The interrelations of decision-making rationales around BSC adoptions in Finnish municipalities

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the interrelations of the decision-making rationalesrnaround accounting performance measurement (PM) adoptions in Finnish municipalities. Previousrnstudies informed by new institutional sociology (NIS), have tended to assume that accounting PMrnadoptions occur because of either "rational" or "institutional" reasons. The accuracy of this "polar"rnview is empirically analyzed in this paper (as called for by Ribeiro and Scapens).rnDesign/methodology/approach - Survey data (199 responses, 48 per cent response rate) werernanalyzed with factor analyses using, for example, SPSS and LISREL programs.rnFindings - The decision-making rationales (factors) around Balanced Scorecard (BSC) adoption werernlabeled "mimetic", "rational" and "normative-experimental". Mimetic rationale correlated negativelyrnwith the other factors.rnResearch limitations/implications - The data was small. Further, as case studies and LISRELrndiagnostics often suggest, there may be other forces involved in PM adoption related decision-making.rnPractical implications - Understanding the interplay of the various pressures may facilitate thernmanagement of PM development projects.rnOriginality/value - Rational and institutional rationales are opposed also in the Finnish publicrnsector (corroborating DiMaggio and Powell), but this "polar" view needs to be amended withrnindividual or "experimental" aspects (corroborating Granlund). Acknowledging all three rationalesrnrefines public sector PM adoption literature (Lapsley and Wright). Finally, the rationales wererninterrelated, i.e. able to interact or counteract in PM adoption related decision-making.