact of decentralization is associated with residency status. Further investigation highlights the importance of local economic development in realizing the potential gains from a decentralized system. This study suggests that decision-making at lower levels of government is more responsive to local needs and that the efficiency gains of decentralization are not necessarily accompanied by equitable distribution of welfare.

     

Joint and Separated Lifestyles in Couple Relationships

A survey among 1,523 married and cohabiting couples in the Netherlands is used to describe the extent to which couples have lifestyles characterized by separate leisure pursuits. Four types of leisure are examined: visiting friends and family, entertainment, outdoor recreation, and indoor leisure. For these activities, we find that contemporary couples cannot be characterized as highly individualized. Next, we analyze why some couples have a more separated lifestyle than others. Hypotheses are developed about the life cycle of the couple, the couple's work life, social and cultural homogamy, and value orientations. Multivariate analyses show that life cycle factors are an important determinant of separate lifestyles, whereas evidence for the role of values and homogamy is modest. We also present evidence revealing the time constraints that children and work schedules pose for realizing a joint lifestyle, but we do not find that spouses in dual‐earner couples generally operate more separately than do other couples.     

A SNP,Gene, and Polygenic Risk Score Approach of Oxytocin‐Vasopressin Genes in Adolescents’ Loneliness

Not much is known regarding underlying biological pathways to adolescents’ loneliness. Insight in underlying molecular mechanisms could inform intervention efforts aimed at reducing loneliness. Using latent growth curve modeling, baseline levels and development of loneliness were studied in two longitudinal adolescent samples. Genes (OXTR, OXT, AVPR1A, AVPR1B) were examined using SNP‐based, gene‐based, and polygenic risk score (PRS) approaches. In both samples, SNP‐ and gene‐based tests showed involvement of the OXTR gene in development of loneliness, though, significance levels did not survive correction for multiple testing. The PRS approach provided no evidence for relations with loneliness. We recommend alternative phenotyping methods, including environmental factors, to consider epigenetic studies, and to examine possible endophenotypes in relation to adolescents’ loneliness.     

Externalizing Problem Behavior in Adolescence: Parenting Interacting With DAT1 and DRD4 Genes

This study extends previous gene‐by‐environment (G × E) research through design and methodological advances and examines alternative hypotheses of diathesis stress, vantage sensitivity, and differential susceptibility. In a sample of 984 adolescents and their parents, we examined whether effects of parental support, proactive, punitive, harsh punitive, and psychological control on externalizing problem behavior are moderated by adolescents' genotype for the dopamine transporter (DAT1) or receptor D4 (DRD4) gene. Results provided evidence for main effects of parenting behavior and DRD4, and multiple interaction effects of which one survived Bonferroni correction. Adolescents carrying a long DRD4 variant were more susceptible to the effects of parental proactive control on aggression, for better and for worse. Critical considerations were made regarding the complexity of G × E research.     

The use of a personal development plan and the undertaking of learning activities,expertise-growth,flexibility and performance: the role of supporting assessment conditions

In the current search for tools that encourage and assess learning and development, personal development plans (PDPs) are being used ever more frequently by organizations. A PDP is an assessment tool used by the employee to reflect on, to document the competencies s/he has been working on and to present his/her plans for further development. This study conducted among employees working in a governmental organization in the Netherlands (N = 287) focused on the PDP practice as conceptualized by three supporting conditions: learning and reflection, information and feedback and the motivating supervisor. It examined which of these features enhance the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility towards changing circumstances and performance. Results from the hierarchical regression analyses indicate that a motivating supervisor, information and feedback and reflection by the employee on the basis of his/her PDP affect whether or not a PDP contributes to the four measured output variables. Next, by conducting mediation analyses evidence is found for the mediating role of undertaking learning activities in the relation between the PDP practice and two output variables.     

Estimating the reliability of repeatedly measured endpoints based on linear mixed‐effects models. A tutorial

There are various settings in which researchers are interested in the assessment of the correlation between repeated measurements that are taken within the same subject (i.e., reliability). For example, the same rating scale may be used to assess the symptom severity of the same patients by multiple physicians, or the same outcome may be measured repeatedly over time in the same patients. Reliability can be estimated in various ways, for example, using the classical Pearson correlation or the intra‐class correlation in clustered data. However, contemporary data often have a complex structure that goes well beyond the restrictive assumptions that are needed with the more conventional methods to estimate reliability. In the current paper, we propose a general and flexible modeling approach that allows for the derivation of reliability estimates, standard errors, and confidence intervals – appropriately taking hierarchies and covariates in the data into account. Our methodology is developed for continuous outcomes together with covariates of an arbitrary type. The methodology is illustrated in a case study, and a Web Appendix is provided which details the computations using the R package CorrMixed and the SAS software. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.