Description
This paper examines the role of management control systems, in particular performance
measurement systems (PMSs) such as the Balanced Scorecard and key performance indicators,
in a multinational context. We begin by exploring how globalization discourses are
engaged with, consumed, appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in a
major multinational company. We link the adaptation and dissemination of global discourses
of senior managers with Said’s (1975/1997) concepts of authority and molestation.
We then examine how PMS are translated and customized within local manufacturing
plants and sales units in the UK and China, the significance of benchmarking and the extent
to which PMS render managerial discourses of globalization practical. We comment on the
importance of discourse in understanding control systems in general and the way in which
external discourses impact the internal practices of the organization
Globalization discourses and performance measurement
systems in a multinational ?rm
q
David J. Cooper
a,?
, Mahmoud Ezzamel
b,c
a
School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2R6
b
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
c
IE Business School, Pinar 15-1B, 28006 Madrid, Spain
a b s t r a c t
This paper examines the role of management control systems, in particular performance
measurement systems (PMSs) such as the Balanced Scorecard and key performance indica-
tors, in a multinational context. We begin by exploring how globalization discourses are
engaged with, consumed, appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in a
major multinational company. We link the adaptation and dissemination of global dis-
courses of senior managers with Said’s (1975/1997) concepts of authority and molestation.
We then examine how PMS are translated and customized within local manufacturing
plants and sales units in the UK and China, the signi?cance of benchmarking and the extent
to which PMS render managerial discourses of globalization practical. We comment on the
importance of discourse in understanding control systems in general and the way in which
external discourses impact the internal practices of the organization. We also explore some
of the sources that give rise to molestation (deviation of practice from global aspirations of
senior managers). We conclude by stressing the potential for the globalizing effects of PMS
through the interaction of the discourses of HQ and subunits, even in the absence of expli-
cit statements about globalization.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Globalization has received much attention as an
important feature of the modern world. Multinational
?rms are typically regarded as central vehicles in the
globalization of the world (e.g. Fiss & Hirsch, 2005;
Scholte, 2005). As Kristensen and Zeitlin (2005) point
out, there are very few studies that adopt a comprehen-
sive analysis of multinational organizations, examining
not just the perceptions from headquarters but also tak-
ing seriously the histories and management practices of
local units, and examining the inter-relations between
the two. There are few examples in the accounting liter-
ature of attempts to examine how discourses on global-
ization are constructed, adapted and circulated, and
what roles accounting technologies play in rendering
such discourses practical at ‘local’ levels (Barrett,
Cooper, & Jamal, 2005; Cruz, Scapens, & Major, 2011).
Several studies engage with globalization within
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2013.04.002
q
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the workshop
‘‘Globalizing, managing and management accounting’’ at the University
of Alberta, September 2007, the Japan Association of Management
Accounting Conference, Osaka, November 2007, the University of Elec-
tronics, Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China, November
2008, the University of Innsbruck, Austria, April 2009, Global Manage-
ment Accounting Research Conference, June 2009, European Accounting
Association Congress, Istanbul, May 2010, the Alberta School of Business,
January 2011, IE Business School, Madrid, May 2011 and University of
Western Ontario, January 2012. Thanks to participants at these events as
well as Sylvia Jordan, Wai Fong Chua, Thomas Ahrens, Sue Haka, Paolo
Quattrone, Keith Robson and Jan Mouritsen for comments on earlier
versions. We also wish to thank the two reviewers for their constructive
comments. We acknowledge SSHRC and CGA (Alberta) for their ?nancial
support. Albert James provided research assistance. We are also grateful
to all those who agreed to be interviewed for this study.
?
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.J. Cooper), ezzamel@
cf.ac.uk, [email protected] (M. Ezzamel).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
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multinational organizations, but the analysis typically
does not articulate the extent to which accounting
may or may not help to produce globalization (e.g.,
Busco, Giovannoni, & Scapens, 2008; Hyvönen,
Järvinen, & Pellinen, 2008; Neu, Silva, & Gomez,
2008; Quattrone & Hopper, 2005; Saravanamuthu &
Tinker, 2003).
This paper aims to understand how, and to what extent,
the discourses on globalization promoted by the HQ of a
MNC are rendered practical and enacted by its sub-units.
Our emphasis is on accounts of practice provided by our
informants. Our analysis connects with Miller and O’Leary
(1990, 2007), whereby we examine processes of ‘concep-
tual invention’ in order to explore the extent to which
globalization can be rendered meaningful and managers
can be induced to take action consistent with an under-
standing of what being global means for their day to day
activities. If people are asked to be globally aware and re-
spond to globalization, then our concern is to understand
the ways in which accounting facilitates (or not) that
awareness. Further, we emphasize that discourses of glob-
alization are not simply internal to the organization. As
Miller and O’Leary argue: ‘‘The analysis of internal
accounting change needs to take seriously the complex
network of political and cultural debates within which
accounting is enmeshed, rather than assuming it away.’’
(1990: 481).
We thus examine ?rst how our focal organization artic-
ulates its connection to globalization through annual re-
ports, speeches by executives and other modes of
communication as well as interview material. We explore
how globalization discourses are engaged with, consumed,
appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in
a major multinational company (MNC). A degree of scepti-
cism, if not cynicism, is often associated with such articu-
lations, yet there is a growing literature that shows that
discourses have material effects (e.g., Oakes, Townley, &
Cooper, 1998; Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington, 2008).
Talk is rarely ‘cheap’; it impacts the way we observe,
understand and ultimately act. We argue that accounting
systems and practices can be signi?cant in connecting dis-
courses with material effects. Second, and more speci?-
cally, we examine managerial accounts of the extent to
which performance measurement systems (PMSs), in par-
ticular the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and key performance
indicators (KPIs), render discourses of globalization
practical.
This paper connects with the extant accounting litera-
ture on discourse analysis. It shares an interest with prior
studies in how discourses are constitutive of both objects
(such as strategies, Knights & Morgan, 1991; the concep-
tion of the product, Miller & O’Leary, 1993; shareholder va-
lue, Ezzamel et al., 2008), and subjects (such as auditors,
Gendron, Cooper, & Townley, 2007, and strategists, Ezza-
mel & Willmott, 2008). It builds on studies that examine
the disciplinary consequences of discourse for organiza-
tional employees (including those credited with producing
or resisting the discourse). We explore how the wider dis-
courses on globalization are constitutive of managerial talk
and how they have disciplinary effects, for example how
they produce a particular context in which corporate
activities are undertaken, and the manner by which control
systems are developed and deployed.
The accounting literature has been concerned with
examining the connection between accounting and global-
ization in a variety of contexts and issues. Seal (2010)
examines how the discourses of ROI, strategic manage-
ment accounting and value based management are taken
up in a multinational ?rm. However, a limitation of that
study is that it explores managerial discourse predomi-
nantly through press and other public reports and views
the ?rm as a single entity. Other management accounting
studies that discuss globalization focus on how different
organizational levels interact, for example subsidiaries
and headquarters. Busco et al.’s (2008) study is concerned
about the constructive role of globalization discourses, in
terms of how managers promote ideas of globalization
and are also disciplined by them. Quattrone and Hopper
(2005) and Dechow and Mouritsen (2005) focus on
accounting objects, notably ERP systems. Only Cruz
et al.’s (2011) study has examined how performance mea-
surement systems can help to enact discourses of global-
ization. Cruz et al. focus on localization of a global
performance measurement systems in a joint venture.
Our focus on discourse, systems and measures has an af?n-
ity with their concerns and focus, while avoiding the prob-
lematic dualistic distinction between the local and global.
Further, we examine how globalization discourses are con-
nected to not only the organization’s context (which is
constituted by discourse) but also to the wider discursive
?eld on globalization.
Our study seeks to contribute to the literature by
focusing upon two issues: ?rst, understanding what dis-
courses on globalization emerge within an MNC and
how they connect with more general discourses on
globalization. We see this as important in terms of help-
ing us contextualize the discourses of a particular orga-
nization in relation to that of the broader discursive
?eld in order to improve our understanding of manage-
rial pronouncements. Second, we wish to explore the
connections that may exist between discursive state-
ments circulated by a company’s executives and the
performance of multiple managers and workers in mul-
tiple sub-units. For this exploration, we utilize two dis-
cursive dimensions identi?ed by Said (1975), on the one
hand the importance of authority (the power and posi-
tion of those who makes the utterance) and on the
other, molestation (loosely, the limits and responses to
such utterances). Focussing on these dimensions enables
us to provide a more ?nely grained and subtle discur-
sive analysis of globalization than is typically provided
in what are otherwise excellent accounting studies
(Anniette & Trivedi, 2013; Arnold & Sikka, 2001; Gen-
dron & Spira, 2010), by combining elements of both
the intention and reception of the discourses.
In examining the connection between text and behav-
ior, we would not expect that organizational performance
maps perfectly onto discursive statements; the connection
between the two may be quite loose. However, managers
have an interest in seeking to render their discourse prac-
ticable and aspire to demonstrate some link between their
discursive statements and ?rm performance. The Balanced
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 289
Scorecard (BSC) has been promoted as a way to make strat-
egy more concrete and action oriented (Kaplan & Norton,
1996, 2001). The claim is that the BSC helps to operation-
alize managerial discourse concerning goals, missions, val-
ues and strategies. It can thus be seen as an accounting
technology that provides a set of programs and technolo-
gies that translate discourse into procedures that organize
work practice and formalize performance (Miller & Rose,
1990). Performance measurement systems, such as the
BSC and its associated KPIs, are an important part of this
assemblage of technologies, which aim to link achieve-
ment to discursive statements.
Our study is not only concerned with the production,
circulation and consumption of the discourse on globaliza-
tion, but also with the extent to which measurement sys-
tems and measures encourage local subjects to enact
HQ’s ideas. We pursue these issues by asking speci?c ques-
tions: What discourses on globalization have been pro-
duced and disseminated at the international HQ of an
MNC and its national HQs? By what systems or measures
do senior managers of an MNC seek to render practical
their discourse on globalization? How does enacting the
HQ discourse on globalization by sub-units occur in rela-
tion to the control systems and practices, notably around
performance measurement? What strategies of ‘engage-
ment’ with the ‘global’ can sub-units pursue (e.g., not
adopting a global KPI, or adopting but customizing a BSC
system)? What strategies of translation do sub-units fol-
low in enacting a globalization discourse?
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In
the next section we examine the general and accounting
literature on globalization. We then discuss our research
methods, before we provide a brief history of the case
study (Megacorp, a pseudonym of an MNC). This is
followed with an analysis of the globalization discourse
produced and disseminated by the managers of
Megacorp. Thereafter, we examine a number of control
systems that have been developed as translations of
the globalization discourse of Megacorp. It is at this
point in the paper that we focus on speci?c ?nancial
and non-?nancial measures. We pay particular attention
to the role of the BSC before we examine two individual
KPIs: earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) and sugges-
tions for improvement, as illustrations of ?nancial and
non-?nancial measures. In the ?nal section, we discuss
our main arguments and their implications before
drawing the paper to a conclusion.
Discourses of globalization
‘‘[G]lobalization is not merely a set of material pro-
cesses anchored in economics and technology, but also
constitutes a system of ideas circulating in the public
realm as more or less coherent stories that attempt to
de?ne, describe, and evaluate these very processes’’
(Steger, 2005: ix)
Globalization, as the above quote suggests, has political,
economic, social, and cultural dimensions. It also has an
important discursive component, which, in different eras,
is associated with slogans such as ‘‘workers of the world
unite’’ and ‘‘the world is ?at’’. Discourses of globalization
have considerable power that entices actors, such as the
managers in our case study, to engage with them. Consider
the term ‘global village’ coined by McLuhan (1960) which
underscores the compression of time and space across
the world (Harvey, 1989) and suggests challenges and
opportunities facing contemporary managers. The term of-
fers a vision of a homogenous, closely-knit world commu-
nity to which everyone should belong, with the implicit
risk that those who do not join in will be ostracised and
alienated. The power of such a discourse rests largely on
its ability to offer attributes of globalization that are con-
nectable to a vision of the modern world that celebrates
universalistic values of rationalization, secularization, sci-
ence and education (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Drori, Meyer,
& Hwang, 2006).
Globalization has acquired an ‘aura’ of inevitability
(Spicer & Fleming, 2007) and its proponents have articu-
lated a powerful and seductive discourse propounding its
merits. We consider globalization to be an important dis-
course for corporate executives because it is frequently
presented by consultants, gurus, business schools and the
business press as a sensemaking response to emerging
opportunities and threats in the world economy. Fiss and
Hirsch (2005) show that, throughout the period 1984–
1998 they studied, company press releases and annual re-
ports presented globalization as inevitable and its conse-
quences as positive.
Studies of globalization such as Barrett et al. (2005) and
Cruz et al. (2011) have tended to counterpose the ‘global’
and the ‘local’. In contrast, our analysis seeks to avoid dual-
ities or oppositions between the global and the local. As
Scholte (2005: 79) notes, separating the global and the lo-
cal has the undesirable effect of depicting:
‘‘the local as ‘here’, immediate and intimate, as against
the global being ‘there’, distant and isolating. The local
is concrete, grounded, authentic, and meaningful,
whereas the global is abstract, unconnected, arti?cial
and meaningless. The local purportedly provides secu-
rity and community, while the global houses danger
and violence. The local is innocent, the global manipula-
tive. The local is the arena for autonomy and empower-
ment, the global the realm of dependence and
domination’’.
We regard the global and the local as ‘two sides of the
same coin’ (Robertson, 1992: 178); interpenetration, rather
than separation, is a more appropriate description of their
relationship (Robertson, 1992: 100–103; 130; see also La-
tour, 2005; Scholte, 2005). Concerned to understand how
the global ‘system’ has been, and continues to be, made,
and with the production and re-production of the world
through globalization, Robertson argues that globalization
should be studied at both the global and sub-global levels.
The global ?eld is always contested and reshaped through
competing de?nitions of the global situation. Robertson is
critical of viewing the global and the local in terms of
macro and micro-levels of analysis preferring to analyze
‘glocalization’, ‘‘a complex interaction of the ‘global’ and
‘local’,’’ (Steger, 2005: 40). This view stresses the interac-
tions that produce both homogenizing and heterogenizing
290 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
effects, or arenas of ‘hybridization’ where new meanings
are derived (Hannerz, 1992). To move beyond the dualism
or dialectic of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, in the remainder
of this paper we refer to HQ and sub-units and only use
the terms ‘global’ and ‘local’ when our informants or archi-
val material invoke these terms.
Authoring and molestation
In this paper we explore two issues: the discourse on
globalization produced in an MNC and how such a dis-
course can be made practical. Much has been written about
discourses, and there are many theories that inform dis-
course analysis. Many studies are deeply in?uenced by
Foucault and his emphasis on power-knowledge and the
importance of discourse in producing and framing knowl-
edge. We share these interests but use some of the ideas
of Edward Said, who has examined the relationship be-
tween discourse, power and a central element of globaliza-
tion, namely colonialism. Said is best known for his work
on Orientalism and the role of discourses in constructing
an (often inferior) ‘other’ (1978) and his study of how cul-
ture re?ects, produces and enables imperialism (1993). Gi-
ven our interest in exploring globalization discourse and
how discursive statements are connected to the wider dis-
cursive ?eld, we draw upon, adapt, and extend some of
Said’s concepts to help analyze our case material. Said
(1975/1997) emphasizes two notions in the analysis of dis-
course: ‘author’ (authority) and ‘molestation’. For Said
(1975/1997: 23) ‘‘authority-or the speci?c power of a spe-
ci?c act of writing-can be thought of as something whole
and as something invented-as something inclusive and
made up, if you like, for the occasion.’’ This speci?c power
concerns invention through what Said refers to as begin-
ning, inauguration, and augmentation of the written state-
ment or narrative. Authoring connects to ideas of power in
recognizing the position (authority) of the utterance and
has resonance to Foucault’s discussion of what is an
author, but has the advantage of identifying four elements
of the authority of an author:
‘‘(1) that of the power of an individual to initiate, insti-
tute, establish-in short, to begin; (2) that this power and
its product are an increase over what had been there
previously; (3) that the individual wielding this power
controls its issue and what is derived there from; (4)
that authority maintains the continuity of its course’’
(Said, 1975/1997: 83).
For Said, authority entails both the power of authoring a
text as well as the authority of the writer. Said emphasizes
‘beginnings’ to mark authorship and also intention because
it makes or produces difference through the production of
meaning: ‘‘a ‘‘beginning’’ is designed in order to indicate,
clarify, or de?ne a later time, place, or action. In short,
the designation of a beginning generally involves also the
designation of a consequent intention. . . The beginning,
then, is the ?rst step in the intentional production of mean-
ing.’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 5, original emphases). Intention
can be conscious or unconscious, the important point is
that beginning intention is an undertaking ‘‘to do some-
thing in a characteristic way’’, and ‘‘is always engaged pur-
posefully in the production of meaning’’ (Said, 1975/1997:
12). This intentionality is signi?cant for it renders ‘‘writing
as permitting, writing-as-making possible, writing – as-
beginning other forms of human perception and behav-
iour’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 20).
A beginning does not speak of a single, unequivocal
point of origin, but rather of repetitions, whereby each rep-
etition never fully reproduces previous repetitions and
hence authorship accompanies every repetition. Consistent
with Foucault’s concern with displacing the sovereign indi-
vidual and underscoring the power of discursive regimes,
we follow Said in emphasizing that while no author has
absolute power, for example does not invent a text from
nothing or that their position in a ?eld negates any resis-
tance, but builds on previous texts, in the act of repetition
individuals author texts because no two repetitions are the
same.
While discursive pronouncements on globalization by
executives cannot be treated strictly like novels (Said’s fo-
cus), they are nonetheless texts. Said, in discussing Marx
(Said, 1975/1997: 145–146) and Freud (Said, 1975/1997:
160–182) indicates that his analysis of discourse can be ap-
plied to various types of text.
1
Senior executives seek to
move beyond the production of a text by introducing man-
agement technologies (e.g., accounting systems) to render
their discourse practical. One appealing feature of Said’s
work is his emphasis on intention in inscribing or uttering
a text and we take our interviewees’ discourse on globaliza-
tion seriously, in that we invest it with intention as purpose-
fully making difference by producing meaning, or tactics or
strategies of power, an act of will (Said, 1975/1997). As we
indicated earlier, talk matters. In part, we support our argu-
ment later by reference to various means by which senior
managers of Megacorp sought to make practical the global-
ization discourse they authored.
Molestation refers to the ‘bother’ and ‘responsibility’ of
all the powers and efforts invested in authority (Said,
1975/1997: 84). It includes, but extends beyond, the Fou-
cauldian concern with resistance. For Said, molestation re-
?ects the fact that authors themselves recognize the
difference between the text s/he authors and the reality
to which it relates; hence his notion of author duplicity
in producing a text that may be taken as a pretence in its
alleged depiction of reality. If authority is invention, then
molestation is restraint (Said, 1975/1997: 83). The author-
ity of a written text is inevitably accompanied by molesta-
tion; the relationship between authority and molestation
is dynamic and mutually enabling (Said, 1975/1997: 84;
137; 157) in that the invention produced by authority is re-
strained and checked by molestation, which produces its
own authoring. Said argues that molestation is evident in
‘collisions and compromises’ (Said, 1975/1997: 143),
‘refusals, sacri?ces, renunciations, and sel?shness’ (Said,
1975/1997: 143). For Said, writing is a ‘dream’, ‘an illusion’,
a ‘truth-resembling ?ction’ (Said, 1975/1997: 24; 84; 90),
hence its distance from reality. For us, then, the dreams
1
Davis (1983/1996) further argues that ?ction and non-?ction are
extremes on a continuous scale: ‘‘perception, experience, fantasy and belief
are all gradations on the same scale (Davis, 1983/1996: 70).
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 291
of globalization (whether it is in terms of global supply
chains or more mundane hopes for travel and international
experience) have an illusory element that may (or may
not) be achieved. In that sense, even the author of a text
or inscription on globalization may be aware of at least
some of its limitations, have doubts, and recognize the con-
testability of even the most apparently mundane fact of-
fered in the discourse. Molestation therefore can be
thought of as the practical counterpart of authored dis-
course when the latter is put into practice.
Another appealing feature of Said’s work is his under-
scoring of writing as making possible, and as promoting,
forms of human perception and behavior. Discourse pro-
nounced by the senior managers of Megacorp, we argue, is
intended to impact the behavior of company employees to
achieve the aspirations of globalization, even though the
restrictiveimpact of molestationcreates a gapbetweensuch
aspiration and reality. Said’s work is also important to our
analysis because it provides four themes of authoring dis-
course, such as the BSC and KPIs. Given his emphasis upon
the authoring/authority of discourse and its dynamic rela-
tionship to molestation, and his underscoring of the ability
of narrative/writing to make possible, Said’s work connects
directly with our interest in understanding how globaliza-
tion discourse is authored, how it is further inscribed into
accounting technologies such as the BSC and KPIs with the
intention of rendering such discourse practicable, and why
gaps emerge between such a discourse and practice.
Our empirical analysis also draws on the more familiar
(in accounting research) concept of translation as a means
of understanding the extent to which the discourse on
globalization is rendered practical throughout the organi-
zation. Translation is different from, yet has some af?nities
with molestation. We see translation as a technological
process that operates to render discourse practical, so it
has an enabling characteristic. Translation tends to be re-
lated to technologies more than discourses. Said pays little
attention to the forms of texts and inscriptions that carry
and affect discourses. In our conclusion we offer some
speculations about mediating mechanisms, and while we
offer some observations about the in?uence of interna-
tional transfers of personnel, common IT systems and re-
gional training programs, our empirical analysis does not
seriously address these due to access limitations (we did
not directly observe such mechanisms).
Further, the sociology of translation stresses human
(and non-human) agency, the use of molestation and
authority emphasizes structures, rules and positions in a
?eld. We recognize that labelling various positions as
sources of authority (for example, the formal authority of
a CEO, the legitimacy of speci?c KPIs, the experience of a
plant supervisor) are constructions of the theorist and
may link to forces, rules and mechanisms beyond those
identi?ed by actors or audiences themselves.
2
This is why
our analysis is multi-layered, incorporating discourses in
?nancial reports, and statements by senior corporate execu-
tives, unit and plant managers and shop ?oor workers. But
both processes of translation and authority and molestation
stress that local diversity, interest, and resistance could cre-
ate a gap between management discourse on the technolo-
gies of globalization (such as the BSC and KPIs) and the
customization of these technologies throughout the organi-
zation. Molestation, as we have argued, thus displays en-
abling and disabling characteristics. It is disabling to the
extent that resistance, refusals, sacri?ces, collisions, doubts
and compromises occur. But molestation is also enabling
in giving discourse a reality check, in helping rescue dis-
course from being a dream by bringing it back to its status
as trying to be believable (Said, 1975/1997: 24).
3
There is always likely to be molestation to a greater or
smaller extent. For example, a text may be intended to
be purely rhetorical, symbolic, or ?ctional. In such a case,
molestation registers rather high, for the connection be-
tween the text and reality (however this is de?ned) may
be tenuous (but still connect to a reader’s understanding).
A text produced by the CEO of an MNC concerning the
introduction of a new performance management system
intended to gain external legitimacy is likely to have a high
molestation register. Alternatively the author of a BSC-
based management control system may intend for it to
be put into practice (Quattrone, 2009) but the process of
translation may result in outcomes different from those
desired or anticipated because of the familiar problems of
translation, customization to different organizational lo-
cales and implementation, resistance, or indeed because
of inappropriate knowledge by the author of the capabili-
ties of distant sub-units. So, moving beyond Said’s concep-
tualization, for us molestation refers not only to the
intentions, ambiguities or lack of detailed knowledge of
the author, but also to the reception of the audience.
