Summary of empirical findings
| Legitimacy building strategies | The main controls used | |
|---|---|---|
| Pragmatic legitimacy: utility delivered to the client by the contractor | ||
| Exchange attributes | ||
| Adapting and conforming to the stakeholders’ needs by evaluating and monitoring adaptation. Communicating the conformance | SLA, Performance metrics from company to individual level, lean thinking | |
| Specifying and co-ordinating activities by automation and standardisation | Procedures, work instructions, lean thinking | |
| Influence attributes | Co-opting client into daily activities | Defined communication channels employee assessment by the client |
| Dispositional attributes | Adapting and communicating conformity to stakeholders’ values by using certain language | Using efficiency figures as symbols in the daily language |
| Utility delivered to the contactor’s current (and potential employees | ||
| Conforming to employees needs for development, standardising employee development procedures and co-opting employees into these procedures Communicating the conformance | Development discussions including individual performance evaluations | |
| Benefits | ||
| Moral legitimacy: a general positive normative evaluation (‘rightness of actions’) of the contractor and its activities by the current (and potential) employees | ||
| Consequences | Conforming to ideals of fair consequences of actions, such as meaningfulness of work and possibilities for personal development | Support and benefits |
| Opportunities for training and education | ||
| Procedures | Demonstrating the above in procedures | Development discussions including individual performance evaluation structuring the possibilities for training and education |
| Cognitive legitimacy: Comprehensibility of the contractor and its operations and its “taken-for-grantedness” for client(s) | ||
| Predictability/ plausibility | Formalising and professionalising outsourced management accounting with the application of invented management models, presenting them as simple activities | |
| Seeking patent for the invented models | Knowledge management procedure | |
| Fostering interconnections with the client by possessing valuable knowledge and information | ||
| Permanence | Process advancement model | |
| Organisational structures, Procedures | ||
| Exchange attributes | ||
| Adapting and conforming to the stakeholders’ needs by evaluating and monitoring adaptation. Communicating the conformance | SLA, Performance metrics from company to individual level, lean thinking | |
| Specifying and co-ordinating activities by automation and standardisation | Procedures, work instructions, lean thinking | |
| Influence attributes | Co-opting client into daily activities | Defined communication channels employee assessment by the client |
| Dispositional attributes | Adapting and communicating conformity to stakeholders’ values by using certain language | Using efficiency figures as symbols in the daily language |
| Conforming to employees needs for development, standardising employee development procedures and co-opting employees into these procedures Communicating the conformance | Development discussions including individual performance evaluations | |
| Benefits | ||
| Consequences | Conforming to ideals of fair consequences of actions, such as meaningfulness of work and possibilities for personal development | Support and benefits |
| Opportunities for training and education | ||
| Procedures | Demonstrating the above in procedures | Development discussions including individual performance evaluation structuring the possibilities for training and education |
| Predictability/ plausibility | Formalising and professionalising outsourced management accounting with the application of invented management models, presenting them as simple activities | |
| Seeking patent for the invented models | Knowledge management procedure | |
| Fostering interconnections with the client by possessing valuable knowledge and information | ||
| Permanence | Process advancement model | |
| Organisational structures, Procedures | ||
Sharing content requires targeting cookies to be enabled. Please update your cookie preferences to use this feature.