We draw on authorship/authority in order to analyze
the discourse on globalization produced and promoted by
the senior managers of Megacorp. The four elements of
authoring identi?ed by Said help us in understanding not
only the power of those who initiated the discourse of
globalization at Megacorp but also how that discourse is
articulated in different ways at different levels of manage-
ment. Further, our case study shows there are potentially
numerous texts in which globalization discourse can be
re-authored even by the same person over time. We draw
on molestation to explore the extent to which it may mod-
ify, frustrate or restrict the ability of the BSC, SPM, and KPIs
to convert management globalization discourse into some-
thing doable and practical. But we also stress its enabling
characteristic, in rescuing globalization discourse from
becoming a dream, a fantasy of, for example, not only se-
nior executives but also the understandings of plant super-
visors. Like Said, we understand molestation to include the
gap that exists between the discourse as authored by
2
Thus we have sympathy with critiques of discursive analyses of
accounting and management innovations that are inattentive to the
authority of the author. It leads to the possibility that of?cial discourses
are decontextualized and can result in merely repeating actors’ own
statements and offer little more than company public relations (Froud,
Williams, Haslam, Johal, & Williams, 1998).
3
Molestation also has some af?nity with notions of editing that are used
by Scandinavian institutional theorists (e.g., Sahlin-Andersson, 1996) but
that latter term emphasises ‘‘rules that restrict and direct the translation’’
(Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008: 225). We emphasise the enabling as well as the
restrictive features of discourse.
292 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
someone and his/her recognition that parts of that dis-
course are ?ctional. Authoring involves molestation and,
to the extent that molestation produces additional dis-
course, molestation augments authoring. But we go be-
yond Said in also considering as molestation the
alternative translations of corporate discourse on global-
ization in the process of its enactment and explore possible
sources of such molestation. Before using these ideas in our
case analysis we discuss our research method and provide
a brief overview of our focal organization.
Data collection and research method
The empirical material we draw upon comes from sev-
eral sources. First, over the 5 year period 2005–2009 we
conducted 97 semi-structured interviews at several loca-
tions in Megacorp
4
: three manufacturing sites producing
similar products in Germany, the UK and China; two sales
units in the UK and China; the national headquarters of
the plants and sales units in the UK, China, and Japan; and
the German headquarters of the major division to which
the manufacturing and sales units belong. The ?rm’s report-
ing structure can be considered a matrix form, with produc-
tion units reporting to product divisions and sales units
reporting nationally. The breakdown of the interviews is as
follows: in the UK, 51 interviews; 34 in China; 10 in Ger-
many and 2 in Japan. We selected Megacorp because we
were aware that they were implementing a Balanced Score-
card and we proceeded when we obtained good research ac-
cess (where the main condition required was an assurance
of anonymity). Second, we collected a large number of inter-
nal documents relating to historical accounts of Megacorp,
its organizational structure, the division to which the sub-
units belong, and manufacturing and sales units, key perfor-
mance indicators (KPIs) relating to each informant and their
de?nitions, and performance reports. We also obtained
other textual material on what informants identi?ed as
key processes and performance systems developed and dis-
seminated by Megacorp or those that emerged in manufac-
turing and sales units. Third, we examined publicly available
documents about Megacorp, including its annual reports
(1998–2009) and press coverage. Most of the empirical
material we draw upon, however, comes from interviews
and documents relating to the manufacturing and sales
units in China and the UK as well as the division’s interna-
tional HQ. Additional material collected about Megacorp
from visits to units in Germany and Japan are used as
background.
Our interviews were wide-ranging in terms of infor-
mants, their functions and hierarchical position. For exam-
ple, in the UK manufacturing unit, interviewees covered
the seven management levels in the plant, from the plant
manager to operators, and across all functions. This pattern
was repeated for the Chinese plant with the exception that
we did not interview anyone below the level of supervisors
because operators did not speak English, the formal
language in Megacorp. In sales units we interviewed staff
at different hierarchical levels and in various functions
including sales, advertising, marketing, ?nance, and HR.
At national and worldwide headquarters, our emphasis
has been upon gaining an understanding of Megacorp’s
discourse on globalization and how PMS and KPIs were de-
signed, translated, and enacted. Our interviews also sought
to solicit informants‘ views on how PMS and speci?c KPIs
emerged at sub-unit level, how they were de?ned and
the extent to which their de?nitions were customized to
suit the context, how informants engaged with these
PMS and KPIs in their day-to-day work, and how they
mobilized the measures to both inform themselves as well
as others about their activities. Each interview was con-
ducted in English, lasted between 1 and 1½ hours, and
was recorded and transcribed.
At the level of sub-units, informants were asked to ex-
plain brie?y their current jobs and employment history be-
fore responding to questions on a range of issues related to
the focus of the research project. These included the KPIs
that appear on the performance reports of the informant:
their de?nition, the informant’s understanding of these
measures, how the informant engaged with them in daily
activities, and how they impacted on the informant’s activ-
ities, appraisal, bonus earned, and career development. We
also asked about any recent changes in KPIs, either in their
de?nitions and/or their displacement by new PMS or KPIs;
the extent to which the informant negotiated the level of
target for each KPI with superiors; how the informant
thought his/her KPIs connected with the overall KPIs for
Megacorp; and how the informant used such measures to
inform herself/himself of subordinates’ activities and to in-
form superiors of his/her own performance. An additional
set of questions were asked of staff who were involved in
translating and customizing Megacorp’s global KPIs to
sub-units and also in developing their own local KPIs,
and the process of such customization.
The empirical material relating to the enactment of the
HQ’s globalization discourse by sub-units is organized
around two countries (The UK and China) and two facilities
(production and sales), producing a 2 Â 2 matrix. We also
examine PMS and KPIs at two levels: as a whole system,
such as the BSC for each cell, and as individual measures.
For each cell of the above matrix we examine one ?nancial
KPI (earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT) and one non-
?nancial KPI (suggestions as a measure of learning and
growth).
The interviews and documents (including analysis of
annual reports for the period 1998–2009) were read clo-
sely in their entirety and then organized around our key re-
search themes and related theoretical ideas. For example,
given our interest in examining the production and dis-
semination of the discourse on globalization in Megacorp,
we traced statements made by our interviewees and in
the other source documents, concerning what globaliza-
tion meant and who made such pronouncements. Simi-
larly, interviews and documents were analyzed around
themes relating to the emergence of KPIs, their translation
and customization, and their enactment by sub-units. Our
analysis was largely based on careful reading and re-read-
ing of the materials and discussions among the authors on
the relation between theoretical categories and our inter-
4
To preserve anonymity, all names used in the text to refer to the
company of our study or any of its parts are pseudonyms.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 293
views, site visits and examination of corporate materials.
Although we did not strictly follow the methods of
grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) given our apiori
theoretical framing, we were nonetheless in?uenced by
these methods in data collection and analysis. As the data
collection phase lasted over 5 years, we could iterate back
and forth between our theoretical categories (such as the
components of globalization and the processes of author-
ing and molestation) and our ongoing data collection. To-
wards the end of our ?eldwork, we more explicitly
incorporated discourse analysis, with an emphasis on what
Clarke (2005) refers to as situational analysis of texts,
where what is written is analyzed in terms of context
(mainly social space).
Megacorp
Many writers emphasize the importance of locating an
analysis of discourse in a speci?c context (Clarke, 2005).
Accordingly, we offer some background on Megacorp, a
major MNC with headquarters in Germany. Megacorp
operates in over 100 countries, with half a million employ-
ees, and a world-wide turnover of tens of £ billions. The
international HQ identi?es three key, ‘global’ steps to
achieving success across its sub-units: goals (e.g., increas-
ing EBIT, optimizing customer bene?ts), measures (e.g.,
implementing business-speci?c measures, applying sys-
tematic best practice, developing staff), and consequences
(e.g., monitoring and measuring success, offering incen-
tives, applying sanctions) (Internal Document, undated).
Megacorp’s portfolio of activities at the time of the inter-
views covered six major divisions, including the Electron-
ics Division that has numerous production and sales
units around the world. We focus on four units within
the Electronics Division, two in the UK and two in China.
ElectronUK is part of MegacorpUK, and it employs about
400 people, has a turnover of approximately £50 M and
produces high volume, low complexity electronic products.
In the late 1990s, ElectronUK was designated a semi-inde-
pendent business and given increased autonomy in manu-
facturing, sales, design, and marketing. Its average annual
pro?t since then has been about £5 M. However, Megacorp
centrally determines the transfer price for ElectronUK’s
products and major currency movements has meant that:
‘‘despite our volume in pieces growing, our volume in turn-
over wasn’t growing. So consequently our pro?tability was
getting hit very hard because of the exchange rate’’ (Fi-
nance Manager, ElectronUK). Declining pro?tability in the
mid 2000s prompted HQ to issue an ultimatum that unless
ElectronUK turned these ?gures around, it would be shut:
‘‘Along came China and we were literally told two years
ago ‘guys, you either meet the cost level that China can of-
fer or you know it could be curtains’’’ (Manager,
ElectronUK).
Megacorp started in China (MegacorpChina) in 1985
and ElectronChina began production in 1996, following
the formation of a joint venture between Megacorp and
two Chinese companies. It specializes in high value elec-
tronic products. By 2003 MegacorpChina was delivering
the third highest international sales for the Electronics
Division, and employing over 20,000 people (source: inter-
nal document, 2003). Following a period of average annual
growth of 30% for a decade, competition began to intensify:
‘‘All our major international competitors are here
[China]. What’s more, we face increased competition
from a new breed of homegrown Chinese manufactur-
ers. Competition is aggressive and often centres on
price. As a result, margins are under pressure in almost
all our businesses’’ (CEO, MegacorpChina, internal doc-
ument 2003).
Local Chinese competitors used their low cost base to
‘‘offer comparable products for prices signi?cantly below
our [ElectronChina] cost – and still make a pro?t’’ (CEO,
MegacorpChina, internal document 2003). However,
against this background of slim pro?ts and tough competi-
tion, ElectronChina has been growing rapidly from a pro-
duction facility of around 200 employees in early 2005,
when our interviews began, to nearly 700 employees by
the time we concluded our interviews in 2009.
In both the UK and China, sales units were established
with the purpose of buying products from their national
plants and selling them to external customers. Our infor-
mants suggested that strong links exist between the pro-
duction plants and the national sales unit to coordinate
production, product range and delivery times, as well as
to deal with internal product transfers.
Three systems co-existed at Megacorp, all promoted in
the name of encouraging globalization and facilitating
management control: Time (TIME); Process Improvement
(PI); and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). These systems, to-
gether with an organizational wide ERP system that pro-
moted standardization of control systems, provide the
broad management context within which globalization
was intended to be made practical and through which per-
formance measures were intended to push a globalization
agenda.
TIME was introduced in 1993 by Megacorp as its ‘‘re-
sponse to the globalising world’’ (Annual Report, 1993),
and is presented as Megacorp’s ‘‘global business excellence
initiative’’ (Internal documents, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).
Its stated aim is to increase pro?tability by stimulating
sales revenue and reducing costs across the whole organi-
zation. To achieve these ends, TIME relies heavily on inno-
vation and benchmarking, with a focus on KPIs for
ef?ciency and productivity. Each unit within Megacorp
has discretion to use TIME in whatever way it deemed ?t:
‘‘It’s not prescriptive inasmuch as it doesn’t say that you
have to do this and you have to do that. It says you have
to look into these areas, but it’s up to you how you go
about it’’ (Manager, international HQ).
Process Improvement (PI) is a benchmarked best practice
approach for routine processes, such as meeting a cus-
tomer request or requesting a tender from suppliers. Con-
cern with designing and managing standard business
processes at multiple locales has been at the heart of
how the senior management of Megacorp sought to con-
vert its globalization and best practice discourse into KPIs
that would impact local practice.
294 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
Balanced Scorecard (BSC): The BSC was formally intro-
duced in the Electronics Division in 1999 and seen as an-
other way to promote conformity with senior
management’s discourse on globalization, excellence, ef?-
ciency and greater uniformity of performance measure-
ment and monitoring across all units. It has the familiar
four quadrants: customer/market; ?nancial; internal pro-
cesses; and people/innovation/learning and growth. An
Internal Document (2003, Electronics Division) claims that
‘‘all measurable business performance data is recorded on
the Balanced Score Card’’. Another document (2004) states
that:
‘‘Some 40 individual measures exist on the Top level
Business Balanced Score Card. These measures are con-
sidered the key indicators for the ‘health of the busi-
ness’. Each measure has a target which re?ects either
agreed business goals or stretch goals to achieve
improvement. . . In addition, a ‘target for excellence’
that is considered to be a truly world class target which
should be expected by companies operating within our
?eld, is also shown on the Balanced Score Card for each
measure.’’
The appeal in the above quote to ‘a truly world class tar-
get for excellence’ is an example of how senior manage-
ment views the BSC as one of the means of rendering
practical its discourse on globalization. Ever since its intro-
duction in Megacorp, the BSC has been strongly connected
to both Time and PI as the KPIs related to these two man-
agement technologies have been incorporated into the
BSC. We will pay particular attention to the BSC, partly be-
cause it receives so much attention in the management
control literature, but also because its proponents explic-
itly claim that it is intended to convert talk about strategy
(e.g., strategies related to globalization) into a set of mea-
sures and targets that will produce actions and initiatives.
In short, it is designed to connect discourses to practices.
Before we focus on the BSC and KPIs, we explore the ways
in which Megacorp articulated its concerns regarding
globalization.
Megacorp: discourses on globalization
In this section we draw on Said’s four elements of
authoring/authority to examine the globalization discourse
produced by Megacorp, the extent to which it connects
with the wider discursive ?eld on globalization, how
Megacorp’s discourse relates to its aspirations and context
as constructed by its managers, and how these managers
sought to render such globalization discourses practical.
We view senior managers as subjects who, in making pro-
nouncements, author texts, and that their authoring of
such a discourse is an intentional activity that seeks to
make a difference by producing speci?c meaning of con-
cepts such as globalization and offers speci?c accounting
technologies linked to their view of globalization. As we
will see, all the elements of authority identi?ed by Said
(1975/1997) are present here: initiating or inaugurating
the discourse on globalization by the senior management
of Megacorp, augmenting it via additions, ownership and
control of the globalization discourse, and authors main-
taining the continuity of this discourse. Applying Said’s
argument, managers do not invent discourse; rather they
begin a discourse by repeating previous discourses while
also engaging in an authoring activity that entails addi-
tions, deletions, and re-interpretations. They thus develop
previous discourses. Thus, pronouncements on globaliza-
tion by senior managers are never a ‘?nished object’, but
connect with, and also displace, previous discourses.
Authority is also an important element in managerial dis-
course, so a discourse on globalization produced by the
CEO has a resonance and authority fundamentally different
from that attributed to a discourse on globalization pro-
duced by a junior manager, because discourse constitutes
managers as senior or junior, and endows senior managers
with authority to be key spokespersons (Ezzamel & Will-
mott, 2008).
Our case attends to the multiple layers of organizational
voices that make the analysis of intentionality extremely
dif?cult. While Megacorp’s CEO may not actually write
their own speeches or contributions to company maga-
zines, we suggest that such subtleties may not be impor-
tant to the interpretations and meanings that are
assumed by many internal audiences. Similarly, while we
point out the possibility that molestations may make a text
more practical and realistic, this does not imply that this is
the intention of the molester. Authors may or may not be-
lieve their own statements, and there are many degrees of
?ction or truthfulness. Concerning molestation, senior
managers are in an authoritative position that can make
their discursive statements seem doable. This is because
discourse constitutes some managers as occupying senior
positions in the organizational hierarchy by dint of which
they are able to mobilize resources and technologies (such
as accounting techniques) that are intended to entice their
subordinates to take actions consistent with senior manag-
ers´ discourse. While we offer some conjectures in the con-
clusions about conscious and unconscious intentionality of
authors and molesters, we do not explore the conscious-
ness of actors in our analysis.
We focus on how PMS, and in particular the BSC and
KPIs, are intervening media by which managers as
authors/authority aim to make actionable their strategic
discourse about globalization. The BSC and KPIs are con-
ceptualized here as a form of writing that is intended to
make possible different perceptions and behavior (Said,
1975/1997). Senior managers have a strong desire to main-
tain, even enhance, their credibility in the eyes of their rel-
evant constituencies. They have an interest in making the
gap between their discursive claims and attendant results
appear as small as possible. As technologies that permit
or make possible different forms of behavior and percep-
tion, the BSC and individual KPIs can help inculcate in
organizational actors a calculative mentality, driven by tar-
gets, in the quest to convert discourse into tangible mea-
sures of achievement. Measures are not the only means
by which discourses on globalization make possible spe-
ci?c management actions, but they are important. They
are part of an approach to managing by numbers or evi-
dence (Ezzamel, Hoskin, & Macve, 1990), even when man-
agers at Megacorp are aware of the contingencies of the
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 295
globalization discourse they produce, and of its potential
molestation. Discourse, including speci?c measures, may
be seen as part fact and part aspiration (a ?ction) until it
is rendered into actions susceptible to intervention
through, for example, technologies of accounting. But as
Said’s (1975/1997) work has shown, putting a discourse
into practice inevitably triggers various sources of molesta-
tion such as collisions, compromises, refusals, sacri?ces
and renunciations.
We ?rst explore how Megacorp’s senior managers be-
gan to initiate a discourse on globalization in their
authored annual reports. Managers made reference in
Mageacorp’s annual reports as early as 1993 to how the
company must tune its activities to ‘global’ conditions
and ‘global’ markets. In the 1993 annual report, there were
84 references to the ‘international, global world’ and the
‘economic environment’; this latter term was included in
subsequent annual reports as a key part of Megacorp’s def-
inition of globalization. Subsequent annual reports gradu-
ally increased their reference to globalization; for
example the 1998 Annual Report suggests that the com-
pany must gain leadership in international markets and
that it must be listed in the USA in order to push ‘‘globali-
sation and meet demands of international ?nancial mar-
kets’’ (p. 7). In the same report, increasing globalization
of markets was identi?ed as one of the key risks that Mega-
corp must manage by developing a balanced international
portfolio of activities (pp. 55–56). Connection to globaliza-
tion became even stronger in later reports; for example the
2002 Annual Report (p. 7) included a page entitled ‘‘Global
Presence’’, listing the countries where the company oper-
ates, the number of its international employees, and high-
lighting Megacorp’s ‘‘global knowledge networks’’ and its
‘‘diversity advantage’’. The Report identi?ed ‘‘Global Pres-
ence’’ as one of three Megacorp’s cornerstones, in addition
to customer oriented innovation and sound ?nancial man-
agement (2002 Annual Report, p. 17). Thus, authoring a
discourse on globalization at Megacorp was inaugurated
(Said, 1975/2009: 83) with reference to the global environ-
ment and the need for Megacorp to become a major global
player, but it was only in 2002 that the company’s dis-
course on globalization was authored in reference to the
company’s diversity advantage and ‘‘Global Presence’’.
Thereafter, the company’s ‘‘brand’’ of globalization dis-
course began to be articulated more by Megacorp’s senior
managers through repetition of parts of the globalization
discourse in the discursive ?eld, augmentation by incorpo-
rating additional elements assumed to be Megacorp-spe-
ci?c, and controlling and maintaining the continuity of
this discourse (Said, 1975/2009: 23; 83).
Thus, several annual reports (e.g., 2003, pp. 7–11; 106)
emphasized enhancing Megacorp’s global competitiveness
through expansion of operations in lower cost locations
worldwide and capitalizing on the multicultural back-
ground of its employees. They also emphasized the desire
to reduce the risk of global foreign currency translation
by globalizing company activities through acquisitions,
divestment or joint ventures and optimizing its world-
wide value chain. The letter to Shareholders in the 2005
Annual Report (p. 7) states that growth goals have to be
set as a multiple of global economic growth and in the
2006 Report explicitly targets ‘‘growth at twice the global
GDP growth rate’’ (p. 135). It further identi?es two global
trends: urbanization and demographic change from which
Megacorp is said to be able to bene?t, given its global port-
folio of activities. The 2006 Annual Report identi?es a glo-
bal performance management system for staff appraisal
and links the remuneration of members of the board of
directors to several factors including Global Presence
(2006 Annual Report, p. 25). These latter annual reports
therefore show how the discourse on globalization contin-
ued to be authored by Megacorp’s senior managers, with
each report repeating (e.g. higher growth aspirations) and
adding (e.g., company-speci?c targets such as ‘‘growth at
twice the global GDP growth rate’’) to the previous dis-
course. As authors of the company annual reports, Mega-
corp senior managers were able to initiate, in?uence and
maintain the continuity of this discourse.
5
Other publications were produced throughout Mega-
corp, at the international HQ level, national HQ level, and
divisional level, containing various statements about glob-
alization authored by Megacorp’s top executives. The main
goal of Megacorp was stated as ‘‘worldwide leadership’’
across all product ranges. At the international HQ level,
the CEO discourse connected most directly with globaliza-
tion as an expression of corporate identity in a manner
consistent with a multitude of positive external press re-
leases whereby many companies extol the virtues of glob-
alization (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005):
‘‘Our global competitiveness program is designed to
increase the ef?ciency of our services worldwide and
decrease costs. . . we must make our procurement more
global, in large measure due to ?uctuations in interest
rates. Also, whether we’re talking about production,
software development, engineering services or admin-
istrative functions, we have to optimize our value crea-
tion chain by expanding in those markets that exhibit
the most dynamic growth, staying close to customers
and to the skills of local specialists. . . [Megacorp] has
been international right from the start. Today we utilize
the opportunities offered by globalization to balance
our regional business presence. Our global presence
enables us to leverage the skills and strengths of
employees all over the world’’ (CEO published inter-
view, Megacorp internal magazine, 2004).
The above quote is an example of senior executives’
participation in a dialogue that is shaped by, but also
shapes, a collective public vocabulary on globalization;
an instance of repetition that entails authoring discourse
through additions, possession and continuity (Said, 1975/
1997). Having begun the discourse on globalization in the
annual reports for several years previously, the CEO’s inter-
view connects with some of the key advantages claimed
for globalization: global integration of markets, liberal
movements across markets, and the promise of a win-
win for all (Steger, 2005), through increased ef?ciency,
5
An emphasis on the opportunities of globalization echo the ?ndings of
Fiss and Hirsch (2005) concerning the positive treatment of globalization in
company annual reports, and are also consistent with the discourse on
globalization (Steger, 2005) that presents it as a win-win for all.
296 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
lower costs, optimization of value creation, balancing of re-
gional business activities, and leveraging the skills and
strengths of employees. The quote also adds to these repe-
titions by identifying some global dimensions that relate
speci?cally to Megacorp. It directly connects globalization
to competition of services and production, emphasizing
the need to balance Megacorp’s presence across the world.
It also speaks to the globalization of procurement to pro-
vide protection against ?uctuations in interest rates, and
thereby places the company within global money markets.
Further, the quote emphasizes the attainment of globaliza-
tion via the mobilization of local knowledge and skills to
stay close to local customers, so in the discourse of the
CEO the ‘global’ and ‘local’ are intertwined in a manner
reminiscent of the aspiration to ‘Being Local Worldwide’
(Bélanger, Berggren, Björkman, & Köhler, 1999).
At the same time, the quote also involves molestation,
since, as Said (1975/1997) argues, authoring and molesta-
tion are intertwined. Molestation can take place through
simple resistance, in terms of anti-authority behavior or
scepticism about the vagueness of the statements. It can
also spring from the inevitable ignorance of the CEO about
all dimensions of Megacorp’s activities (a feature even the
writer of the text may be aware of, hence Said’s reference
to the author’s duplicity) and the exclusion of some activ-
ities that may be seen by some as crucial to global compet-
itiveness, such as ?nancial engineering, marketing,
reputation and risk management and the behavior of com-
petitors. As we suggest later, molestation also results from
the inevitable confusions and multiple interpretations of
readers; what is the meaning and implications for the
audience of terms such as ef?ciency, costs, optimization,
value creation chain, skills, balance and leverage? Yet, by
?lling such terms with speci?c meanings, readers can also
imagine the text as realistic, informative and authoritative
and thus molestation can enable the discourse to be res-
cued from being a regarded as a fantasy, a dream, or
impractical.
What of the globalization discourse of those managers
immediately below the level of Megacorp’s CEO?
6
In
1997 one of Megacorp’s Vice-CEOs stated:
‘‘We used to be a German company doing business
everywhere. Now we think of ourselves as a company
with a German background in the European market
doing global business. Our organization re?ects that
perspective in [our] decentralized decision-making.
We are much ?atter, and our operational divisions act
as entrepreneurs. We have improved and intensi?ed
our communications, both vertically and horizontally.’’
(Business press)
Similarly, in 2005, Megacorp’s CEO stated in a business
article: ‘‘We are a global company but we stand for German
quality, reliability and high-tech competence’’. These
quotes emphasize some of the attributes that the discourse
on globalization attaches to the concept of a global organi-
zation: national identity becoming a background to a glo-
bal presence rather than the de?ning identity of
Megacorp; promoting decentralized decision making and
entrepreneurship; emphasizing communication (presum-
ably to compress time and space given the number of
countries the company operates in); reliability and high-
tech competency. Authored discourse thus becomes in-
dexed not only to the discursive ?eld but also to the spe-
ci?c context of Megacorp, hence the meanings
intentionally produced by the authors of the discourse ac-
quire a signi?cance that is tied to the company.
The authoring occurs at different levels of the organiza-
tion, whereby the meanings produced of the elements and
attributes of the discourse become more expressly relevant
to the hierarchical level. This is the dialectic between
authoring and molestation: the attributes of a ‘global orga-
nization’ become more speci?c (and somewhat different)
in the globalization discourse produced at the Electronic
Division’s HQ level:
‘‘Global business to me means: ?rst, you manufacture
globally, so wherever your markets are you will have
a manufacturing outlet. Second, you do sales globally
so you will not have a centralized organization where
you would actually buy them airplane tickets and send
them out centrally throughout the world. You have a
global sales force there where the market is. Third –
more and more [Megacorp] also has made decisions
now in the last 2 or 3 years to invest heavily in R&D
expenditures globally which means you do not have a
centralized R&D department with lots of wise guys, lots
of super-German engineers and German ingenuity is
not always the blessing throughout the world, you
know, especially in different markets so you need dif-
ferent market attitudes, you have to understand the
market, the market needs, the customer needs and it’s
also what we decided in [product X] actually to invest
quite heavily in R&D expenditures – for example in
China, for example in the US, and of course in Europe
anyways, but you have your product management, your
sales force, your R&D engineers in the markets plus the
manufacturing in the markets. This is a true global com-
pany.’’ (Commercial Director, interview)
This quote articulates what ‘global’ has been con-
structed to mean at the divisional level. Here, the discourse
is concerned with how globalization can be made practical,
by identifying the somewhat broad steps to be taken in
manufacturing, sales, and R&D. In this discourse globaliza-
tion is to be achieved through making these three key
activities responsive to local customer needs and employee
skills. Again, we witness here the argument that globaliza-
tion is engineered through localization, or in ‘‘being local
worldwide’’, but without providing speci?c details of how
the global is enacted locally. So, molestation enters not
simply through the text recognizing the weaknesses of
‘German ingenuity’ and the variability of different markets
6
Globalization is an umbrella suf?ciently broad to encompass a variety
of discourses produced (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005: 32) and promoted by different
groups: academia, the press, policy makers, gurus, etc. Discourse on
globalization constructs a public domain in which globalization is contin-
ually debated, contested, and reshaped. Precisely how the wider discourse
on globalization emerged and what macro or micro structural discontinu-
ities gave rise to its production are interesting issues but are beyond the
scope of this paper. We do, however, pay attention to which elements of
Megacorp’s discourse on globalization connect to the discourse on global-
ization circulating in the public domain.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 297
and attitudes, but also as readers interpret the statement
and relate it to their own experiences and values. In so
doing, molestation is not simply disabling. Rather, by ?ag-
ging up the weaknesses of some parts of the discourse,
molestation plays an enabling role by bringing the dis-
course closer to the level of practice and makes it more
believable. Also, interpretation of the discourse in light of
personal experiences and values helps impart more imme-
diacy and meaningfulness to it.
The discourse on globalization produced by Megacorp’s
managers is not unique; rather by virtue of it being index-
ical to the discursive ?eld, it is expected to bear strong sim-
ilarity to that ?eld. The authoring of the company’s
discourse therefore involves appropriation (repetition) of
some of the elements of the wider discursive ?eld. One
example is the statement: ‘Think global, act local’. Given
the widespread emphasis upon the customer in practi-
tioner discourses, it should not be surprising to ?nd that
the above statement is an important discursive element
that is part of the wider discursive ?eld on globalization
(e.g., Robertson, 1992: 177).
Megacorp has introduced this ‘Think global, act local’
motif worldwide and, even though this discursive ele-
ment was appropriated from the wider discursive ?eld,
it was still ‘authored’ by its managers in the sense of
being interpreted, customized and augmented (Said,
1975/1997), so at the level of detail it is never the same
as the elements that circulate in the discursive ?eld. For
example one translation of yet another popular injunc-
tion: ‘Think customer, act customer’ introduced at Elec-
tronUK is: ‘‘We will employ the best people in an
excellent, cost effective working environment. We will
be reliable partners for our customers and aspire to the
highest level of logistics, service and support’’ (Mission
Statement, undated). In contrast, in SalesUK, ‘Think cus-
tomer, act customer’ meant: ‘‘Understand the needs of
our customers and markets; speak the customers’ lan-
guage, and deliver reliable products and solutions with
world class service and support’’ (Mission Statement,
2004). Hence, even within MegacorpUK the same injunc-
tion exhibits variety as meanings are negotiated at sub-
unit level. The process of authoring and molestation go
on unabated, as after a few years of the launch of ‘Think
customer, act customer’ imperative, it was subsequently
reduced to ‘Think customer’ (Manager, SalesUK). The
explanation offered was that it made sense to simply fo-
cus on ‘Think customer’ as ‘think customer’ will promote
actions consistent with customer satisfaction. Thus, a
statement such as ‘Think customer, act customer’ under-
went molestation, and variations and multiple authoring,
rendering a unique interpretation of it problematical.
We have argued that Megacorp’s discourse on global-
ization is indexical to the wider discursive ?eld, and that
authoring such discourse by senior managers involved
the four elements identi?ed by Said (1975/1997). First,
there is initiation whereby senior managers exercise their
authority in beginning to talk about globalization in
speeches, press interview, company magazines and the
?nancial statements, in the process appropriating and
repeating elements from the discursive ?eld. Second, aug-
mentation such that the discourse appears as if it were the
speci?c brand of a particular MNC or even a particular level
within the same MNC, notwithstanding that similar state-
ments are undoubtably made by other executives in other
MNCs. Third, there is possession and control of the dis-
course by senior managers in the form of its attribution
to their own utterings, although the reception of such
authoritative utterances is typically problematic. Finally,
we have shown that globalization statements appear to
be continuous as a process that is being elaborated, some-
times stressing for example, win-win outcomes, other
times underscoring the importance of integrated markets
and yet other times emphasizing global supply chain or
capital markets. These authored discourses entailed an
intentional production of meaning in terms of what global-
ization meant at each level in Megacorp, and they were
utterings aimed at permitting, or making possible, a do-
main of action or practice in which the aspirations of being
a global company can be attained.
Our analysis of molestation relies on the struggle to link
discourse on globalization to the means through which
such discourse is rendered practical for all concerned.
While much of our discussion explores how the globaliza-
tion discourses of senior managers are molested, it is
important to stress that the globalization discourses of
sub unit managers, shop ?oor operatives and others lower
in the managerial hierarchy can also be molested (ignored,
re-framed, questioned, translated, etc.) throughout the
organization. The above discussion of molestation under-
scores two attributes: molestation as restriction or resis-
tance (refusals, collisions, sacri?ces, renunciations,
compromises, etc.), but also molestation as enabling in
making discourse more closely connected to the reality of
organizational actors. These attributes are discussed fur-
ther in the remainder of this paper.
Megacorp: rendering globalization discourses practical?
Consider the statement ‘Think customer, act customer’,
which was wide-spread in Megacorp, incorporated into
each sub-unit’s mission statement, and translated dia-
grammatically in Megacorp’s Process Improvement model,
for example in terms of identi?cation and ful?lment of
customer requirements. Each activity that was deemed rel-
evant to the ‘Think customer, act customer’ injunction was
translated further into a number of statements stipulating
steps to be followed for its enactment. For example,
answering customer telephone enquiries was translated
into a schema entitled ‘Dog & Bone – 5 steps to the perfect
call’, that each employee was required to follow. Further, a
table was designed to convert ‘Think customer, act cus-
tomer’ into a numeric matrix that quanti?ed items such
as customer satisfaction survey results, mystery shopper
scores, random caller survey results, think customer effec-
tiveness, leaders commitment, and percentage of staff
trained. All these scores were aggregated into a numeric
summary called the ‘think customer index’ that was used
to monitor the extent to which each unit was successful
in enacting the ‘Think customer, act customer’ ambition.
This metric was published on the company’s intranet, so
that each sub-unit could readily compare its performance
with other sub-units. Finally, the importance of enacting
298 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
this discursive injunction was emphasized through articles
published in various internal magazines produced by
Megacorp, and also via an annual reward system for
employees assessed to have excelled at enacting ‘Think
customer, act customer’.
While this example sheds some light on how Megacorp
managers attempted to render a particular discursive ele-
ment of their globalization discourse practical, the above
description provides no comment on the extent to which
these detailed measures successfully translated the ambi-
tions of the company managers in making it global, nor
how effectively they were put into practice. This is what
we do in the following sections. Speci?cally, we are inter-
ested in exploring the management control systems intro-
duced by Megacorp with the aim of realizing its more
general and pervasive globalization discourse and on
exploring examples of the incidents and sources of moles-
tation (both enabling and restrictive). In particular, we
seek to articulate how accounting technologies intervene
in the process of making globalization discourse into
something doable within the context such intervention
operates. Below, we discuss three elements of performance
management systems that were central to the efforts of
Megacorp’s senior managers in their quest to produce a
global organization: benchmarking, the BSC, and speci?c
performance indicators (KPIs).
Enacting globalization: Benchmarking
The discourse on globalization at Megacorp not only
emphasized aspirations of where the company should be
located in global markets, but also underscored the impor-
tance of global benchmarking, as a crucial element of this
location and the ?rm’s capabilities and challenges. To be
a global competitor, the company believed it had to con-
nect with global conditions and global markets, something
that Megacorp has been aiming for, as evidenced in its
emphasis upon ‘Global Presence’’ and its global competi-
tiveness program (as indicated earlier). Benchmarking en-
tails the aspiration to improve upon, or at least match, a
leading competitor or internal sub-unit on some dimen-
sions of performance. As we show below, Megacorp’s aspi-
rations for benchmarking emphasized issues such as value
chain, customer preferences, procurement, R&D activities,
time to market, and cost competitiveness. Accounting
technologies such as the BSC and KPIs are means by which
such benchmarking objectives are rendered possible and
meaningful through their translation into targets and
initiatives.
In Megacorp’s internal publications, frequent appeals
are made to producing a globalized corporation via bench-
marking Megacorp’s performance against leading interna-
tional and national competitors. For example, an internal
publication (Annual Review) produced by MegacorpUK
presents its various divisions (including Electronics) as:
‘‘the only company in the world with core competencies
in three key technologies. . .’’, ‘‘the world’s largest supplier
of the [X] product’’, ‘‘a world leader in the [Y] industry’’,
and ‘‘one of the UK’s leading [manufacturers]’’; these state-
ments seek to underscore Megacorp‘s dominance against
the global market with close competitors as the signi?cant
others. In a business article, MegacorpUK’s CEO states: ‘‘the
global context must be the critical driver for multinational
organizations like [Megacorp].’’ More speci?cally, it is
claimed that the UK Electronics Division’s ‘‘innovative
and versatile technology’’ helps its customers ‘‘to compete
globally and respond and adapt swiftly to evolving market
needs’’ (internal document, undated). This benchmarking
by the UK Division of its performance against global com-
petitors resonates with Kristensen and Zeitlin’s (2005)
observation that local units of APV connected to global ide-
als by comparing their performance to those of global
competitors.
One strategy of maximizing global potential is for a sub-
unit to present itself to its parent company as the location
where most competitive advantage could be gained via the
transfer of operations from other sub-units. For example,
the CEO of MegacorpChina stated:
‘‘we must convince our Group to move more parts of
the value chain to China. On a local level we have to
engage in aggressive sales stimulation and cost man-
agement measures. . . We must also target local cus-
tomer preferences and feature requirements. . . it is
important to establish R&D activities in China to better
meet local needs. . . we must . . . step up local procure-
ment’’ (internal document, 2003).
In authoring this statement, the CEO of MegacorpChina
stresses the importance of localizing many of the com-
pany’s activities in an effort to expand the company’s man-
ufacturing and engineering base, and internalise more
parts of the value chain supported by cost management
measures, as he presents his sub-unit as the location to at-
tain such gains for Megacorp. This emphasis upon localiza-
tion is presented as a means of rendering the globalization
discourse of the senior executives of Megacorp practical; it
both molests and augments the comments of the Commer-
cial Director discussed in the previous section about the
value of local R&D and the risks of ‘‘lots of super-German
engineers and German ingenuity’’. While the attainment
of globalization is here seen to be vested in capitalizing
upon the merits of localization, it also re?ects a criticism
of those parts of the published 2004 interview of the CEO
of Megacorp (discussed previously) that stressed global
procurement. This is an authoring at a local level that seeks
to make possible the writings of more senior executives
(Said, 1975/1997). In a further statement, the Chinese
CEO suggests that local Chinese competitors are capable
of making speedy decisions, allowing them to react quickly
to market trends. In contrast, he recognizes molestation by
complaining about the time consumed in ‘‘lengthy debates
on minor issues’’ that compromises the competitiveness of
MegacorpChina and which he thought was typical of the
international HQ. He warns that:
‘‘we have to be careful that we do not copy the German
‘Abstimmkultur’ where every decision requires a con-
sensus’’, as this style leads to ‘‘protracted discussions
between headquarters and the regional companies
[that] also waste precious time – time that our compet-
itors are using to beat us to market with new products
and better services.’’
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 299
Though sometimes emphasizing different dimensions,
these various texts on globalization authored by Mega-
corp’s managers underscore the initiation of the discourse,
augmenting it through the power of authoring and the
attendant authority of the senior manager, their ownership
of the discourse and the act of repetition that emphasizes
continuity that is intentionally aimed at the production
of meaning (Said, 1975/1997). Authoring also involves
molestation, in that augmentation goes beyond repetition,
often implying criticism to make the initial discourse more
practical. It could also re?ect other aspects of molestation,
such as the in?uence of national stereotypes and allegiance
(Barrett et al., 2005). This dialectic between authoring and
molestation is a signi?cant feature of Said’s analysis of dis-
course, and one that is neglected in most prior analyses of
discourse and translation in the accounting literature. Fur-
ther, these discursive statements on globalization are also
speech acts (Assmann, 2006) whereby senior managers
aim to produce speci?c effects through the use of interven-
ing media, such as cost management and other perfor-
mance measures, in the hope of making their discourse
‘realistic’, and thereby practical.
The above statements also identify risks (e.g., of pro-
tracted discussions), that are construed as being at odds
with the Chinese context. Connections to local and interna-
tional competition are rarely absent from this discourse, a
discourse that increasingly links the company’s ability to
improve its competitive position by improving its cost
structure:
‘‘[We must] stand up against tough foreign and local
competitors. Cost competitiveness is a key to our suc-
cess. Local Chinese competitors as well as some of our
international competitors have a major cost advantage
because they managed to create more local added
value. . . A major [Megacorp’s] strength is its global
reach through its local presence’’ (CEO of MegacorpChi-
na, internal document, 2003).
This quote benchmarks the achievements of Megacorp-
China against both local Chinese and international compet-
itors. The play of the ‘local’ against the ‘global’ is evident, a
play that seeks to differentiate, yet unite, both concepts as
intertwined parts of how Megacorp as a global player is to
be performed.
Employees were told in internal documents that it was
important to follow Megacorp’s version of process man-
agement (PI) with its emphasis on KPIs and the BSC, in or-
der for the company to be a ‘‘worldwide leader’’:
‘‘One of the ?elds of standardization is the de?nition of
process milestones and key performance indicators
(KPI). With the implementation of our standard pro-
cesses and their KPIs we can measure quality, perfor-
mance, and costs of these processes. The results of the
process changes will be visible by comparing the KPIs.
This shows not only if there is a positive trend, but also
how far we are away from industry averages and indus-
try best practice.’’ (Process Framework, 2004, see Fig. 1)
Thus, apart from assessing their internal progress, man-
agers saw KPIs as the means through which they can mea-
sure how company performance compares with industry
averages and best practice as their most relevant global
benchmarks. This intention to use accounting technologies
as an important means of rendering globalization dis-
course practical is further reinforced through the Elec-
tronic Divisions’ focus on benchmarking their
pro?tability targets against global competitors in relevant
markets: ‘‘To conquer pro?tably market position No. 1 or
No. 2 worldwide in the relevant markets’’ (Process Frame-
work, 2004: 16). This argument is presented in company
internal documents in a diagram (see Fig. 1) that has Mega-
corp’s goal at the apex (‘‘Worldwide leadership’’) with the
BSC located at the third level of strategy implementation
(‘‘Resources and Drivers’’). We have stressed how bench-
marking against internal and external competitors rein-
forces a speci?c discourse of competitive globalization.
We examine below the role of the BSC as an intervention
between the international HQ discourse on globalization
and the activities of local units.
Enacting globalization: the BSC
In manufacturing and sales the term ‘global’ was in-
voked by interviewees from sub-units, without prompting
from the researchers, and was deployed in reference to
many issues. For example, informants presented their local
units as being part of a global organization. Further, enact-
ment of global ideals occurred in a variety of ways, for
example in the quest by sub-units to obtain parts through
corporate global purchasing, in connection to competition,
or in reference to their markets. While sub-unit managers
were requested to procure their materials from a list of
international suppliers sanctioned by HQ, the more sub-
units followed such a procedure, the less the extent of
molestation as achievements came closer to the discourse
on the globalization of procurement. Yet, molestation in
the form of compromise occurred in cases where sub-units
negotiated with the HQ to use local suppliers not sanc-
tioned by HQ, thereby actively modifying the globalization
discourse of HQ.
Sub-unit actors, in consuming senior managers’ dis-
course on globalization, interpret, rede?ne, and customize
that discourse and hence author their own version of glob-
alization. Their production of alternative discourses may
partly displace the globalization discourse disseminated
by senior managers. Molestation therefore leads to alterna-
tive discourses of practice emerging. Further, just like the
globalization discourse produced by managers at the inter-
national HQ, the discourses offered by managers at na-
tional or sub-unit levels are produced from a local
vantage point. All these locales are spaces in which the glo-
bal is imagined (Robertson, 1992) and where sub-unit
managers discursively enact the global. Further, sub-units
enact globalization through their interaction with the BSC
and KPIs, as measures that translate the discourse into spe-
ci?c accounting targets.
Senior managers in Megacorp devised several systems
and processes to push a globalization initiative throughout
the company. We have argued that the BSC and KPIs have
the potential to act as intervening media, the carriers of se-
nior management’s aspirations concerning globalization,
and as a means of translating global vision into seemingly
300 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
concrete and precise targets of performance across time
and space. However, the success with which the BSC and
KPIs can deliver on this role depends largely on the extent
of molestation through the interaction of sub-unit staff
with these technologies.
The Electronics Division’s international HQ was intro-
duced to the BSC by a senior manager, who came across
some of Kaplan and Norton’s articles in the mid 1990s:
‘‘I read an article from Kaplan and I found it very attrac-
tive, so I had an idea sort of to monitor the whole busi-
ness via the four sectors [perspectives], and found it
also very attractive. So run through the process that
leads from starting with the vision and the strategy
and go into the measurements and the actions, and this
was really interesting for me.’’ (Interview)
This manager then sought the help of a local consulting
business. With this support, working groups were formed
within the Electronics Division to customize and inscribe
a BSC for each product range, with the BSC theorized as a
key technology for achieving strategic alignment:
‘‘The Balanced Scorecard is a central element to achieve
strategic alignment and consistency. It is a management
tool and discipline for achieving progress towards
short-term objectives as well as towards longer-term
strategic goals’’ (Internal document, August 1999).
This 1999 document contained diagrams which in-
scribed the link between vision and the BSC, progressing
from vision/mission, through strategic themes, to the four
quadrants: from growth (innovation) to internal pro-
cesses, to market, to ?nance. Each of the ?rst three quad-
rants of the BSC was broken down into more speci?c
themes; for example the growth/innovation quadrant
had three themes: invest in people; communication;
and employee motivation, and internal processes were
broken down into: cost leadership; world class purchas-
ing; and time to market. Each quadrant was given further
speci?city by being populated with detailed KPIs. For
example under employee motivation the following KPIs
were introduced: staff dialogue; suggestion scheme;
absenteeism; and management feedback. The ?nancial
quadrant had EBIT, EVA, asset management, and turnover
as its detailed KPIs. The aim of this translation of global
discourse and strategic vision into more detailed KPIs
was to minimize the disabling forms of molestation by
bridging the gap between strategic discourse and practice
as re?ected in measurable achievements. In other words,
KPIs were forged as the operational counterparts of the
globalization discourse, the tools through which the
broad globalization vision was to be translated into more
concrete, time-bound targets of performance against
which actual progress towards this vision can be assessed.
As Miller and O’Leary (1990) note, making accounting
practical is not just about the managerial use of particular
technologies like the BSC and KPIs, but it is also about
creating categories such as absenteeism, cost leadership,
communication and so on that can then be linked to a
concern with globalization, such as promoting global inte-
gration of markets or global supply chains. The quadrants
of the BSC create global categories that can be expanded
to encourage managers to think and act in terms of action
plans and initiatives that can be authored as concerned
with the global, understood as being driven by markets
and technology.
The development of a BSC for the Electronics Division is
summarized in an undated document consisting of several
sections: reasons for introducing the BSC; directions/orien-
tations of the BSC; function and content of the BSC; Divi-
sional drilling down of BSC measures; and future
perspectives on the BSC. That document stressed the per-
ceived need to align sub-unit activities and results with
Fig. 1. Time strategy implementation.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 301
those of the visions of Megacorp and the Electronics Divi-
sion. For example:
‘‘[The] starting point of the direction/orientation of the
[Electronics Division] balanced scorecard is the [Mega-
corp] model (e.g., general principle), at which the [Elec-
tronics Division] vision is oriented’’ (Undated internal
document: 7).
Given the global focus of the vision of the Electronics
Division, as noted earlier, the senior managers who
authored the internal document saw in the BSC a means
through which their global aspirations could be achieved.
Fig. 2 summarizes the general perspective. Despite this
drive for a ‘globalizing’ BSC within Megacorp, the attitude
of Megacorp’s HQ towards BSC adoption by sub-units
seems to have been relaxed. Asked if Megacorp required
all its business units to adopt the BSC, one senior manager,
Electronics Division HQ, said:
‘‘No, what you do from corporate level or from group
level is [make] recommendations. That’s quite clear.
But it is not necessary that operating units use all the
things here, but they have seen that in the other busi-
ness units they’re pretty successful by using this kind
of toolbox [BSC]. And therefore they’re using the tool-
box, for example if you take a look in [Electronics] nine
of ten group divisions use the balanced scorecard for
steering their own business. . . It depends on how suc-
cessful you are. If you have a division that is really suc-
cessful. . . then they would not be pressurized to use it.’’
(Interview)
This quote helps explain the varying levels of BSC up-
take across the units we studied, and our research suggests
that the claim that ‘‘nine of ten group divisions use the bal-
anced scorecard’’ might be an exaggeration. Successful per-
formance (and as we will see later this was typically
assessed in terms of pro?tability) was the insurance that
bought local units the discretion to use accounting and
control systems other than those seemingly mandated by
international HQ. We were also informed that as soon as
performance of local units fell below targets, preferred
HQ systems were imposed upon these local units (for more
detail see Cooper, Ezzamel & Robson, 2012). The BSC has
been introduced, and seemed to be used evangelically in
ElectronUK from the level of the plant GM to the middle
management level, with an on-going process of adaptation,
translation and authoring. A further explanation for the
variety of adoption relates to the importance of the mech-
anisms of authoring in that various units were represented
on cross national working parties that developed local
BSCs. A manager from ElectronUK was active in one of
these working parties, becoming an ardent supporter and
promoter at plant level.
However, we were also offered examples of the extent
to which sub-units can resist some global measures by
refusing to embrace them on the grounds that they do
not make sense in the UK. Speci?cally, in a measure of
molestation by refusal, ElecronUK managers initially intro-
duced, but quickly abandoned, two KPIs advocated by
Megacorp on the grounds that they were inappropriate in
the UK, demonstrating their ability to renegotiate the types
of KPIs to be used. Further, ElectronUK adapted and incor-
porated some KPIs from the European Quality Framework
EFQM (an initiative discouraged by Megacorp) into its
BSC, again a form of molestation by refusal. In both cases,
the HQ of the Electronics Division avoided collision by pur-
suing compromise (Said, 1975/1997).
In contrast, in SalesUK the BSC was introduced, aban-
doned by a new general manager, re-introduced and then
abandoned by his replacement. The attitude taken by Sale-
sUK towards the BSC contrasts to the HQ of MegacorpUK
which actively promoted the use of the BSC as a means
of reducing molestation by bridging the gap between stra-
tegic discourse and practice:
‘‘the Balanced Scorecard . . . helps organisations trans-
late strategy into operational objectives that drive both
behaviour and performance. [MegacorpUK] uses the
Balanced Scorecard model to help businesses balance
priorities and measure performance . . . The model sug-
gests that improvements in these critical ?elds will lead
to increased pro?ts – the ultimate measure of success or
failure’’ (internal document, 2002, MegacorpUK).
The above quote indicates that the senior management
of MegacorpUK constituted the BSC as a technology that
has the ability to bring to life their globalization discourse;
one that, as Said suggests, makes a difference and impacts
employees’ perceptions and behavior by translating strat-
egy into ‘operational objectives’ that would then ‘drive
behaviour and performance’ by, for example, leading to ‘in-
creased pro?ts’. In this and subsequent documents, Mega-
corpUK cites examples of how the combined use of the BSC
and the EFQM models to track areas of improvement has
led to better results (internal document, 2003). Yet, as sug-
gested above, the BSC is not consistently embraced in
SalesUK.
The BSC has not been introduced in ElectronChina, be-
cause of the desire to ‘‘keep it simple’’ by using a small
number of KPIs to run the plant (Finance Manager, Elec-
tronChina). It was stated that ElectronChina has been
expanding signi?cantly during the period of our study
and its senior management were of the view that the plant
was doing well enough to warrant using only a few, simple
measures. In SalesChina, the uptake of the BSC seemed
rather mixed: some middle managers we interviewed did
not seem to know of it, yet their immediate manager
claimed that he has a BSC but refused to talk about it be-
cause ‘‘it is a company secret’’. Yet others (e.g., the HR sec-
tion of SalesChina) spoke of their regular use of the BSC and
provided examples of speci?c KPIs in their individual BSCs
and how achievement against these KPIs impacted their
bonuses and appraisals.
We have conceptualized the BSC as an inscribed
accounting technology that has the potential to govern
the employees of Megacorp and align their activities with
the globalizing ambitions of its senior managers. As part
of a programme of governance (Miller & Rose, 1990), the
BSC offers the potential to render the diverse activities of
the company’s business units into arenas susceptible to
management intervention. Images of the global, promoted
through broad discursive pronouncements, are converted
into something that senior managers considered speci?c
302 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
and doable in the form of quanti?ed KPIs, whereby
employees could be rendered amenable to intervention,
calculation, classi?cation, homogenization, and ordering
at various hierarchical levels. Whenever the BSC was used
in Megacorp’s sub-units, senior management appraised
subordinate performance by comparing actual achieve-
ments against the speci?c KPI targets on the subordinate’s
BSC, and such comparisons impacted the level of the sub-
ordinate’s bonus and in?uenced his/her future career pro-
gression. Similar procedures were followed in appraisals
for operators and supervisors.
It was thought that these monitoring procedures would
mitigate disabling forms of molestation (Said, 1975/1997)
by bringing actual results closer to the intended effects of
managerial globalization discourse. However, this poten-
tial was never likely to be fully achieved, because while
use of the BSC was mandated formally by the international
HQ of Megacorp across all business units, it was not in-
sisted upon. Moreover, those units that introduced the
BSC inevitably engaged in a process of authoring their
own versions of the BSC. Thus, not only was the BSC not
used by some sub-units, but even those who made use of
it molded and interpreted the BSC through various transla-
tions into something that sub-unit managers argue re-
?ected their most immediate concerns and their most
relevant comparators. These examples of either not
embracing the BSC or translating it to re?ect sub-unit con-
cerns are instances of molestation. The resulting BSC, or
lack of it, is somewhat removed from the global discourse
and ambitions of senior HQ executives. Sub-unit author-
ship of the BSC is thus a form of molestation. Hence, we
encountered diversity of BSC practices across the sub-
units, although often with the frame of the global concerns
of senior management. The inevitability of sub-unit diver-
sity as the outcome of globalizing machinations is another
way of saying that the global, if it exists at all, exists as a
construction by the local (Robertson, 1992).
Enacting globalization: KPIs
Thus far, we have examined how sub-units enact glob-
alization discourse through benchmarking and the BSC.
Whilst this has yielded insight and perspective, one limi-
tation of this level of analysis is that management sys-
tems can be either too abstract or too distant from the
concerns and focus of lower management levels. For
example, a middle manager might be fully aware of the
importance of the BSC as a corporate initiative, yet pres-
sure to deliver on individual KPIs may lead this manager
to focus on them. Similarly, an operator may have heard
of a BSC as a system, but without understanding how it
might impact his/her day-to-day activities. To gain a ful-
ler perspective on the extent to which actors at sub-unit
levels enact globalization discourse, we now focus on
individual ‘global’ KPIs that are often in BSCs and are
drilled down to locations spatially distant from interna-
tional HQ. We examine both a ?nancial KPI (EBIT) and a
non-?nancial KPI (suggestions) in order to explore the ex-
tent to which enacting globalization discourse is in part a
function of the type of KPI being used.
Enacting KPIs – earnings before interest and tax (EBIT)
EBIT is a key measure of ?nancial performance across
all units in Megacorp. Meeting EBIT targets is one of the
fundamental measures used to determine cash bonuses
at the end of each ?nancial year. One senior manager of
ElectronUK said in an interview: ‘‘we’re all pro?t centres
so we have EBIT here, EBIT here, EBIT here’’. Another
manager (SalesUK) had this exchange with the
researchers:
‘‘Q: Which measure is important to you, EVA or EBIT?
A: It depends I think on the face of the moon, whether
or not we decide that EVA is more important or EBIT
is more important.
Fig. 2. From globalization to KPIs.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 303
Q: Which face of the moon decides it is EBIT?
A: Well I think it’s the moon over [a German city].
Q: Right. OK, so it’s International HQ?
A: Yes.’’
Part of the reason for the consistent signi?cance of EBIT
across all units probably relates to the listing of Megacorp
on international stock exchanges and the adoption of a
shareholder value type measure by the International HQ.
The signi?cance of such pro?t measures was reinforced
by the international movement of senior managers-for
example many senior Chinese managers had spent up to
a year in Germany and the International HQ. Edström
and Galbraith (1977) argue that the transfer of managers
is a powerful management control mechanism in multina-
tionals. The GM of ElectronChina indicated in an interview
that EBIT is the most important KPI for his plant and for
himself: ‘‘if our EBIT is less than predicted in the budget
then we have a problem, sure.’’ In reinforcing his views
that all measures, be they ?nancial or operational, are ulti-
mately re?ected in EBIT, this manager stated: ‘‘everything
comes together in the EBIT, no matter what you do’’. Such
repeated accounts of the importance of EBIT can be seen as
a re?ection of the globalization discourse of senior manag-
ers which emphasized optimizing Megacorp’s global value
chain, low cost operations, cost management, growth tar-
gets set at twice the global GDP, high pro?tability, global
competitiveness, and meeting the demands of interna-
tional ?nancial markets via ?nancial performance.
Some interviewees implied that the de?nition of EBIT
may have become taken as given. A senior manager, Elec-
tronChina, indicated that the rules stipulated by HQ for
measuring EBIT gave little scope for variations across dif-
ferent local units: ‘‘everything is based on US GAAP’’. Plant
managers were typically unaware of how investments
were treated and of their impact on EBIT, as well as the im-
pact on product mix changes that were often determined
by sales and decisions taken at HQ. This assumed unifor-
mity of the measure seemed to entice some managers to
think of EBIT as something unambiguously de?ned: ‘‘they
[staff] know where EBIT comes from’’ (senior manager,
SalesChina). To the extent that KPIs such as EBIT acquire
a ‘universal’ de?nition and means of measurement that
are invariant across all Megacorp’s sub-units, it would be
tempting to suggest that molestation is minimal.
However, while accounting specialists may promote a
particular way of calculating EBIT, there is always scope for
sub-unit diversity (molestation) in meeting, calculating and
interpreting EBIT targets. The Finance Manager, ElectronUK,
emphasized how, despite the lack of plant control over reve-
nues (because their products were transferred to SalesUK at
works cost + between 5% and 10% of cost), their EBIT targets
were not ?exible enough to re?ect changes in volume:
‘‘As a factory the way that our business is set up we
have no in?uence in driving volume. . . We don’t get a
dispensation to sort of say ‘well, if the volume doesn’t
come you can reduce your EBIT.’ ’’ (Interview)
The insistence of the international HQ that local plants
must aim to achieve high EBIT targets can be seen both
as an instance of a globalizing pro?t imperative centered
on EBIT and as a benchmark against global competitors.
Because the management of ElectronUK felt that they
could not in?uence revenues, EBIT targets were assessed
as achievable only through cost reductions. This is a form
of molestation by the ElectronUK managers who made
the corporate dream of increasing EBIT a matter of cost
reduction. They author EBIT in terms that make sense to
them.
The calculation of EBIT for any one plant (e.g., the ?gure
of works cost used to calculate the mark-up for the transfer
price received by ElectronUK) was dependent upon the re-
sults achieved by other plants within Megacorp. While
speci?c EBIT targets are set for each unit within Megacorp,
with some scope for variation (between 5% and 10%)
depending on how Megacorp models different local con-
texts, each unit then has to decide what speci?c actions
(e.g. growth, productivity) would best achieve its EBIT tar-
get. Such a process is inevitably an exercise in which a sub-
unit constructs an understanding of its own situation in
relation to HQ’s benchmarks. For example, the GM, Electro-
nUK, alluded to the process of interpretation concerning
how an EBIT target may be achieved:
‘‘You must get this growth, you must get this EBIT, how
we do that in turn is up to us. Or I interpret that for us
[it has] to be productivity, but if I was in the sales divi-
sion I’d interpret it as growth.’’
Thus, different sub-units might pull different levers in
trying to reach the target, which could then affect other
performance measures, such as productivity or growth.
Managers consider alternative means of reaching a partic-
ular target. One such set of scenarios is offered by a ?nance
manager, ElectronUK, who explained how different ways
of calculating revenues and costs can be pursued in order
to meet the EBIT target set for his sub-unit. Thus, even if
corporate manuals (or US GAAP) were thought to unam-
biguously de?ne what enters into the calculation of EBIT,
each sub-unit has a different perception of what measures
have to be managed to achieve the target:
‘‘We said, right, even though EBIT is a top level KPI, also
one of our top level KPIs should be volume. So how do
you now want to measure that? Do you want to mea-
sure that in terms of sales and pieces that you’ve
received against the budget which really you’ve got sort
of in?uence over, or do you want to measure volume in
terms of accuracy of orders against forecast, percentage
deviation, that sort of thing? Because we obviously have
quite a ‘mix of orders’ problem, so that’s one thing. You
look at it on the other hand and say ‘right, the other side
are costs, so therefore what can we do to in?uence the
cost side of it’. Should we set purchase targets, cost
reduction and measure that on a monthly basis against
cost? In addition to that there are overheads. Should we
now set a target for overhead cost reduction even
though you may identify a certain group of overheads
which you would apply that logic to because some are
?xed, some are variable? The other thing is then looking
at our global business productivity, design-to-cost, do
we set a target? We speak to design and say, ‘what
are you envisaging changing this year, should we be
304 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
looking to, for example, make certain product lines
cheaper through re-design?’ And the other part is
assets, so therefore what can we do? So we then sit
down and say, ‘right, what are the integral parts of busi-
ness assets?’ So we look at things like inventories, debt-
ors, liabilities and ?xed assets.’’ (Finance Manager,
ElectronUK)
The above quote shows how in making sense of and
engaging with EBIT, sub-unit managers construct a dis-
course that translates the HQ measure to the sub-unit le-
vel, by interpreting their operational context, identifying
?nancial and design parameters, and assessing the scope
for action that could be pursued. In this particular case,
parameters and cognitions of volume, overheads, and de-
sign-to-cost are brought to bear on how to manage EBIT.
The above manager authors his discourse on EBIT, and
managers in other sub-units may engage in alternative
authoring by considering other questions they deem more
pertinent, or even if they raise the same issues they may
express different preferences for addressing them. These
variations in interpretation result in molestation between
the aspired levels and the actual achievements of even
such seemingly universal KPIs as EBIT, as this indicates col-
lisions and compromises (Said, 1975/1997) in the interpre-
tations of senior management’s intentions. Hence, enacting
HQ discourse at sub-unit level triggers an exercise in
authoring by sub-unit managers which leads to the emer-
gence of a set of alternative discursive practices that aim to
make sense of the HQ discourse and customize it. The ele-
ments of sub-unit discourses tend to be sub-unit speci?c,
such as the technology used, its cost structure, its design
parameters, its revenue generating opportunities, and so
on. And the mobilization of such discourse is simulta-
neously an exercise in complying as much as possible with
HQ KPIs and also in introducing some measure of molesta-
tion via appeals to special circumstances, or local manage-
ment discretion and judgment. Molestation may also
re?ect concerns about the completeness (and perhaps even
honesty) of the possible alternatives suggested by the Fi-
nance Manager in the quote above. These expressions of
molestation should not necessarily be interpreted as dis-
abling: they are enabling to the extent that they rescue
the globalization discourse of senior managers from being
over-ambitious or too abstract.
Further, additional factors, suchas foreigncurrency trans-
lations, can render the understanding of EBIT ambiguous:
‘‘Q: So how ambiguous can a measure become?
A: Very. I mean the most simple measure of all is gross
margin, but if I put gross margin up as at today and com-
pare it with gross margin about two years ago, we sell
primarily in Sterling and buy in Euros, the Euro . . .com-
pared to six months ago we were about one forty-nine,
and it’s about one forty-three today. Even if we were
selling to the same customers, the same products, the
same values our costs are now a lot higher, the margin’s
come down.’’ (Financial Controller, SalesUK)
Given that sub-units could pursue different procedures
to manage the effect of foreign currency translations on
their EBIT, diversity is likely to occur in how sub-units
enact HQ measures. The discourse that sub-unit managers
construct in order to explain to HQ why performance is be-
low par demonstrates the lack of clarity and controllability
of EBIT. Sub-unit managers in the UK were able to author
discourses that presented failure to meet targets as the
outcome of the unfavorable currency ?uctuations.
The customization of senior management discourse to
lower organizational levels is problematical especially at
shop ?oor level. As the GM ElectronUK suggested: ‘‘how
do I translate a ten percent EBIT growth to someone on
the shop ?oor who is talking about labor productivity or
?rst past yield?’’ Similarly, a plant supervisor (team leader)
pointed out:
‘‘They [shop ?oor] don’t understand EBIT, [so] all we do
in the team brief is ‘this is the target for the year and
we’re aiming to meet the two point ?ve million’. So
we’ve got the graph and we’ve got the target line and
really they understand that aspect of it, not how it all
comes together and how it’s all worked out commer-
cially. Because I mean I’ll be honest with you, I don’t
understand it’’.
These statements by the GM and the team leader are
signi?cant for two reasons. First, they show how shop ?oor
operators are far removed from the HQ discourse on glob-
alization. Their day-to-day concern is with dealing with lo-
cal, non-?nancial KPIs, such as labor productivity or ?rst
past yield, on which their performance is assessed and to
which they can relate. Thus, for those working at lower lev-
els of the organization, HQ strategic discourse is conspicu-
ously absent, as the connection forged between
globalization discourse and the ability of KPIs to motivate
action is one that is assumed at higher levels. Second, the
GM’s and team leader’s statements also point to one source
of molestation: the dif?culty of translating an increase in
EBIT to the shop ?oor. This is not necessarily about overt
resistance to the imposition of EBIT targets, but indicates
the molestation of a discourse due to different perspectives
of employees at different hierarchical and geographical
locations; thus customization of HQ BSC and KPIs through
the translation process is a source of molestation. While
appearing to make every possible effort to nullify molesta-
tion, diversity in local practices, local managers’ cognition
and interests produce it.
Enacting KPIs – Suggestions
We now consider suggestions as a non-?nancial KPI.
Every location we visited within Megacorp had a KPI based
on suggestions made by employees. This KPI was variously
identi?ed as linking to the BSC quadrant of innovation and
growth or as a measure of internal business processes. In
contrast to EBIT, at ?rst sight it may seem dif?cult to link
directly this type of KPI to senior management discourse
on globalization. However, global growth is part of the dis-
course that emphasizes the notion that growth bene?ts all,
and that globalization is driven by technology. Moreover,
Megacorp’s commitment to ‘‘the skills of local specialists’’
(see earlier), offers a link between suggestions KPIs and se-
nior executive discourse on globalization. Certainly, our
informants said that suggestions have the potential to pro-
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 305
duce signi?cant savings, thereby reducing cost levels and
enhancing pro?tability and growth. They also stated that
having a suggestions scheme motivates employees more
strongly to be loyal to the company through feelings of
ownership. These arguments connect with senior manage-
ment’s concern with securing high pro?tability, strength-
ening performance in international ?nancial markets, and
improving corporate global competitiveness.
In this part, we trace out the authoring and molestation
of a global measure of suggestions. We concentrate mainly
on ElectronUK because of the long history of this KPI at
that site. The HR Manager of ElectronUK introduced the
?rst suggestions scheme in 1988 which, he claimed, was
‘‘entirely developed here, it was local’’ because his boss
said ‘‘we should have a suggestions scheme’’. The sugges-
tions scheme sought a ‘‘few big suggestions [about ten
per year for the whole plant] that saved a lot of money
and you pay out big awards for those few’’ (HR Manager).
However, ?nancial savings turned out not to be large and
the scheme was criticized for being ‘‘antiquated’’ and inef-
fective. Molestation, in terms of lack of support from senior
plant management and poor promotion meant that after
its introduction this scheme was ‘‘drifting along’’.
A new initiative in 1997 coincided with the return of
this HR Manager from SalesUK, and the arrival of a new
Operations Manager who encouraged factory staff to make
suggestions to improve manufacturing processes. This, the
HR Manager said, led to a rise in suggestions from about
ten to about 100 per year. In 1999 the new Managing
Director (MD) of ElectronUK requested a workable sugges-
tion scheme, ‘‘because they have one at international HQ’’.
Authority (Said, 1975/1997) seems evident in the develop-
ment of this suggestion scheme at two levels.
First, as we will see below, there is the authority of the
HR Manager as an author of a scheme that drew on other
schemes. The HR Manager stated:
‘‘ went over to Germany then and benchmarked it
[suggestions scheme] and saw it was good. We were
also members of . . .the National Association of Sugges-
tion Schemes, and we picked up a few ideas from
there.’’
The emerging scheme combined the system at Mega-
corp’s HQ and the UK system, but the sub-unit context
loomed large in customization: ‘‘the German system was
very good in a lot of ways but they still went for big
awards. . . we were always going to have to develop inter-
nally to suit our own needs’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK).
The senior management of ElectonUK decided that the de-
sign of the new suggestion scheme must be informed by
the site’s own previous experience, and avoid the pitfalls
of the previous scheme. In particular, it was felt that a
scheme that kept people waiting for decisions on sugges-
tions, and that ?nance people took a long time to sign off
the big cheques, ‘‘killed the old scheme’’. Thus:
‘‘What we needed was to ensure that we had rapid
turnover of suggestions; that meant we had to do two
things. One, we had to develop the responsibility right
down to the lowest level in the organization [Electro-
nUK], so basically everybody who supervises people
evaluates the suggestions of their people. And in addi-
tion, because we decided to make awards only between
ten and ?fty pounds, it meant we didn’t need any big
signatures.’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK)
A new suggestions scheme was introduced in October
2000.
Second, authority occurs because the suggestions
scheme seems also to owe its existence to the authority
of the new MD, who was a big supporter of suggestion
schemes. Supervisors and managers were evaluated on
the basis of how many suggestions were implemented in
their teams, and this became one of the KPIs on their BSCs.
The enactment of the globalization discourse by Electro-
nUK entailed several strategies which, as we have seen, in-
cluded borrowing, but also authoring ideas in line with
what actors understood as their speci?c context. The sug-
gestions scheme at ElectronUK was part of a larger scheme,
called ‘Ideas Unlimited’, which included a Continuous
Improvement Process (CIP) and Ideas Mobile. The naming
of the suggestions scheme ‘Ideas Mobile’ was ‘‘pinched
with pride’’, the HR Manager suggested, from a Megacor-
pUK presentation. Once developed, ElectronUK’s Ideas Mo-
bile continued to be the subject of authoring through
adaptations, revisions, and use of various measures. Thus,
initially the scheme had ‘‘loads of measures, I mean they
were coming out of our ears’’, but through a 6-month
re?nement process three key inscriptions emerged: ‘‘the
implementation chart, the savings chart, and the league ta-
ble of managers by how many [suggestions] they have
implemented per head.’’ (Manager, ElectronUK).
ElectronUK won trophies in 2002 and 2003 for best sug-
gestions scheme improvements within Megacorp. The
‘pinched with pride’ metaphor is the way in which author-
ing was understood at Electron UK:
‘‘What we have chosen to do at the end of the day is to
measure it [suggestions] the same way that [Megacorp
HQ] measures their suggestions schemes on the basis
that you have internal comparators. But if we thought
there was a more appropriate measure we would have
used it, as it happens on a pinched with pride basis
[because] they’ve been doing it for a long time. There-
fore it’s a pretty good likelihood that theirs is the right
way of doing it, but everything I do basically is pinched
from somewhere; it’s just a case of the mix of how you
actually decide.’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK)
While clearly suggesting repetition, the ‘pinched with
pride’ approach entails selection, simultaneous additions
and exclusions as well as customization. As the quote sug-
gests, deciding on the mix was rendered intelligible at a
sub-unit level. The ElecronUK HR manager stated:
‘‘It’s not to say that our design ?ts somebody else,
because it depends on your culture and the make-up
of your business and your objectives and what you’re
looking to do. . . None of this is anything particularly
new at the end of the day, it’s just a case of how you
actually apply it in your own environment, but basically
all these are external measures that have been around
for ages.’’
306 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
The above quote reinforces Said’s (1975/1997) ideas
about authorship: it is a process of repetition upon repeti-
tion and addition; yet no repetition fully reproduces what
came before it because of the intention of the author(s). A
feature of the authoring of ElectronUK’s suggestions
scheme is that it is dubbed as ‘‘a little and often scheme’’,
meaning little awards and frequent small saving sugges-
tions, compared to the scheme in a sister plant which
was described as ‘big awards for big savings suggestions’
(Manager, ElectronUK). Just as we have noted in the case
of EBIT, molestation was evident in the different under-
standings by different sub-unit actors of what a suggestion
meant and the impact of this understanding on their ac-
tions. One ?nance manager, ElectronUK, stated: ‘‘what
you may call a suggestion could be just anything’’, hence
varying discourses of constructing the meaning of sugges-
tions are inevitably likely to be authored by different sub-
unit managers.
In ElectronChina, a suggestions scheme was being intro-
duced in July 2005 under the name 3i on the basis that the
international HQ wanted to see such a scheme at the plant.
Once it was introduced, targets of implementable sugges-
tions per employee were set, and suggestions were submit-
ted to the relevant manager for approval and reward. KPI
targets in 3i were entered onto the relevant BSC and com-
pared against actual achievements. Several interviewees at
ElectronChina listed the 3i KPI target as one of the most
important three to four measures they felt they must man-
age: ‘In one year, one person must have one [3i KPI] – at
least one idea’ (Group Leader, P1 Department). By the time
our interviews were concluded, the annual target for 3i had
increased from half a suggestion to four per employee.
This suggestions scheme was designed along the broad
principles of the suggestions schemes promoted within
Megacorp, but it was left to ElectronChina to decide what
was deemed to be appropriate targets. Customization and
molestation were evident in determining the level of the
KPI target, as well as the amount of reward for successful
suggestions and what counts as a suggestion. As we have
shown in the case of ElectronUK, in China local knowledge
was important in constructing 3i KPIs:
‘‘I am very interested to have good 3is. For me it is a big
part. Here in China we started already to push this issue
because it makes sense. Because sometimes the work-
ers put together something [new]. They have a better
knowledge [of] what they do and what they can do,
and when you have to listen carefully then you can
sometimes assemble in a better way.’’ (Project Manager,
ElectronChina)
In this section we have explored the enactment of glob-
alization discourse by focusing upon two KPIs: EBIT and
suggestions. We have examined the extent to which it
was possible to forge direct or indirect connections be-
tween managerial discourses of globalization and the
means of rendering such discourse practical via what
should be the focus of attention and their translation into
speci?c KPIs. These identi?ed objects to be acted on. Fur-
ther, by examining this level of detail, we have identi?ed
attempts by sub-unit actors (middle management and
the workforce) to enact HQ’s globalization discourse. The
authoring of discourses at lower-levels was informed by
speci?c sub-unit knowledge and various manifestations
of molestation. We have also noted how there was an ‘ab-
sence’ of HQ’s discourse on globalization because at the le-
vel of team leaders and operators they were
understandably concerned with the day-to-day KPIs, such
as quality or capacity utilization, on which their perfor-
mance was evaluated. If detailed KPIs were effective in
translating senior management’s vision on globalization,
and if monitoring and rewarding schemes enhanced em-
ployee compliance with KPIs through the exercise of man-
agement authority (as authors of the globalization
discourse), then the scope for molestation would have
been reduced signi?cantly. In this case senior manage-
ment’s discourse on globalization becomes embedded in
KPIs and reward structures. The lack of an explicit dis-
course on globalization at operational and sub unit levels
is not an indication that concerns about globalization were
and are absent. Concerns about globalization can instead
be incorporated within performance measures and a con-
cern with benchmarking, and these thereby impact how
employees act.
Discussion and conclusions
We have examined how management systems, in par-
ticular the BSC, and individual KPIs, function as intervening
media intended to convert the discourses of senior manag-
ers into something practical. Accounting technologies like
the BSC offer the promise of converting the discourse of se-
nior management into a series of actionable initiatives.
Although we did not have the opportunity to observe man-
agers in action, we offer a rich and detailed examination of
how managers talk about and make sense of concepts and
ideas, which is an important element of seeking to make
discourse practical. The ideas of competition, benchmark-
ing, cost management, pro?t, motivation or innovation
can be given shape in terms of, for example, expanding
production, shifting product mix, re-assigning sales and
encouraging worker engagement. Ideas about globalization
are given speci?c shape through the use of accounting
technologies and these can signi?cantly impact the under-
standings of the discourse and the ways in which perfor-
mance targets can be achieved.
In order to better understand the extent to which glob-
alization discourse can be made practical, we ?rst explored
how at an MNC such discourse was produced, authored,
and connected to the wider discursive ?eld. We then ana-
lyzed in detail how global ideas were enacted at sub-unit
levels and the role of accounting technologies in making
possible such enactment. Our study therefore gives voice
not only to the discursive pronouncements of senior man-
agers but also importantly to sub-unit actors. It goes be-
yond the common sense view that senior managers
propose and junior managers respond. Thus, this paper
adds to the extant accounting literature by providing a sys-
tematic and detailed examination of the largely neglected
interconnection between processes and decisions of glob-
alization and accounting. Our approach has been to depart
from the research that treats the global and the local as a
duality that either underscores homogeneity or diversity
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 307
(Barrett et al., 2005; Cruz et al., 2011). Such dualisms tend
to occlude the multiple authorings and molestations that
make texts work (or not).
We have explored how, in the context of Megacorp, cor-
porate discourse on globalization was produced, promoted
and controlled by the senior managers of an MNC, how
such discourse can be usefully understood if related to
Megacorp’s context (itself a discursive construction) but
also how it connects to the wider discursive ?eld on glob-
alization. We have also suggested, following Said (1975/
1997), that every discourse involves authorship which
may entail signi?cant repetitions, additions and deletions,
but also recoding, organization, translation and interpreta-
tion, in short, molestation. In written texts, a manager has
the opportunity to ‘‘present his own contribution as some-
thing novel’’ (Assmann, 2006: 117), for example as his own
version of globalization whilst retaining strong connec-
tions with key elements circulating in the wider discursive
?eld.
At a broad level of analysis, we examined a number of
discursive statements spoken or inscribed by senior Mega-
corp’s executives intended to produce meanings as to what
globalization entails for them, and how this makes possible
the production of Megacorp as a global organization (Said,
1975/1997). Consistent with the ?ndings of Fiss and Hirsch
(2005), globalization was presented as inevitable and con-
sistently received favorable press in Megacorp’s annual re-
ports and internal documents. The virtues of globalization
connected most directly with the advantages claimed by
its advocates, in particular being credited with global mar-
ket integration, driven by the force of the market, and
offering a win-win scenario for all corporate employees
(Steger, 2005). Terms such as ‘world-wide leadership’ and
‘global competitiveness’ were emphasized at the highest
executive levels of Megacorp, but even here, some rela-
tively speci?c connections were made between what we
may term ‘globalizing technologies’ and the re-shaping of
Megacorp’s activities. We have explored several discourses
connected to globalization made at four levels of Mega-
corp’s hierarchy: corporate CEO/Vice CEOs; Divisional
CEOs, National CEOs, and sub-unit general managers
(GMs). Table 1 summarizes these discourses. In focusing
on a speci?c managerial position at each level in the hier-
archy of Megacorp we do not wish to imply that the pro-
duction of globalization discourse is necessarily restricted
to these individuals or that it ?ows in an hierarchical man-
ner, but we do so in order to provide some depth and detail
to our analysis.
At the highest level in Megacorp, that of the CEO and
Vice-CEOs, a number of themes were emphasized in their
discourse: being globally competitive; securing global pro-
curement; optimizing the value chain; achieving ef?ciency
of service and cutting costs; customer focus; leveraging
skills world-wide; intensifying and improving communica-
tion within the MNC; and unleashing entrepreneurial spirit
among employees. The discourse is typically aspirational
with very broad themes, and connects to what Kristensen
and Zeitlin (2005) refer to the global discourses of manage-
ment gurus, business schools and business media.
At the level of the Electronics Division of Megacorp,
Table 1 shows that senior divisional management
emphasized issues relating to market expansion and differ-
entiation; global sales, detailed attention to customers;
and investment and development of R&D. Several of these
themes connect strongly with accounting as a technology
that not only converts discursive aspirations into perfor-
mance targets, but also operates as a means of achieving
cost reduction, value-chain optimization, ef?cient global
procurement and enhancing corporate competitiveness.
Thus, the intervention of accounting is not restricted to a
contribution to the vocabulary of the globalization dis-
course through the use of such terms as ‘value chain’, ‘ef?-
ciency’, ‘cutting costs’, ‘cost management’, ‘investment in
R&D’ and so on, but goes beyond that in offering technolo-
gies (e.g. the BSC, KPIs) that hold the promise of being per-
formative by rendering such discursive utterings
actionable. Many, if not all, of these themes are not unique
to Megacorp, as similar themes can be found in the dis-
course of senior managers of other MNCs. This underscores
the value of Said’s (1975/1997) emphasis on the repetition
in discourse. However, all discourses are authored, so we
should expect variation in the way all or some of these
themes have been interpreted, coded, translated and oper-
ationalized elsewhere.
At the national HQ level the discourse of globalization
becomes more strongly connected to the regional and na-
tional discursive ?eld. Naturally, the discourses of the
MNC CEO and Vice CEOs have a strong impact on the dis-
course produced by the national CEO, but the latter is also
in?uenced by the national CEO’s perceptions of national
and regional discursive ?elds. CEO discourse is also
strongly impacted by the knowledge base and history
within the sub-units that form the national company,
although there are always possibilities for knowledge
transfers within the global MNC. Thus in MegacorpChina,
the BSC is embedded in beliefs about growth of the market,
nature of local competitors and capacities of the workforce.
Finally, at the level of the sub-unit GM the globalization
discourse becomes a combination of the discourses of the
above three higher levels of the hierarchy, but is also
strongly moderated by local assessments of the sub-unit’s
strengths and opportunities, its knowledge and skill base.
Thus, the discourse becomes sub-unit speci?c. We provide
examples that demonstrate how more speci?c globaliza-
tion themes were present in several discursive statements
made by Megacorp’s managers. In particular, we provided
two examples relating to the injunctions ‘Think global, act
local’ and ‘Think customer, act customer’. In both these
injunctions, many elements were borrowed fromthe wider
discursive ?eld and thus were not unique to Megacorp’s
discourse. Notwithstanding this repetition, we have also
drawn attention to the authoring activity that goes on, in
the sense of interpretation, recoding, revising (through
addition or exclusion of detailed elements) and customiz-
ing, so that at different local units engagement with global
injunctions engenders both homogeneity and diversity. We
have made some speci?c reference to the form in which
this occurs, including the identi?cation of which ?nancial
parameters were thought best for sub-units to engage with
and the types of metrics developed for that purpose. Senior
management discourse on globalization was connected,
through a chain of rationales, systems, perspectives and
308 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
goals, to individual KPIs (as shown in Fig. 2). The sugges-
tions and EBIT KPIs were connected directly or indirectly
to the discursive statements concerning optimization of
the company’s global value chain, managing and reducing
costs, increasing sales, achieving higher pro?ts, enhancing
the company’s global competitiveness, and meeting the
demands of international ?nancial markets.
At the most general level, each statement is structured
by an assumed distinction between thinking and acting.
For in each injunction, the ?rst half emphasizes ‘thinking’
and the second half underscores ‘acting’. Thinking entails,
among other things, a process of interpretation, recoding,
and selection, as employees seek to make sense of global
injunctions, while acting involves converting thought into
outcomes. Both these parts are likely to produce some
measure of homogeneity, to the extent that thinking and
acting connect with the global ideas pronounced by HQ,
and they promote an element of convergence to the discur-
sive aspirations of senior managers. Both injunctions also
generate some measure of diversity, given the different
molestations involved across local levels. The greater the
level of such diversity the greater is the molestation (Said,
1975/1997).
We have been able to trace a number of sources of
molestation which vary across the organizational levels
of an MNC (Table 2).
7
At the level of an MNC’s CEO or its
Vice CEOs, one source of molestation is the consciously inten-
tional (Said, 1975/1997: 12) ritualistic, or in Said’s (Said,
1975/1997: 24) terms ‘dream’, part of their discourse on
globalization. Such intentionality of authoring a ‘‘dreamy’’
discourse is not taken here as an indication of senior execu-
tive’s dishonesty; rather we understand it as part of an at-
tempt by them, for example to inject greater optimism
among the employees of the MNC and to indicate their aspi-
ration of producing a global organization. It is a kind of se-
nior managerial complicity authored for ‘good’ reasons.
Further, unconscious (Said, 1975/1997: 12) molestation
could arise because of the CEO or Vice CEOs’ inadequate
knowledge of the contexts of the MNC, particularly those
of geographically or hierarchically distant units within the
MNC (Goodall & Roberts, 2003). As we move to the level of
the divisional CEOs molestation occurs in the process of
translating higher level discourses of globalization to the le-
vel of the division, including the speci?cation of KPIs and the
division’s BSC, in addition to the impact of the division’s own
limitations, ambitions, history and speci?c attributes. At the
level of the national CEOs, the same argument applies except
that here we have national speci?c characteristics, such as
geographical location, tradition, etc., as an additional source
of molestation.
In the case of sub-units, we identify three levels of
molestation. At the level of the sub-unit’s GM/senior man-
agement team, regional and national contexts and the sub-
unit’s speci?c attributes can produce molestation as they
impact the translation of discourses of globalization. A fur-
ther source of molestation is non-compliance with MNC’s
control systems, such as the BSC. As we move to middle
management and the shop ?oor, further molestations can
7
Note that human agency can play an important role as a source of
molestation, but, as this is likely to be common across organizational levels,
we do not discuss it further.
Table 1
Authorship and elements of discourse.
Author of discourse Elements/attributes of discourse
MNC’s CEO/Vice CEOs Global discursive ?eld
Broad and aspirational
Corporation’s major technical strengths and opportunities
MNC CEO’s ambitions of corporate and personal leadership roles
Global competitiveness
Optimizing value chain
Cost reduction
Corporate knowledge-skill base
Divisional CEO Global discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
Division’s major technical strengths and opportunities
Detailed customer focus
Global sales
Market expansion
R&D investment
Divisional knowledge-skill base
Division-speci?c
National CEO Regional and national discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
National knowledge base
Nation speci?c
Sub-unit GM National/regional discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
Divisional CEO’s discourse
National CEO discourse
Sub-unit strengths and opportunities
Sub-unit knowledge base
Sub-unit speci?c
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 309
occur because of what is ‘lost’ in the translation of higher
level discourse to these lower levels, lower level manage-
ment cognition of higher-level discourses, middle manage-
ment and shop ?oor speci?c contexts, acts of resistance to
initiatives introduced and targets set by senior manage-
ment, and the gaming that produces both con?ict and con-
sent (Burawoy, 1979; Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington,
2001; Hopper, Cooper, Lowe, Capps, & Mouritsen, 1986).
It is also at these levels that interpretation and adapta-
tion/change of speci?c KPIs typically take place. We must
stress that the scenarios we offer of the key themes of dis-
course (Table 1) and of the sources of molestation (Table 2)
are neither an exhaustive nor a de?nitive statement of
these constructs. Rather, they are born out of the speci?c
contexts of our own case study and other case studies
may uncover alternative scenarios. Further, they are dia-
lectical, such that neither operates without impacting the
other, even within the same text (Said, 1983).
We have argued that texts, whether in the form of
inscriptions or utterings, are intended to produce meaning
and make possible speci?c effects at temporal and/or spa-
tial distances, for example in the case of Megacorp at the
levels of manufacturing and sales units scattered around
the globe. But in order to reduce molestation between dis-
course and performance, we have posited that strategic
management systems, such as the BSC and speci?c KPIs,
can act as intervening media. The objective of such inter-
vening media is manifold, including acting as depository
or store (Assmann, 2006) of senior managers’ aspirations
concerning globalization, as translations of strategic dis-
course into speci?c localized performance targets, and also
as a means of communicating these targets across time and
space. Importantly, these intervening media (BSC, KPIs,
etc.) forge a strong connection between the targets of glob-
alization discourse and the activities of each individual in
the workplace. Yet it is not to be expected that the effects
of intervening media produce a perfect mapping between a
globalization discourse and organizational performance.
The ‘original’ globalization discourse authored by senior
managers will always be in a state of continual ?ux and
reproduction. Dambrin and Robson (2011) stress the
importance of recognizing the productive effects of ?ux,
vagueness and interpretive open-ness: ‘‘ambivalence and
opacity may in fact contribute to the working of perfor-
mance measurement networks’’ (Dambrin & Robson,
2011, 448).
Our detailed analysis of sub-unit enactment of global
ideas focused on the uptake of the BSC, but also the use
of EBIT and suggestions shows that there were pressures
from HQ to secure a high level of conformity but also
strong tendencies at sub-unit levels to customize each
KPI. Local interpretation, coding, and the ordering of the
performance parameters drives the speci?cs of the KPI. In
the case of suggestions in particular, there were strong
claims of the scheme being ‘invented’ by ElectronUK, an
invention that was subsequently re-presented as ‘pinched
with pride’, that is copied but adjusted. Hence, themes of
repetition and addition in authoring (Said, 1975/1997)
are evident there.
Moreover, discourse by senior managers and sub-unit
enactment of KPIs exhibited a subtle play between the
two levels. First, while the discourse of senior executives
at Megacorp sought to connect with global ideas, such as
being globally competitive, sub-units were more preoccu-
pied with the technological/production or sales side of
their activities. Kristensen and Zeitlin (2005: 5) also note
how different languages were used by HQ and the subsidi-
aries; the former drawing on idioms of management jour-
nals and MBA programs and targeted at ?nancial markets
and investors, whereas subsidiaries focused on narratives
of technological innovation and improvements.
These emphases do not imply some general conclusion
about the perspectives on HQ and subsidiaries except that
discourses are shaped by the location from which their
pronouncements are made. At Megacorp, engagement with
the globalization discourse entailed assessing the perfor-
mance of a particular national unit and individual produc-
tion and sales units against several benchmarks, including
Table 2
Sources of molestation.
Organizational level Sources of molestation
1. MNC’s CEO/Vice CEOs Ritualistic part of the corporate CEO discourse
Inadequate knowledge of detailed MNC capabilities
2. Division CEO Understanding of corporate CEO discourse
Division’s limitations and speci?c attributes
3. National CEO Interpretation of corporate CEO discourse
National speci?c-characteristics (e.g. culture, geographical location, etc.)
4. Sub-unit: GM Translation of national CEO’s and divisional CEO’s discourses
Sub-unit limitations and speci?c attributes
Non-compliance with MNC’s control systems (e.g., BSC, TIME)
Regional/national attributes
Middle management Translation of GM discourse
Embroilment in conditions of co-presence?
Understanding of discourse
Translation and adaptation of KPIs
Resistance
Shop ?oor Interpretation of middle managers’ discourse
Understanding of middle manager’s discourse
Shop?oor speci?c attributes
Resistance
310 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
within Megacorp, nationally, and internationally. The
benchmarking language mobilized has ‘‘strikingly interna-
tional connotations’’ (Kristensen & Zeitlin, 2005: 5).
We have shown how in authoring the discourse on
globalization the senior managers of Megacorp initiated
that discourse, augmented it through additions, controlled
its issue via their access to external and internal media,
and maintained the continuity of the discourse over time
(Said, 1975/1997). We have also identi?ed different ex-
tents and strategies of molestation at different levels with-
in Megacorp. Our analysis of authoring/authority and
molestation demonstrates just how interconnected these
concepts are. Neither is possible without the other, but
more importantly each constitutes and shapes the other.
How discourse is authored (the extent of author duplicity
and/or knowledge) impacts the extent and scope for
molestation (which strategies to follow: refusals, sacri?ces,
renunciations, sel?shness, collisions, and compromises).
These strategies of molestation are also impacted by the
type of relationship that exists between HQ and local
sub-units: a more accommodating and ?exible style of
management, as we have seen in our case study, is likely
to result in compromise rather than renunciation or self-
ishness on the part of sub-units. Moreover, molestation
can be enabling in making discourse believable and doable
by rescuing it from being an illusion or dream. Molestation
also displays some similarity with, but goes beyond, diver-
sity. To the extent that different organizational actors pur-
sue different strategies of molestation, local diversity is
inevitable. But the theorization of molestation adumbrated
by Said (1975/1997) and utilized here goes beyond under-
scoring difference: it emphasizes both the restrictive and
enabling qualities of molestation and further it highlights
how discourse and molestation are mutually constitutive.
This discussion suggests that any understanding of
molestation should not be solely based on its restrictive
or disabling qualities. As long as molestation does not en-
tail total denial and resistance to authoring/authority, dis-
course will continue to intentionally produce meaning and
make possible certain outcomes, mediated by the extent of
molestation present. In our case study, the authored dis-
course of the senior managers of Megacorp was intended
to produce speci?c meanings of what globalization en-
tailed and also to produce Megacorp as a global organiza-
tion. One can therefore ask: did the discourse succeed in
doing so despite the molestation we analyzed? Much de-
pends of course on how we, as evaluators or critics, per-
ceive notions such as what is a global organization. It is
relevant in this context to cite one quote from an article
published by a leading business magazine in 2008 which
refers to Megacorp as ‘‘one of globalization’s greatest win-
ners’’. If this assessment is widely shared in the business
world, then the argument that managerial globalization
discourse produces not only meanings but also objects,
such as a global organization, is vindicated. Of course the
global organization produced will not necessarily map ex-
actly onto the ‘‘dream’’ that senior managers expressed in
their discourse, for molestation would have had an impact
upon that and the above quote hides the tensions, con?icts
and restraints that are typically associated with molesta-
tion; nonetheless, a global organization was produced.
We have also commented on how ideas travelled from
HQ to sub-units and also that the authoring of the sugges-
tions scheme in ElectronUK entailed repetition (‘‘pinched
with pride’’ from other units). By the time we were con-
cluding our interviews, this particular suggestions scheme
was considered a ‘‘success storey’’ by the senior manage-
ment of Megacorp, won one award from the company
and was publicized in Megacorp’s internal magazines. We
therefore did not have the opportunity to explore the ex-
tent to which this suggestions scheme travelled across
other units in the company or to HQ in terms of its appro-
priation, further authoring and adoption. Overall, however,
our understanding is that, in the main, innovative ideas
from subsidiaries did not travel to HQ because subsidiaries
‘‘lacked the social and organizational space for communi-
cating this information, since such detailed concrete
knowledge could not be conveyed and understood within
the language of the headquarters’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 6). It
would be valuable to explore the extent to which this
restriction of the travel of detailed concrete language from
sub-units to global HQ is the outcome of the nature of the
innovation. In other words, would ideas travel more read-
ily from sub-units to global HQ if they relate to other types
of innovations, for example performance measurement
systems (PMS) and key performance indicators (KPIs),
where the language may be more commonly shared?
It would be interesting to examine the extent to which
national and geographical diversity and the type of sub-
unit activities, in our case plant vs. sales, impact global dis-
course and KPIs, more speci?cally to explore the extent to
which local speci?city feeds into universalised accounting
technologies and discourses that circulate globally. The
nature of our empirical material makes it possible for us
to offer only a few preliminary observations. First, technol-
ogies that are the carriers of speci?c national cultural
expressions even when mandated by an MNC’s interna-
tional HQ do not necessarily travel well to other national
locations. We have offered two examples of this: one re-
lates to TIME which has not been adopted in either of the
Chinese or UK plants, the other are two KPIs that Electro-
nUK abandoned because they were ‘too Germanic’ to make
sense in a UK context. Second, and relatedly, the managers
of ElectronChina seem to frame their discussion of their
control thinking and KPIs in terms of technical knowhow,
competition in South-East Asia and the training and overall
capabilities of their labor force. While ElectronUK also con-
sidered the European zone their most relevant ‘global’ con-
text, the thinking of its senior managers was impacted by
ElectronChina and the possibility of being shut down if
its performance fell below targets. Third, the contrasting
fortunes of the much trimmed down ElectronUK and con-
tinuously expanding ElectronChina seem to impact the
type of accounting control systems and KPIs used in each
sub-unit. ElectronUK used the BSC extensively and devel-
oped a battery of KPIs in search for cost ef?ciencies,
whereas ElectronChina was managed using a handful of
KPIs, without the introduction of a full blown BSC. Fourth,
there was some scope for ideas to travel across sub-units
within Megacorp; this was made possible because of work-
shops/meetings involving different sub-units to discuss
developments in KPIs and other accounting technologies,
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 311
publication of some of these developments in the MNC’s
various HQ and divisional outlets, and because all sub-
units had some computer access to ideas developed
throughout the MNC. This explains, for example, why the
characteristics of suggestions schemes and de?nition of
relevant KPIs at ElectronUK were in part in?uenced by
other units in Megacorp. Similarly, ElectronUK’s sugges-
tions scheme at the conclusion of our interviews was
judged to be so successful that it was covered in an internal
Megacorp magazine that was circulated widely within the
MNC. It would be instructive for these preliminary obser-
vations to be considered further through more detailed
empirical evidence in other organizations.
Our analysis of the emergence of globalization dis-
course at the level of an MNC did not seek to examine
the extent to which such a discourse might impact on
the wider discursive ?eld, an issue that is important. More-
over, in conceptualizing discourse as a form of ‘speech act’,
we only focus on one target audience, that of the MNC
employees at local levels. It would be interesting to explore
how other intended audiences react to, or indeed enact,
managerial globalization discourse: owners, investment
analysts, potential investors, ?nancial institutions and
money lenders, customers, suppliers, competitors, consul-
tants and indeed academics. These are possibilities that fu-
ture researchers can turn their attention to.
To sum up, this paper offers an analysis of globalization
and performance measurement systems that is informed
by Said (1975/1997). The strength of this approach is that
it provides a view of discourse that emphasizes four ele-
ments of authoring and also goes beyond notions of resis-
tance and translation in understanding how discourses are
molested. It emphasizes the dynamics between authority
and molestation in showing how molestation is a restraint
upon the invention by authority and how molestation res-
cues discourse from being an implausible dream. Said’s
work also emphasizes how writing permits and makes
possible changes in perception and behavior, and we have
conceptualized accounting technologies such as the BSC
and KPIs as one form of writing. Thus the texts considered
here, from the CEO of Megacorp in annual reports and
speeches to shop ?oor talk in sub-units, produce signi?cant
effects, such as changes in production, workforce sugges-
tions, pro?ts, and phone calls to customers, which are
in?uenced by speci?c visions and articulations of global-
ization. People within the corporation respond, across
space and time, to systems such as the BSC, related KPIs
and a concern with comparisons and benchmarking, in a
manner that acknowledges the authority and power of
the globalization discourse. Yet they do so in a manner that
is the outcome of molestations resulting from their speci?c
circumstances and interests.
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D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 313
doc_374153725.pdf
This paper examines the role of management control systems, in particular performance
measurement systems (PMSs) such as the Balanced Scorecard and key performance indicators,
in a multinational context. We begin by exploring how globalization discourses are
engaged with, consumed, appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in a
major multinational company. We link the adaptation and dissemination of global discourses
of senior managers with Said’s (1975/1997) concepts of authority and molestation.
We then examine how PMS are translated and customized within local manufacturing
plants and sales units in the UK and China, the significance of benchmarking and the extent
to which PMS render managerial discourses of globalization practical. We comment on the
importance of discourse in understanding control systems in general and the way in which
external discourses impact the internal practices of the organization
Globalization discourses and performance measurement
systems in a multinational ?rm
q
David J. Cooper
a,?
, Mahmoud Ezzamel
b,c
a
School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2R6
b
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
c
IE Business School, Pinar 15-1B, 28006 Madrid, Spain
a b s t r a c t
This paper examines the role of management control systems, in particular performance
measurement systems (PMSs) such as the Balanced Scorecard and key performance indica-
tors, in a multinational context. We begin by exploring how globalization discourses are
engaged with, consumed, appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in a
major multinational company. We link the adaptation and dissemination of global dis-
courses of senior managers with Said’s (1975/1997) concepts of authority and molestation.
We then examine how PMS are translated and customized within local manufacturing
plants and sales units in the UK and China, the signi?cance of benchmarking and the extent
to which PMS render managerial discourses of globalization practical. We comment on the
importance of discourse in understanding control systems in general and the way in which
external discourses impact the internal practices of the organization. We also explore some
of the sources that give rise to molestation (deviation of practice from global aspirations of
senior managers). We conclude by stressing the potential for the globalizing effects of PMS
through the interaction of the discourses of HQ and subunits, even in the absence of expli-
cit statements about globalization.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Globalization has received much attention as an
important feature of the modern world. Multinational
?rms are typically regarded as central vehicles in the
globalization of the world (e.g. Fiss & Hirsch, 2005;
Scholte, 2005). As Kristensen and Zeitlin (2005) point
out, there are very few studies that adopt a comprehen-
sive analysis of multinational organizations, examining
not just the perceptions from headquarters but also tak-
ing seriously the histories and management practices of
local units, and examining the inter-relations between
the two. There are few examples in the accounting liter-
ature of attempts to examine how discourses on global-
ization are constructed, adapted and circulated, and
what roles accounting technologies play in rendering
such discourses practical at ‘local’ levels (Barrett,
Cooper, & Jamal, 2005; Cruz, Scapens, & Major, 2011).
Several studies engage with globalization within
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2013.04.002
q
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the workshop
‘‘Globalizing, managing and management accounting’’ at the University
of Alberta, September 2007, the Japan Association of Management
Accounting Conference, Osaka, November 2007, the University of Elec-
tronics, Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China, November
2008, the University of Innsbruck, Austria, April 2009, Global Manage-
ment Accounting Research Conference, June 2009, European Accounting
Association Congress, Istanbul, May 2010, the Alberta School of Business,
January 2011, IE Business School, Madrid, May 2011 and University of
Western Ontario, January 2012. Thanks to participants at these events as
well as Sylvia Jordan, Wai Fong Chua, Thomas Ahrens, Sue Haka, Paolo
Quattrone, Keith Robson and Jan Mouritsen for comments on earlier
versions. We also wish to thank the two reviewers for their constructive
comments. We acknowledge SSHRC and CGA (Alberta) for their ?nancial
support. Albert James provided research assistance. We are also grateful
to all those who agreed to be interviewed for this study.
?
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.J. Cooper), ezzamel@
cf.ac.uk, [email protected] (M. Ezzamel).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Accounting, Organizations and Society
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aos
multinational organizations, but the analysis typically
does not articulate the extent to which accounting
may or may not help to produce globalization (e.g.,
Busco, Giovannoni, & Scapens, 2008; Hyvönen,
Järvinen, & Pellinen, 2008; Neu, Silva, & Gomez,
2008; Quattrone & Hopper, 2005; Saravanamuthu &
Tinker, 2003).
This paper aims to understand how, and to what extent,
the discourses on globalization promoted by the HQ of a
MNC are rendered practical and enacted by its sub-units.
Our emphasis is on accounts of practice provided by our
informants. Our analysis connects with Miller and O’Leary
(1990, 2007), whereby we examine processes of ‘concep-
tual invention’ in order to explore the extent to which
globalization can be rendered meaningful and managers
can be induced to take action consistent with an under-
standing of what being global means for their day to day
activities. If people are asked to be globally aware and re-
spond to globalization, then our concern is to understand
the ways in which accounting facilitates (or not) that
awareness. Further, we emphasize that discourses of glob-
alization are not simply internal to the organization. As
Miller and O’Leary argue: ‘‘The analysis of internal
accounting change needs to take seriously the complex
network of political and cultural debates within which
accounting is enmeshed, rather than assuming it away.’’
(1990: 481).
We thus examine ?rst how our focal organization artic-
ulates its connection to globalization through annual re-
ports, speeches by executives and other modes of
communication as well as interview material. We explore
how globalization discourses are engaged with, consumed,
appropriated, re-produced, disseminated and promoted in
a major multinational company (MNC). A degree of scepti-
cism, if not cynicism, is often associated with such articu-
lations, yet there is a growing literature that shows that
discourses have material effects (e.g., Oakes, Townley, &
Cooper, 1998; Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington, 2008).
Talk is rarely ‘cheap’; it impacts the way we observe,
understand and ultimately act. We argue that accounting
systems and practices can be signi?cant in connecting dis-
courses with material effects. Second, and more speci?-
cally, we examine managerial accounts of the extent to
which performance measurement systems (PMSs), in par-
ticular the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and key performance
indicators (KPIs), render discourses of globalization
practical.
This paper connects with the extant accounting litera-
ture on discourse analysis. It shares an interest with prior
studies in how discourses are constitutive of both objects
(such as strategies, Knights & Morgan, 1991; the concep-
tion of the product, Miller & O’Leary, 1993; shareholder va-
lue, Ezzamel et al., 2008), and subjects (such as auditors,
Gendron, Cooper, & Townley, 2007, and strategists, Ezza-
mel & Willmott, 2008). It builds on studies that examine
the disciplinary consequences of discourse for organiza-
tional employees (including those credited with producing
or resisting the discourse). We explore how the wider dis-
courses on globalization are constitutive of managerial talk
and how they have disciplinary effects, for example how
they produce a particular context in which corporate
activities are undertaken, and the manner by which control
systems are developed and deployed.
The accounting literature has been concerned with
examining the connection between accounting and global-
ization in a variety of contexts and issues. Seal (2010)
examines how the discourses of ROI, strategic manage-
ment accounting and value based management are taken
up in a multinational ?rm. However, a limitation of that
study is that it explores managerial discourse predomi-
nantly through press and other public reports and views
the ?rm as a single entity. Other management accounting
studies that discuss globalization focus on how different
organizational levels interact, for example subsidiaries
and headquarters. Busco et al.’s (2008) study is concerned
about the constructive role of globalization discourses, in
terms of how managers promote ideas of globalization
and are also disciplined by them. Quattrone and Hopper
(2005) and Dechow and Mouritsen (2005) focus on
accounting objects, notably ERP systems. Only Cruz
et al.’s (2011) study has examined how performance mea-
surement systems can help to enact discourses of global-
ization. Cruz et al. focus on localization of a global
performance measurement systems in a joint venture.
Our focus on discourse, systems and measures has an af?n-
ity with their concerns and focus, while avoiding the prob-
lematic dualistic distinction between the local and global.
Further, we examine how globalization discourses are con-
nected to not only the organization’s context (which is
constituted by discourse) but also to the wider discursive
?eld on globalization.
Our study seeks to contribute to the literature by
focusing upon two issues: ?rst, understanding what dis-
courses on globalization emerge within an MNC and
how they connect with more general discourses on
globalization. We see this as important in terms of help-
ing us contextualize the discourses of a particular orga-
nization in relation to that of the broader discursive
?eld in order to improve our understanding of manage-
rial pronouncements. Second, we wish to explore the
connections that may exist between discursive state-
ments circulated by a company’s executives and the
performance of multiple managers and workers in mul-
tiple sub-units. For this exploration, we utilize two dis-
cursive dimensions identi?ed by Said (1975), on the one
hand the importance of authority (the power and posi-
tion of those who makes the utterance) and on the
other, molestation (loosely, the limits and responses to
such utterances). Focussing on these dimensions enables
us to provide a more ?nely grained and subtle discur-
sive analysis of globalization than is typically provided
in what are otherwise excellent accounting studies
(Anniette & Trivedi, 2013; Arnold & Sikka, 2001; Gen-
dron & Spira, 2010), by combining elements of both
the intention and reception of the discourses.
In examining the connection between text and behav-
ior, we would not expect that organizational performance
maps perfectly onto discursive statements; the connection
between the two may be quite loose. However, managers
have an interest in seeking to render their discourse prac-
ticable and aspire to demonstrate some link between their
discursive statements and ?rm performance. The Balanced
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 289
Scorecard (BSC) has been promoted as a way to make strat-
egy more concrete and action oriented (Kaplan & Norton,
1996, 2001). The claim is that the BSC helps to operation-
alize managerial discourse concerning goals, missions, val-
ues and strategies. It can thus be seen as an accounting
technology that provides a set of programs and technolo-
gies that translate discourse into procedures that organize
work practice and formalize performance (Miller & Rose,
1990). Performance measurement systems, such as the
BSC and its associated KPIs, are an important part of this
assemblage of technologies, which aim to link achieve-
ment to discursive statements.
Our study is not only concerned with the production,
circulation and consumption of the discourse on globaliza-
tion, but also with the extent to which measurement sys-
tems and measures encourage local subjects to enact
HQ’s ideas. We pursue these issues by asking speci?c ques-
tions: What discourses on globalization have been pro-
duced and disseminated at the international HQ of an
MNC and its national HQs? By what systems or measures
do senior managers of an MNC seek to render practical
their discourse on globalization? How does enacting the
HQ discourse on globalization by sub-units occur in rela-
tion to the control systems and practices, notably around
performance measurement? What strategies of ‘engage-
ment’ with the ‘global’ can sub-units pursue (e.g., not
adopting a global KPI, or adopting but customizing a BSC
system)? What strategies of translation do sub-units fol-
low in enacting a globalization discourse?
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. In
the next section we examine the general and accounting
literature on globalization. We then discuss our research
methods, before we provide a brief history of the case
study (Megacorp, a pseudonym of an MNC). This is
followed with an analysis of the globalization discourse
produced and disseminated by the managers of
Megacorp. Thereafter, we examine a number of control
systems that have been developed as translations of
the globalization discourse of Megacorp. It is at this
point in the paper that we focus on speci?c ?nancial
and non-?nancial measures. We pay particular attention
to the role of the BSC before we examine two individual
KPIs: earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) and sugges-
tions for improvement, as illustrations of ?nancial and
non-?nancial measures. In the ?nal section, we discuss
our main arguments and their implications before
drawing the paper to a conclusion.
Discourses of globalization
‘‘[G]lobalization is not merely a set of material pro-
cesses anchored in economics and technology, but also
constitutes a system of ideas circulating in the public
realm as more or less coherent stories that attempt to
de?ne, describe, and evaluate these very processes’’
(Steger, 2005: ix)
Globalization, as the above quote suggests, has political,
economic, social, and cultural dimensions. It also has an
important discursive component, which, in different eras,
is associated with slogans such as ‘‘workers of the world
unite’’ and ‘‘the world is ?at’’. Discourses of globalization
have considerable power that entices actors, such as the
managers in our case study, to engage with them. Consider
the term ‘global village’ coined by McLuhan (1960) which
underscores the compression of time and space across
the world (Harvey, 1989) and suggests challenges and
opportunities facing contemporary managers. The term of-
fers a vision of a homogenous, closely-knit world commu-
nity to which everyone should belong, with the implicit
risk that those who do not join in will be ostracised and
alienated. The power of such a discourse rests largely on
its ability to offer attributes of globalization that are con-
nectable to a vision of the modern world that celebrates
universalistic values of rationalization, secularization, sci-
ence and education (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Drori, Meyer,
& Hwang, 2006).
Globalization has acquired an ‘aura’ of inevitability
(Spicer & Fleming, 2007) and its proponents have articu-
lated a powerful and seductive discourse propounding its
merits. We consider globalization to be an important dis-
course for corporate executives because it is frequently
presented by consultants, gurus, business schools and the
business press as a sensemaking response to emerging
opportunities and threats in the world economy. Fiss and
Hirsch (2005) show that, throughout the period 1984–
1998 they studied, company press releases and annual re-
ports presented globalization as inevitable and its conse-
quences as positive.
Studies of globalization such as Barrett et al. (2005) and
Cruz et al. (2011) have tended to counterpose the ‘global’
and the ‘local’. In contrast, our analysis seeks to avoid dual-
ities or oppositions between the global and the local. As
Scholte (2005: 79) notes, separating the global and the lo-
cal has the undesirable effect of depicting:
‘‘the local as ‘here’, immediate and intimate, as against
the global being ‘there’, distant and isolating. The local
is concrete, grounded, authentic, and meaningful,
whereas the global is abstract, unconnected, arti?cial
and meaningless. The local purportedly provides secu-
rity and community, while the global houses danger
and violence. The local is innocent, the global manipula-
tive. The local is the arena for autonomy and empower-
ment, the global the realm of dependence and
domination’’.
We regard the global and the local as ‘two sides of the
same coin’ (Robertson, 1992: 178); interpenetration, rather
than separation, is a more appropriate description of their
relationship (Robertson, 1992: 100–103; 130; see also La-
tour, 2005; Scholte, 2005). Concerned to understand how
the global ‘system’ has been, and continues to be, made,
and with the production and re-production of the world
through globalization, Robertson argues that globalization
should be studied at both the global and sub-global levels.
The global ?eld is always contested and reshaped through
competing de?nitions of the global situation. Robertson is
critical of viewing the global and the local in terms of
macro and micro-levels of analysis preferring to analyze
‘glocalization’, ‘‘a complex interaction of the ‘global’ and
‘local’,’’ (Steger, 2005: 40). This view stresses the interac-
tions that produce both homogenizing and heterogenizing
290 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
effects, or arenas of ‘hybridization’ where new meanings
are derived (Hannerz, 1992). To move beyond the dualism
or dialectic of the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, in the remainder
of this paper we refer to HQ and sub-units and only use
the terms ‘global’ and ‘local’ when our informants or archi-
val material invoke these terms.
Authoring and molestation
In this paper we explore two issues: the discourse on
globalization produced in an MNC and how such a dis-
course can be made practical. Much has been written about
discourses, and there are many theories that inform dis-
course analysis. Many studies are deeply in?uenced by
Foucault and his emphasis on power-knowledge and the
importance of discourse in producing and framing knowl-
edge. We share these interests but use some of the ideas
of Edward Said, who has examined the relationship be-
tween discourse, power and a central element of globaliza-
tion, namely colonialism. Said is best known for his work
on Orientalism and the role of discourses in constructing
an (often inferior) ‘other’ (1978) and his study of how cul-
ture re?ects, produces and enables imperialism (1993). Gi-
ven our interest in exploring globalization discourse and
how discursive statements are connected to the wider dis-
cursive ?eld, we draw upon, adapt, and extend some of
Said’s concepts to help analyze our case material. Said
(1975/1997) emphasizes two notions in the analysis of dis-
course: ‘author’ (authority) and ‘molestation’. For Said
(1975/1997: 23) ‘‘authority-or the speci?c power of a spe-
ci?c act of writing-can be thought of as something whole
and as something invented-as something inclusive and
made up, if you like, for the occasion.’’ This speci?c power
concerns invention through what Said refers to as begin-
ning, inauguration, and augmentation of the written state-
ment or narrative. Authoring connects to ideas of power in
recognizing the position (authority) of the utterance and
has resonance to Foucault’s discussion of what is an
author, but has the advantage of identifying four elements
of the authority of an author:
‘‘(1) that of the power of an individual to initiate, insti-
tute, establish-in short, to begin; (2) that this power and
its product are an increase over what had been there
previously; (3) that the individual wielding this power
controls its issue and what is derived there from; (4)
that authority maintains the continuity of its course’’
(Said, 1975/1997: 83).
For Said, authority entails both the power of authoring a
text as well as the authority of the writer. Said emphasizes
‘beginnings’ to mark authorship and also intention because
it makes or produces difference through the production of
meaning: ‘‘a ‘‘beginning’’ is designed in order to indicate,
clarify, or de?ne a later time, place, or action. In short,
the designation of a beginning generally involves also the
designation of a consequent intention. . . The beginning,
then, is the ?rst step in the intentional production of mean-
ing.’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 5, original emphases). Intention
can be conscious or unconscious, the important point is
that beginning intention is an undertaking ‘‘to do some-
thing in a characteristic way’’, and ‘‘is always engaged pur-
posefully in the production of meaning’’ (Said, 1975/1997:
12). This intentionality is signi?cant for it renders ‘‘writing
as permitting, writing-as-making possible, writing – as-
beginning other forms of human perception and behav-
iour’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 20).
A beginning does not speak of a single, unequivocal
point of origin, but rather of repetitions, whereby each rep-
etition never fully reproduces previous repetitions and
hence authorship accompanies every repetition. Consistent
with Foucault’s concern with displacing the sovereign indi-
vidual and underscoring the power of discursive regimes,
we follow Said in emphasizing that while no author has
absolute power, for example does not invent a text from
nothing or that their position in a ?eld negates any resis-
tance, but builds on previous texts, in the act of repetition
individuals author texts because no two repetitions are the
same.
While discursive pronouncements on globalization by
executives cannot be treated strictly like novels (Said’s fo-
cus), they are nonetheless texts. Said, in discussing Marx
(Said, 1975/1997: 145–146) and Freud (Said, 1975/1997:
160–182) indicates that his analysis of discourse can be ap-
plied to various types of text.
1
Senior executives seek to
move beyond the production of a text by introducing man-
agement technologies (e.g., accounting systems) to render
their discourse practical. One appealing feature of Said’s
work is his emphasis on intention in inscribing or uttering
a text and we take our interviewees’ discourse on globaliza-
tion seriously, in that we invest it with intention as purpose-
fully making difference by producing meaning, or tactics or
strategies of power, an act of will (Said, 1975/1997). As we
indicated earlier, talk matters. In part, we support our argu-
ment later by reference to various means by which senior
managers of Megacorp sought to make practical the global-
ization discourse they authored.
Molestation refers to the ‘bother’ and ‘responsibility’ of
all the powers and efforts invested in authority (Said,
1975/1997: 84). It includes, but extends beyond, the Fou-
cauldian concern with resistance. For Said, molestation re-
?ects the fact that authors themselves recognize the
difference between the text s/he authors and the reality
to which it relates; hence his notion of author duplicity
in producing a text that may be taken as a pretence in its
alleged depiction of reality. If authority is invention, then
molestation is restraint (Said, 1975/1997: 83). The author-
ity of a written text is inevitably accompanied by molesta-
tion; the relationship between authority and molestation
is dynamic and mutually enabling (Said, 1975/1997: 84;
137; 157) in that the invention produced by authority is re-
strained and checked by molestation, which produces its
own authoring. Said argues that molestation is evident in
‘collisions and compromises’ (Said, 1975/1997: 143),
‘refusals, sacri?ces, renunciations, and sel?shness’ (Said,
1975/1997: 143). For Said, writing is a ‘dream’, ‘an illusion’,
a ‘truth-resembling ?ction’ (Said, 1975/1997: 24; 84; 90),
hence its distance from reality. For us, then, the dreams
1
Davis (1983/1996) further argues that ?ction and non-?ction are
extremes on a continuous scale: ‘‘perception, experience, fantasy and belief
are all gradations on the same scale (Davis, 1983/1996: 70).
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 291
of globalization (whether it is in terms of global supply
chains or more mundane hopes for travel and international
experience) have an illusory element that may (or may
not) be achieved. In that sense, even the author of a text
or inscription on globalization may be aware of at least
some of its limitations, have doubts, and recognize the con-
testability of even the most apparently mundane fact of-
fered in the discourse. Molestation therefore can be
thought of as the practical counterpart of authored dis-
course when the latter is put into practice.
Another appealing feature of Said’s work is his under-
scoring of writing as making possible, and as promoting,
forms of human perception and behavior. Discourse pro-
nounced by the senior managers of Megacorp, we argue, is
intended to impact the behavior of company employees to
achieve the aspirations of globalization, even though the
restrictiveimpact of molestationcreates a gapbetweensuch
aspiration and reality. Said’s work is also important to our
analysis because it provides four themes of authoring dis-
course, such as the BSC and KPIs. Given his emphasis upon
the authoring/authority of discourse and its dynamic rela-
tionship to molestation, and his underscoring of the ability
of narrative/writing to make possible, Said’s work connects
directly with our interest in understanding how globaliza-
tion discourse is authored, how it is further inscribed into
accounting technologies such as the BSC and KPIs with the
intention of rendering such discourse practicable, and why
gaps emerge between such a discourse and practice.
Our empirical analysis also draws on the more familiar
(in accounting research) concept of translation as a means
of understanding the extent to which the discourse on
globalization is rendered practical throughout the organi-
zation. Translation is different from, yet has some af?nities
with molestation. We see translation as a technological
process that operates to render discourse practical, so it
has an enabling characteristic. Translation tends to be re-
lated to technologies more than discourses. Said pays little
attention to the forms of texts and inscriptions that carry
and affect discourses. In our conclusion we offer some
speculations about mediating mechanisms, and while we
offer some observations about the in?uence of interna-
tional transfers of personnel, common IT systems and re-
gional training programs, our empirical analysis does not
seriously address these due to access limitations (we did
not directly observe such mechanisms).
Further, the sociology of translation stresses human
(and non-human) agency, the use of molestation and
authority emphasizes structures, rules and positions in a
?eld. We recognize that labelling various positions as
sources of authority (for example, the formal authority of
a CEO, the legitimacy of speci?c KPIs, the experience of a
plant supervisor) are constructions of the theorist and
may link to forces, rules and mechanisms beyond those
identi?ed by actors or audiences themselves.
2
This is why
our analysis is multi-layered, incorporating discourses in
?nancial reports, and statements by senior corporate execu-
tives, unit and plant managers and shop ?oor workers. But
both processes of translation and authority and molestation
stress that local diversity, interest, and resistance could cre-
ate a gap between management discourse on the technolo-
gies of globalization (such as the BSC and KPIs) and the
customization of these technologies throughout the organi-
zation. Molestation, as we have argued, thus displays en-
abling and disabling characteristics. It is disabling to the
extent that resistance, refusals, sacri?ces, collisions, doubts
and compromises occur. But molestation is also enabling
in giving discourse a reality check, in helping rescue dis-
course from being a dream by bringing it back to its status
as trying to be believable (Said, 1975/1997: 24).
3
There is always likely to be molestation to a greater or
smaller extent. For example, a text may be intended to
be purely rhetorical, symbolic, or ?ctional. In such a case,
molestation registers rather high, for the connection be-
tween the text and reality (however this is de?ned) may
be tenuous (but still connect to a reader’s understanding).
A text produced by the CEO of an MNC concerning the
introduction of a new performance management system
intended to gain external legitimacy is likely to have a high
molestation register. Alternatively the author of a BSC-
based management control system may intend for it to
be put into practice (Quattrone, 2009) but the process of
translation may result in outcomes different from those
desired or anticipated because of the familiar problems of
translation, customization to different organizational lo-
cales and implementation, resistance, or indeed because
of inappropriate knowledge by the author of the capabili-
ties of distant sub-units. So, moving beyond Said’s concep-
tualization, for us molestation refers not only to the
intentions, ambiguities or lack of detailed knowledge of
the author, but also to the reception of the audience.
We draw on authorship/authority in order to analyze
the discourse on globalization produced and promoted by
the senior managers of Megacorp. The four elements of
authoring identi?ed by Said help us in understanding not
only the power of those who initiated the discourse of
globalization at Megacorp but also how that discourse is
articulated in different ways at different levels of manage-
ment. Further, our case study shows there are potentially
numerous texts in which globalization discourse can be
re-authored even by the same person over time. We draw
on molestation to explore the extent to which it may mod-
ify, frustrate or restrict the ability of the BSC, SPM, and KPIs
to convert management globalization discourse into some-
thing doable and practical. But we also stress its enabling
characteristic, in rescuing globalization discourse from
becoming a dream, a fantasy of, for example, not only se-
nior executives but also the understandings of plant super-
visors. Like Said, we understand molestation to include the
gap that exists between the discourse as authored by
2
Thus we have sympathy with critiques of discursive analyses of
accounting and management innovations that are inattentive to the
authority of the author. It leads to the possibility that of?cial discourses
are decontextualized and can result in merely repeating actors’ own
statements and offer little more than company public relations (Froud,
Williams, Haslam, Johal, & Williams, 1998).
3
Molestation also has some af?nity with notions of editing that are used
by Scandinavian institutional theorists (e.g., Sahlin-Andersson, 1996) but
that latter term emphasises ‘‘rules that restrict and direct the translation’’
(Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008: 225). We emphasise the enabling as well as the
restrictive features of discourse.
292 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
someone and his/her recognition that parts of that dis-
course are ?ctional. Authoring involves molestation and,
to the extent that molestation produces additional dis-
course, molestation augments authoring. But we go be-
yond Said in also considering as molestation the
alternative translations of corporate discourse on global-
ization in the process of its enactment and explore possible
sources of such molestation. Before using these ideas in our
case analysis we discuss our research method and provide
a brief overview of our focal organization.
Data collection and research method
The empirical material we draw upon comes from sev-
eral sources. First, over the 5 year period 2005–2009 we
conducted 97 semi-structured interviews at several loca-
tions in Megacorp
4
: three manufacturing sites producing
similar products in Germany, the UK and China; two sales
units in the UK and China; the national headquarters of
the plants and sales units in the UK, China, and Japan; and
the German headquarters of the major division to which
the manufacturing and sales units belong. The ?rm’s report-
ing structure can be considered a matrix form, with produc-
tion units reporting to product divisions and sales units
reporting nationally. The breakdown of the interviews is as
follows: in the UK, 51 interviews; 34 in China; 10 in Ger-
many and 2 in Japan. We selected Megacorp because we
were aware that they were implementing a Balanced Score-
card and we proceeded when we obtained good research ac-
cess (where the main condition required was an assurance
of anonymity). Second, we collected a large number of inter-
nal documents relating to historical accounts of Megacorp,
its organizational structure, the division to which the sub-
units belong, and manufacturing and sales units, key perfor-
mance indicators (KPIs) relating to each informant and their
de?nitions, and performance reports. We also obtained
other textual material on what informants identi?ed as
key processes and performance systems developed and dis-
seminated by Megacorp or those that emerged in manufac-
turing and sales units. Third, we examined publicly available
documents about Megacorp, including its annual reports
(1998–2009) and press coverage. Most of the empirical
material we draw upon, however, comes from interviews
and documents relating to the manufacturing and sales
units in China and the UK as well as the division’s interna-
tional HQ. Additional material collected about Megacorp
from visits to units in Germany and Japan are used as
background.
Our interviews were wide-ranging in terms of infor-
mants, their functions and hierarchical position. For exam-
ple, in the UK manufacturing unit, interviewees covered
the seven management levels in the plant, from the plant
manager to operators, and across all functions. This pattern
was repeated for the Chinese plant with the exception that
we did not interview anyone below the level of supervisors
because operators did not speak English, the formal
language in Megacorp. In sales units we interviewed staff
at different hierarchical levels and in various functions
including sales, advertising, marketing, ?nance, and HR.
At national and worldwide headquarters, our emphasis
has been upon gaining an understanding of Megacorp’s
discourse on globalization and how PMS and KPIs were de-
signed, translated, and enacted. Our interviews also sought
to solicit informants‘ views on how PMS and speci?c KPIs
emerged at sub-unit level, how they were de?ned and
the extent to which their de?nitions were customized to
suit the context, how informants engaged with these
PMS and KPIs in their day-to-day work, and how they
mobilized the measures to both inform themselves as well
as others about their activities. Each interview was con-
ducted in English, lasted between 1 and 1½ hours, and
was recorded and transcribed.
At the level of sub-units, informants were asked to ex-
plain brie?y their current jobs and employment history be-
fore responding to questions on a range of issues related to
the focus of the research project. These included the KPIs
that appear on the performance reports of the informant:
their de?nition, the informant’s understanding of these
measures, how the informant engaged with them in daily
activities, and how they impacted on the informant’s activ-
ities, appraisal, bonus earned, and career development. We
also asked about any recent changes in KPIs, either in their
de?nitions and/or their displacement by new PMS or KPIs;
the extent to which the informant negotiated the level of
target for each KPI with superiors; how the informant
thought his/her KPIs connected with the overall KPIs for
Megacorp; and how the informant used such measures to
inform herself/himself of subordinates’ activities and to in-
form superiors of his/her own performance. An additional
set of questions were asked of staff who were involved in
translating and customizing Megacorp’s global KPIs to
sub-units and also in developing their own local KPIs,
and the process of such customization.
The empirical material relating to the enactment of the
HQ’s globalization discourse by sub-units is organized
around two countries (The UK and China) and two facilities
(production and sales), producing a 2 Â 2 matrix. We also
examine PMS and KPIs at two levels: as a whole system,
such as the BSC for each cell, and as individual measures.
For each cell of the above matrix we examine one ?nancial
KPI (earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT) and one non-
?nancial KPI (suggestions as a measure of learning and
growth).
The interviews and documents (including analysis of
annual reports for the period 1998–2009) were read clo-
sely in their entirety and then organized around our key re-
search themes and related theoretical ideas. For example,
given our interest in examining the production and dis-
semination of the discourse on globalization in Megacorp,
we traced statements made by our interviewees and in
the other source documents, concerning what globaliza-
tion meant and who made such pronouncements. Simi-
larly, interviews and documents were analyzed around
themes relating to the emergence of KPIs, their translation
and customization, and their enactment by sub-units. Our
analysis was largely based on careful reading and re-read-
ing of the materials and discussions among the authors on
the relation between theoretical categories and our inter-
4
To preserve anonymity, all names used in the text to refer to the
company of our study or any of its parts are pseudonyms.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 293
views, site visits and examination of corporate materials.
Although we did not strictly follow the methods of
grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) given our apiori
theoretical framing, we were nonetheless in?uenced by
these methods in data collection and analysis. As the data
collection phase lasted over 5 years, we could iterate back
and forth between our theoretical categories (such as the
components of globalization and the processes of author-
ing and molestation) and our ongoing data collection. To-
wards the end of our ?eldwork, we more explicitly
incorporated discourse analysis, with an emphasis on what
Clarke (2005) refers to as situational analysis of texts,
where what is written is analyzed in terms of context
(mainly social space).
Megacorp
Many writers emphasize the importance of locating an
analysis of discourse in a speci?c context (Clarke, 2005).
Accordingly, we offer some background on Megacorp, a
major MNC with headquarters in Germany. Megacorp
operates in over 100 countries, with half a million employ-
ees, and a world-wide turnover of tens of £ billions. The
international HQ identi?es three key, ‘global’ steps to
achieving success across its sub-units: goals (e.g., increas-
ing EBIT, optimizing customer bene?ts), measures (e.g.,
implementing business-speci?c measures, applying sys-
tematic best practice, developing staff), and consequences
(e.g., monitoring and measuring success, offering incen-
tives, applying sanctions) (Internal Document, undated).
Megacorp’s portfolio of activities at the time of the inter-
views covered six major divisions, including the Electron-
ics Division that has numerous production and sales
units around the world. We focus on four units within
the Electronics Division, two in the UK and two in China.
ElectronUK is part of MegacorpUK, and it employs about
400 people, has a turnover of approximately £50 M and
produces high volume, low complexity electronic products.
In the late 1990s, ElectronUK was designated a semi-inde-
pendent business and given increased autonomy in manu-
facturing, sales, design, and marketing. Its average annual
pro?t since then has been about £5 M. However, Megacorp
centrally determines the transfer price for ElectronUK’s
products and major currency movements has meant that:
‘‘despite our volume in pieces growing, our volume in turn-
over wasn’t growing. So consequently our pro?tability was
getting hit very hard because of the exchange rate’’ (Fi-
nance Manager, ElectronUK). Declining pro?tability in the
mid 2000s prompted HQ to issue an ultimatum that unless
ElectronUK turned these ?gures around, it would be shut:
‘‘Along came China and we were literally told two years
ago ‘guys, you either meet the cost level that China can of-
fer or you know it could be curtains’’’ (Manager,
ElectronUK).
Megacorp started in China (MegacorpChina) in 1985
and ElectronChina began production in 1996, following
the formation of a joint venture between Megacorp and
two Chinese companies. It specializes in high value elec-
tronic products. By 2003 MegacorpChina was delivering
the third highest international sales for the Electronics
Division, and employing over 20,000 people (source: inter-
nal document, 2003). Following a period of average annual
growth of 30% for a decade, competition began to intensify:
‘‘All our major international competitors are here
[China]. What’s more, we face increased competition
from a new breed of homegrown Chinese manufactur-
ers. Competition is aggressive and often centres on
price. As a result, margins are under pressure in almost
all our businesses’’ (CEO, MegacorpChina, internal doc-
ument 2003).
Local Chinese competitors used their low cost base to
‘‘offer comparable products for prices signi?cantly below
our [ElectronChina] cost – and still make a pro?t’’ (CEO,
MegacorpChina, internal document 2003). However,
against this background of slim pro?ts and tough competi-
tion, ElectronChina has been growing rapidly from a pro-
duction facility of around 200 employees in early 2005,
when our interviews began, to nearly 700 employees by
the time we concluded our interviews in 2009.
In both the UK and China, sales units were established
with the purpose of buying products from their national
plants and selling them to external customers. Our infor-
mants suggested that strong links exist between the pro-
duction plants and the national sales unit to coordinate
production, product range and delivery times, as well as
to deal with internal product transfers.
Three systems co-existed at Megacorp, all promoted in
the name of encouraging globalization and facilitating
management control: Time (TIME); Process Improvement
(PI); and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). These systems, to-
gether with an organizational wide ERP system that pro-
moted standardization of control systems, provide the
broad management context within which globalization
was intended to be made practical and through which per-
formance measures were intended to push a globalization
agenda.
TIME was introduced in 1993 by Megacorp as its ‘‘re-
sponse to the globalising world’’ (Annual Report, 1993),
and is presented as Megacorp’s ‘‘global business excellence
initiative’’ (Internal documents, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).
Its stated aim is to increase pro?tability by stimulating
sales revenue and reducing costs across the whole organi-
zation. To achieve these ends, TIME relies heavily on inno-
vation and benchmarking, with a focus on KPIs for
ef?ciency and productivity. Each unit within Megacorp
has discretion to use TIME in whatever way it deemed ?t:
‘‘It’s not prescriptive inasmuch as it doesn’t say that you
have to do this and you have to do that. It says you have
to look into these areas, but it’s up to you how you go
about it’’ (Manager, international HQ).
Process Improvement (PI) is a benchmarked best practice
approach for routine processes, such as meeting a cus-
tomer request or requesting a tender from suppliers. Con-
cern with designing and managing standard business
processes at multiple locales has been at the heart of
how the senior management of Megacorp sought to con-
vert its globalization and best practice discourse into KPIs
that would impact local practice.
294 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
Balanced Scorecard (BSC): The BSC was formally intro-
duced in the Electronics Division in 1999 and seen as an-
other way to promote conformity with senior
management’s discourse on globalization, excellence, ef?-
ciency and greater uniformity of performance measure-
ment and monitoring across all units. It has the familiar
four quadrants: customer/market; ?nancial; internal pro-
cesses; and people/innovation/learning and growth. An
Internal Document (2003, Electronics Division) claims that
‘‘all measurable business performance data is recorded on
the Balanced Score Card’’. Another document (2004) states
that:
‘‘Some 40 individual measures exist on the Top level
Business Balanced Score Card. These measures are con-
sidered the key indicators for the ‘health of the busi-
ness’. Each measure has a target which re?ects either
agreed business goals or stretch goals to achieve
improvement. . . In addition, a ‘target for excellence’
that is considered to be a truly world class target which
should be expected by companies operating within our
?eld, is also shown on the Balanced Score Card for each
measure.’’
The appeal in the above quote to ‘a truly world class tar-
get for excellence’ is an example of how senior manage-
ment views the BSC as one of the means of rendering
practical its discourse on globalization. Ever since its intro-
duction in Megacorp, the BSC has been strongly connected
to both Time and PI as the KPIs related to these two man-
agement technologies have been incorporated into the
BSC. We will pay particular attention to the BSC, partly be-
cause it receives so much attention in the management
control literature, but also because its proponents explic-
itly claim that it is intended to convert talk about strategy
(e.g., strategies related to globalization) into a set of mea-
sures and targets that will produce actions and initiatives.
In short, it is designed to connect discourses to practices.
Before we focus on the BSC and KPIs, we explore the ways
in which Megacorp articulated its concerns regarding
globalization.
Megacorp: discourses on globalization
In this section we draw on Said’s four elements of
authoring/authority to examine the globalization discourse
produced by Megacorp, the extent to which it connects
with the wider discursive ?eld on globalization, how
Megacorp’s discourse relates to its aspirations and context
as constructed by its managers, and how these managers
sought to render such globalization discourses practical.
We view senior managers as subjects who, in making pro-
nouncements, author texts, and that their authoring of
such a discourse is an intentional activity that seeks to
make a difference by producing speci?c meaning of con-
cepts such as globalization and offers speci?c accounting
technologies linked to their view of globalization. As we
will see, all the elements of authority identi?ed by Said
(1975/1997) are present here: initiating or inaugurating
the discourse on globalization by the senior management
of Megacorp, augmenting it via additions, ownership and
control of the globalization discourse, and authors main-
taining the continuity of this discourse. Applying Said’s
argument, managers do not invent discourse; rather they
begin a discourse by repeating previous discourses while
also engaging in an authoring activity that entails addi-
tions, deletions, and re-interpretations. They thus develop
previous discourses. Thus, pronouncements on globaliza-
tion by senior managers are never a ‘?nished object’, but
connect with, and also displace, previous discourses.
Authority is also an important element in managerial dis-
course, so a discourse on globalization produced by the
CEO has a resonance and authority fundamentally different
from that attributed to a discourse on globalization pro-
duced by a junior manager, because discourse constitutes
managers as senior or junior, and endows senior managers
with authority to be key spokespersons (Ezzamel & Will-
mott, 2008).
Our case attends to the multiple layers of organizational
voices that make the analysis of intentionality extremely
dif?cult. While Megacorp’s CEO may not actually write
their own speeches or contributions to company maga-
zines, we suggest that such subtleties may not be impor-
tant to the interpretations and meanings that are
assumed by many internal audiences. Similarly, while we
point out the possibility that molestations may make a text
more practical and realistic, this does not imply that this is
the intention of the molester. Authors may or may not be-
lieve their own statements, and there are many degrees of
?ction or truthfulness. Concerning molestation, senior
managers are in an authoritative position that can make
their discursive statements seem doable. This is because
discourse constitutes some managers as occupying senior
positions in the organizational hierarchy by dint of which
they are able to mobilize resources and technologies (such
as accounting techniques) that are intended to entice their
subordinates to take actions consistent with senior manag-
ers´ discourse. While we offer some conjectures in the con-
clusions about conscious and unconscious intentionality of
authors and molesters, we do not explore the conscious-
ness of actors in our analysis.
We focus on how PMS, and in particular the BSC and
KPIs, are intervening media by which managers as
authors/authority aim to make actionable their strategic
discourse about globalization. The BSC and KPIs are con-
ceptualized here as a form of writing that is intended to
make possible different perceptions and behavior (Said,
1975/1997). Senior managers have a strong desire to main-
tain, even enhance, their credibility in the eyes of their rel-
evant constituencies. They have an interest in making the
gap between their discursive claims and attendant results
appear as small as possible. As technologies that permit
or make possible different forms of behavior and percep-
tion, the BSC and individual KPIs can help inculcate in
organizational actors a calculative mentality, driven by tar-
gets, in the quest to convert discourse into tangible mea-
sures of achievement. Measures are not the only means
by which discourses on globalization make possible spe-
ci?c management actions, but they are important. They
are part of an approach to managing by numbers or evi-
dence (Ezzamel, Hoskin, & Macve, 1990), even when man-
agers at Megacorp are aware of the contingencies of the
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 295
globalization discourse they produce, and of its potential
molestation. Discourse, including speci?c measures, may
be seen as part fact and part aspiration (a ?ction) until it
is rendered into actions susceptible to intervention
through, for example, technologies of accounting. But as
Said’s (1975/1997) work has shown, putting a discourse
into practice inevitably triggers various sources of molesta-
tion such as collisions, compromises, refusals, sacri?ces
and renunciations.
We ?rst explore how Megacorp’s senior managers be-
gan to initiate a discourse on globalization in their
authored annual reports. Managers made reference in
Mageacorp’s annual reports as early as 1993 to how the
company must tune its activities to ‘global’ conditions
and ‘global’ markets. In the 1993 annual report, there were
84 references to the ‘international, global world’ and the
‘economic environment’; this latter term was included in
subsequent annual reports as a key part of Megacorp’s def-
inition of globalization. Subsequent annual reports gradu-
ally increased their reference to globalization; for
example the 1998 Annual Report suggests that the com-
pany must gain leadership in international markets and
that it must be listed in the USA in order to push ‘‘globali-
sation and meet demands of international ?nancial mar-
kets’’ (p. 7). In the same report, increasing globalization
of markets was identi?ed as one of the key risks that Mega-
corp must manage by developing a balanced international
portfolio of activities (pp. 55–56). Connection to globaliza-
tion became even stronger in later reports; for example the
2002 Annual Report (p. 7) included a page entitled ‘‘Global
Presence’’, listing the countries where the company oper-
ates, the number of its international employees, and high-
lighting Megacorp’s ‘‘global knowledge networks’’ and its
‘‘diversity advantage’’. The Report identi?ed ‘‘Global Pres-
ence’’ as one of three Megacorp’s cornerstones, in addition
to customer oriented innovation and sound ?nancial man-
agement (2002 Annual Report, p. 17). Thus, authoring a
discourse on globalization at Megacorp was inaugurated
(Said, 1975/2009: 83) with reference to the global environ-
ment and the need for Megacorp to become a major global
player, but it was only in 2002 that the company’s dis-
course on globalization was authored in reference to the
company’s diversity advantage and ‘‘Global Presence’’.
Thereafter, the company’s ‘‘brand’’ of globalization dis-
course began to be articulated more by Megacorp’s senior
managers through repetition of parts of the globalization
discourse in the discursive ?eld, augmentation by incorpo-
rating additional elements assumed to be Megacorp-spe-
ci?c, and controlling and maintaining the continuity of
this discourse (Said, 1975/2009: 23; 83).
Thus, several annual reports (e.g., 2003, pp. 7–11; 106)
emphasized enhancing Megacorp’s global competitiveness
through expansion of operations in lower cost locations
worldwide and capitalizing on the multicultural back-
ground of its employees. They also emphasized the desire
to reduce the risk of global foreign currency translation
by globalizing company activities through acquisitions,
divestment or joint ventures and optimizing its world-
wide value chain. The letter to Shareholders in the 2005
Annual Report (p. 7) states that growth goals have to be
set as a multiple of global economic growth and in the
2006 Report explicitly targets ‘‘growth at twice the global
GDP growth rate’’ (p. 135). It further identi?es two global
trends: urbanization and demographic change from which
Megacorp is said to be able to bene?t, given its global port-
folio of activities. The 2006 Annual Report identi?es a glo-
bal performance management system for staff appraisal
and links the remuneration of members of the board of
directors to several factors including Global Presence
(2006 Annual Report, p. 25). These latter annual reports
therefore show how the discourse on globalization contin-
ued to be authored by Megacorp’s senior managers, with
each report repeating (e.g. higher growth aspirations) and
adding (e.g., company-speci?c targets such as ‘‘growth at
twice the global GDP growth rate’’) to the previous dis-
course. As authors of the company annual reports, Mega-
corp senior managers were able to initiate, in?uence and
maintain the continuity of this discourse.
5
Other publications were produced throughout Mega-
corp, at the international HQ level, national HQ level, and
divisional level, containing various statements about glob-
alization authored by Megacorp’s top executives. The main
goal of Megacorp was stated as ‘‘worldwide leadership’’
across all product ranges. At the international HQ level,
the CEO discourse connected most directly with globaliza-
tion as an expression of corporate identity in a manner
consistent with a multitude of positive external press re-
leases whereby many companies extol the virtues of glob-
alization (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005):
‘‘Our global competitiveness program is designed to
increase the ef?ciency of our services worldwide and
decrease costs. . . we must make our procurement more
global, in large measure due to ?uctuations in interest
rates. Also, whether we’re talking about production,
software development, engineering services or admin-
istrative functions, we have to optimize our value crea-
tion chain by expanding in those markets that exhibit
the most dynamic growth, staying close to customers
and to the skills of local specialists. . . [Megacorp] has
been international right from the start. Today we utilize
the opportunities offered by globalization to balance
our regional business presence. Our global presence
enables us to leverage the skills and strengths of
employees all over the world’’ (CEO published inter-
view, Megacorp internal magazine, 2004).
The above quote is an example of senior executives’
participation in a dialogue that is shaped by, but also
shapes, a collective public vocabulary on globalization;
an instance of repetition that entails authoring discourse
through additions, possession and continuity (Said, 1975/
1997). Having begun the discourse on globalization in the
annual reports for several years previously, the CEO’s inter-
view connects with some of the key advantages claimed
for globalization: global integration of markets, liberal
movements across markets, and the promise of a win-
win for all (Steger, 2005), through increased ef?ciency,
5
An emphasis on the opportunities of globalization echo the ?ndings of
Fiss and Hirsch (2005) concerning the positive treatment of globalization in
company annual reports, and are also consistent with the discourse on
globalization (Steger, 2005) that presents it as a win-win for all.
296 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
lower costs, optimization of value creation, balancing of re-
gional business activities, and leveraging the skills and
strengths of employees. The quote also adds to these repe-
titions by identifying some global dimensions that relate
speci?cally to Megacorp. It directly connects globalization
to competition of services and production, emphasizing
the need to balance Megacorp’s presence across the world.
It also speaks to the globalization of procurement to pro-
vide protection against ?uctuations in interest rates, and
thereby places the company within global money markets.
Further, the quote emphasizes the attainment of globaliza-
tion via the mobilization of local knowledge and skills to
stay close to local customers, so in the discourse of the
CEO the ‘global’ and ‘local’ are intertwined in a manner
reminiscent of the aspiration to ‘Being Local Worldwide’
(Bélanger, Berggren, Björkman, & Köhler, 1999).
At the same time, the quote also involves molestation,
since, as Said (1975/1997) argues, authoring and molesta-
tion are intertwined. Molestation can take place through
simple resistance, in terms of anti-authority behavior or
scepticism about the vagueness of the statements. It can
also spring from the inevitable ignorance of the CEO about
all dimensions of Megacorp’s activities (a feature even the
writer of the text may be aware of, hence Said’s reference
to the author’s duplicity) and the exclusion of some activ-
ities that may be seen by some as crucial to global compet-
itiveness, such as ?nancial engineering, marketing,
reputation and risk management and the behavior of com-
petitors. As we suggest later, molestation also results from
the inevitable confusions and multiple interpretations of
readers; what is the meaning and implications for the
audience of terms such as ef?ciency, costs, optimization,
value creation chain, skills, balance and leverage? Yet, by
?lling such terms with speci?c meanings, readers can also
imagine the text as realistic, informative and authoritative
and thus molestation can enable the discourse to be res-
cued from being a regarded as a fantasy, a dream, or
impractical.
What of the globalization discourse of those managers
immediately below the level of Megacorp’s CEO?
6
In
1997 one of Megacorp’s Vice-CEOs stated:
‘‘We used to be a German company doing business
everywhere. Now we think of ourselves as a company
with a German background in the European market
doing global business. Our organization re?ects that
perspective in [our] decentralized decision-making.
We are much ?atter, and our operational divisions act
as entrepreneurs. We have improved and intensi?ed
our communications, both vertically and horizontally.’’
(Business press)
Similarly, in 2005, Megacorp’s CEO stated in a business
article: ‘‘We are a global company but we stand for German
quality, reliability and high-tech competence’’. These
quotes emphasize some of the attributes that the discourse
on globalization attaches to the concept of a global organi-
zation: national identity becoming a background to a glo-
bal presence rather than the de?ning identity of
Megacorp; promoting decentralized decision making and
entrepreneurship; emphasizing communication (presum-
ably to compress time and space given the number of
countries the company operates in); reliability and high-
tech competency. Authored discourse thus becomes in-
dexed not only to the discursive ?eld but also to the spe-
ci?c context of Megacorp, hence the meanings
intentionally produced by the authors of the discourse ac-
quire a signi?cance that is tied to the company.
The authoring occurs at different levels of the organiza-
tion, whereby the meanings produced of the elements and
attributes of the discourse become more expressly relevant
to the hierarchical level. This is the dialectic between
authoring and molestation: the attributes of a ‘global orga-
nization’ become more speci?c (and somewhat different)
in the globalization discourse produced at the Electronic
Division’s HQ level:
‘‘Global business to me means: ?rst, you manufacture
globally, so wherever your markets are you will have
a manufacturing outlet. Second, you do sales globally
so you will not have a centralized organization where
you would actually buy them airplane tickets and send
them out centrally throughout the world. You have a
global sales force there where the market is. Third –
more and more [Megacorp] also has made decisions
now in the last 2 or 3 years to invest heavily in R&D
expenditures globally which means you do not have a
centralized R&D department with lots of wise guys, lots
of super-German engineers and German ingenuity is
not always the blessing throughout the world, you
know, especially in different markets so you need dif-
ferent market attitudes, you have to understand the
market, the market needs, the customer needs and it’s
also what we decided in [product X] actually to invest
quite heavily in R&D expenditures – for example in
China, for example in the US, and of course in Europe
anyways, but you have your product management, your
sales force, your R&D engineers in the markets plus the
manufacturing in the markets. This is a true global com-
pany.’’ (Commercial Director, interview)
This quote articulates what ‘global’ has been con-
structed to mean at the divisional level. Here, the discourse
is concerned with how globalization can be made practical,
by identifying the somewhat broad steps to be taken in
manufacturing, sales, and R&D. In this discourse globaliza-
tion is to be achieved through making these three key
activities responsive to local customer needs and employee
skills. Again, we witness here the argument that globaliza-
tion is engineered through localization, or in ‘‘being local
worldwide’’, but without providing speci?c details of how
the global is enacted locally. So, molestation enters not
simply through the text recognizing the weaknesses of
‘German ingenuity’ and the variability of different markets
6
Globalization is an umbrella suf?ciently broad to encompass a variety
of discourses produced (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005: 32) and promoted by different
groups: academia, the press, policy makers, gurus, etc. Discourse on
globalization constructs a public domain in which globalization is contin-
ually debated, contested, and reshaped. Precisely how the wider discourse
on globalization emerged and what macro or micro structural discontinu-
ities gave rise to its production are interesting issues but are beyond the
scope of this paper. We do, however, pay attention to which elements of
Megacorp’s discourse on globalization connect to the discourse on global-
ization circulating in the public domain.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 297
and attitudes, but also as readers interpret the statement
and relate it to their own experiences and values. In so
doing, molestation is not simply disabling. Rather, by ?ag-
ging up the weaknesses of some parts of the discourse,
molestation plays an enabling role by bringing the dis-
course closer to the level of practice and makes it more
believable. Also, interpretation of the discourse in light of
personal experiences and values helps impart more imme-
diacy and meaningfulness to it.
The discourse on globalization produced by Megacorp’s
managers is not unique; rather by virtue of it being index-
ical to the discursive ?eld, it is expected to bear strong sim-
ilarity to that ?eld. The authoring of the company’s
discourse therefore involves appropriation (repetition) of
some of the elements of the wider discursive ?eld. One
example is the statement: ‘Think global, act local’. Given
the widespread emphasis upon the customer in practi-
tioner discourses, it should not be surprising to ?nd that
the above statement is an important discursive element
that is part of the wider discursive ?eld on globalization
(e.g., Robertson, 1992: 177).
Megacorp has introduced this ‘Think global, act local’
motif worldwide and, even though this discursive ele-
ment was appropriated from the wider discursive ?eld,
it was still ‘authored’ by its managers in the sense of
being interpreted, customized and augmented (Said,
1975/1997), so at the level of detail it is never the same
as the elements that circulate in the discursive ?eld. For
example one translation of yet another popular injunc-
tion: ‘Think customer, act customer’ introduced at Elec-
tronUK is: ‘‘We will employ the best people in an
excellent, cost effective working environment. We will
be reliable partners for our customers and aspire to the
highest level of logistics, service and support’’ (Mission
Statement, undated). In contrast, in SalesUK, ‘Think cus-
tomer, act customer’ meant: ‘‘Understand the needs of
our customers and markets; speak the customers’ lan-
guage, and deliver reliable products and solutions with
world class service and support’’ (Mission Statement,
2004). Hence, even within MegacorpUK the same injunc-
tion exhibits variety as meanings are negotiated at sub-
unit level. The process of authoring and molestation go
on unabated, as after a few years of the launch of ‘Think
customer, act customer’ imperative, it was subsequently
reduced to ‘Think customer’ (Manager, SalesUK). The
explanation offered was that it made sense to simply fo-
cus on ‘Think customer’ as ‘think customer’ will promote
actions consistent with customer satisfaction. Thus, a
statement such as ‘Think customer, act customer’ under-
went molestation, and variations and multiple authoring,
rendering a unique interpretation of it problematical.
We have argued that Megacorp’s discourse on global-
ization is indexical to the wider discursive ?eld, and that
authoring such discourse by senior managers involved
the four elements identi?ed by Said (1975/1997). First,
there is initiation whereby senior managers exercise their
authority in beginning to talk about globalization in
speeches, press interview, company magazines and the
?nancial statements, in the process appropriating and
repeating elements from the discursive ?eld. Second, aug-
mentation such that the discourse appears as if it were the
speci?c brand of a particular MNC or even a particular level
within the same MNC, notwithstanding that similar state-
ments are undoubtably made by other executives in other
MNCs. Third, there is possession and control of the dis-
course by senior managers in the form of its attribution
to their own utterings, although the reception of such
authoritative utterances is typically problematic. Finally,
we have shown that globalization statements appear to
be continuous as a process that is being elaborated, some-
times stressing for example, win-win outcomes, other
times underscoring the importance of integrated markets
and yet other times emphasizing global supply chain or
capital markets. These authored discourses entailed an
intentional production of meaning in terms of what global-
ization meant at each level in Megacorp, and they were
utterings aimed at permitting, or making possible, a do-
main of action or practice in which the aspirations of being
a global company can be attained.
Our analysis of molestation relies on the struggle to link
discourse on globalization to the means through which
such discourse is rendered practical for all concerned.
While much of our discussion explores how the globaliza-
tion discourses of senior managers are molested, it is
important to stress that the globalization discourses of
sub unit managers, shop ?oor operatives and others lower
in the managerial hierarchy can also be molested (ignored,
re-framed, questioned, translated, etc.) throughout the
organization. The above discussion of molestation under-
scores two attributes: molestation as restriction or resis-
tance (refusals, collisions, sacri?ces, renunciations,
compromises, etc.), but also molestation as enabling in
making discourse more closely connected to the reality of
organizational actors. These attributes are discussed fur-
ther in the remainder of this paper.
Megacorp: rendering globalization discourses practical?
Consider the statement ‘Think customer, act customer’,
which was wide-spread in Megacorp, incorporated into
each sub-unit’s mission statement, and translated dia-
grammatically in Megacorp’s Process Improvement model,
for example in terms of identi?cation and ful?lment of
customer requirements. Each activity that was deemed rel-
evant to the ‘Think customer, act customer’ injunction was
translated further into a number of statements stipulating
steps to be followed for its enactment. For example,
answering customer telephone enquiries was translated
into a schema entitled ‘Dog & Bone – 5 steps to the perfect
call’, that each employee was required to follow. Further, a
table was designed to convert ‘Think customer, act cus-
tomer’ into a numeric matrix that quanti?ed items such
as customer satisfaction survey results, mystery shopper
scores, random caller survey results, think customer effec-
tiveness, leaders commitment, and percentage of staff
trained. All these scores were aggregated into a numeric
summary called the ‘think customer index’ that was used
to monitor the extent to which each unit was successful
in enacting the ‘Think customer, act customer’ ambition.
This metric was published on the company’s intranet, so
that each sub-unit could readily compare its performance
with other sub-units. Finally, the importance of enacting
298 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
this discursive injunction was emphasized through articles
published in various internal magazines produced by
Megacorp, and also via an annual reward system for
employees assessed to have excelled at enacting ‘Think
customer, act customer’.
While this example sheds some light on how Megacorp
managers attempted to render a particular discursive ele-
ment of their globalization discourse practical, the above
description provides no comment on the extent to which
these detailed measures successfully translated the ambi-
tions of the company managers in making it global, nor
how effectively they were put into practice. This is what
we do in the following sections. Speci?cally, we are inter-
ested in exploring the management control systems intro-
duced by Megacorp with the aim of realizing its more
general and pervasive globalization discourse and on
exploring examples of the incidents and sources of moles-
tation (both enabling and restrictive). In particular, we
seek to articulate how accounting technologies intervene
in the process of making globalization discourse into
something doable within the context such intervention
operates. Below, we discuss three elements of performance
management systems that were central to the efforts of
Megacorp’s senior managers in their quest to produce a
global organization: benchmarking, the BSC, and speci?c
performance indicators (KPIs).
Enacting globalization: Benchmarking
The discourse on globalization at Megacorp not only
emphasized aspirations of where the company should be
located in global markets, but also underscored the impor-
tance of global benchmarking, as a crucial element of this
location and the ?rm’s capabilities and challenges. To be
a global competitor, the company believed it had to con-
nect with global conditions and global markets, something
that Megacorp has been aiming for, as evidenced in its
emphasis upon ‘Global Presence’’ and its global competi-
tiveness program (as indicated earlier). Benchmarking en-
tails the aspiration to improve upon, or at least match, a
leading competitor or internal sub-unit on some dimen-
sions of performance. As we show below, Megacorp’s aspi-
rations for benchmarking emphasized issues such as value
chain, customer preferences, procurement, R&D activities,
time to market, and cost competitiveness. Accounting
technologies such as the BSC and KPIs are means by which
such benchmarking objectives are rendered possible and
meaningful through their translation into targets and
initiatives.
In Megacorp’s internal publications, frequent appeals
are made to producing a globalized corporation via bench-
marking Megacorp’s performance against leading interna-
tional and national competitors. For example, an internal
publication (Annual Review) produced by MegacorpUK
presents its various divisions (including Electronics) as:
‘‘the only company in the world with core competencies
in three key technologies. . .’’, ‘‘the world’s largest supplier
of the [X] product’’, ‘‘a world leader in the [Y] industry’’,
and ‘‘one of the UK’s leading [manufacturers]’’; these state-
ments seek to underscore Megacorp‘s dominance against
the global market with close competitors as the signi?cant
others. In a business article, MegacorpUK’s CEO states: ‘‘the
global context must be the critical driver for multinational
organizations like [Megacorp].’’ More speci?cally, it is
claimed that the UK Electronics Division’s ‘‘innovative
and versatile technology’’ helps its customers ‘‘to compete
globally and respond and adapt swiftly to evolving market
needs’’ (internal document, undated). This benchmarking
by the UK Division of its performance against global com-
petitors resonates with Kristensen and Zeitlin’s (2005)
observation that local units of APV connected to global ide-
als by comparing their performance to those of global
competitors.
One strategy of maximizing global potential is for a sub-
unit to present itself to its parent company as the location
where most competitive advantage could be gained via the
transfer of operations from other sub-units. For example,
the CEO of MegacorpChina stated:
‘‘we must convince our Group to move more parts of
the value chain to China. On a local level we have to
engage in aggressive sales stimulation and cost man-
agement measures. . . We must also target local cus-
tomer preferences and feature requirements. . . it is
important to establish R&D activities in China to better
meet local needs. . . we must . . . step up local procure-
ment’’ (internal document, 2003).
In authoring this statement, the CEO of MegacorpChina
stresses the importance of localizing many of the com-
pany’s activities in an effort to expand the company’s man-
ufacturing and engineering base, and internalise more
parts of the value chain supported by cost management
measures, as he presents his sub-unit as the location to at-
tain such gains for Megacorp. This emphasis upon localiza-
tion is presented as a means of rendering the globalization
discourse of the senior executives of Megacorp practical; it
both molests and augments the comments of the Commer-
cial Director discussed in the previous section about the
value of local R&D and the risks of ‘‘lots of super-German
engineers and German ingenuity’’. While the attainment
of globalization is here seen to be vested in capitalizing
upon the merits of localization, it also re?ects a criticism
of those parts of the published 2004 interview of the CEO
of Megacorp (discussed previously) that stressed global
procurement. This is an authoring at a local level that seeks
to make possible the writings of more senior executives
(Said, 1975/1997). In a further statement, the Chinese
CEO suggests that local Chinese competitors are capable
of making speedy decisions, allowing them to react quickly
to market trends. In contrast, he recognizes molestation by
complaining about the time consumed in ‘‘lengthy debates
on minor issues’’ that compromises the competitiveness of
MegacorpChina and which he thought was typical of the
international HQ. He warns that:
‘‘we have to be careful that we do not copy the German
‘Abstimmkultur’ where every decision requires a con-
sensus’’, as this style leads to ‘‘protracted discussions
between headquarters and the regional companies
[that] also waste precious time – time that our compet-
itors are using to beat us to market with new products
and better services.’’
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 299
Though sometimes emphasizing different dimensions,
these various texts on globalization authored by Mega-
corp’s managers underscore the initiation of the discourse,
augmenting it through the power of authoring and the
attendant authority of the senior manager, their ownership
of the discourse and the act of repetition that emphasizes
continuity that is intentionally aimed at the production
of meaning (Said, 1975/1997). Authoring also involves
molestation, in that augmentation goes beyond repetition,
often implying criticism to make the initial discourse more
practical. It could also re?ect other aspects of molestation,
such as the in?uence of national stereotypes and allegiance
(Barrett et al., 2005). This dialectic between authoring and
molestation is a signi?cant feature of Said’s analysis of dis-
course, and one that is neglected in most prior analyses of
discourse and translation in the accounting literature. Fur-
ther, these discursive statements on globalization are also
speech acts (Assmann, 2006) whereby senior managers
aim to produce speci?c effects through the use of interven-
ing media, such as cost management and other perfor-
mance measures, in the hope of making their discourse
‘realistic’, and thereby practical.
The above statements also identify risks (e.g., of pro-
tracted discussions), that are construed as being at odds
with the Chinese context. Connections to local and interna-
tional competition are rarely absent from this discourse, a
discourse that increasingly links the company’s ability to
improve its competitive position by improving its cost
structure:
‘‘[We must] stand up against tough foreign and local
competitors. Cost competitiveness is a key to our suc-
cess. Local Chinese competitors as well as some of our
international competitors have a major cost advantage
because they managed to create more local added
value. . . A major [Megacorp’s] strength is its global
reach through its local presence’’ (CEO of MegacorpChi-
na, internal document, 2003).
This quote benchmarks the achievements of Megacorp-
China against both local Chinese and international compet-
itors. The play of the ‘local’ against the ‘global’ is evident, a
play that seeks to differentiate, yet unite, both concepts as
intertwined parts of how Megacorp as a global player is to
be performed.
Employees were told in internal documents that it was
important to follow Megacorp’s version of process man-
agement (PI) with its emphasis on KPIs and the BSC, in or-
der for the company to be a ‘‘worldwide leader’’:
‘‘One of the ?elds of standardization is the de?nition of
process milestones and key performance indicators
(KPI). With the implementation of our standard pro-
cesses and their KPIs we can measure quality, perfor-
mance, and costs of these processes. The results of the
process changes will be visible by comparing the KPIs.
This shows not only if there is a positive trend, but also
how far we are away from industry averages and indus-
try best practice.’’ (Process Framework, 2004, see Fig. 1)
Thus, apart from assessing their internal progress, man-
agers saw KPIs as the means through which they can mea-
sure how company performance compares with industry
averages and best practice as their most relevant global
benchmarks. This intention to use accounting technologies
as an important means of rendering globalization dis-
course practical is further reinforced through the Elec-
tronic Divisions’ focus on benchmarking their
pro?tability targets against global competitors in relevant
markets: ‘‘To conquer pro?tably market position No. 1 or
No. 2 worldwide in the relevant markets’’ (Process Frame-
work, 2004: 16). This argument is presented in company
internal documents in a diagram (see Fig. 1) that has Mega-
corp’s goal at the apex (‘‘Worldwide leadership’’) with the
BSC located at the third level of strategy implementation
(‘‘Resources and Drivers’’). We have stressed how bench-
marking against internal and external competitors rein-
forces a speci?c discourse of competitive globalization.
We examine below the role of the BSC as an intervention
between the international HQ discourse on globalization
and the activities of local units.
Enacting globalization: the BSC
In manufacturing and sales the term ‘global’ was in-
voked by interviewees from sub-units, without prompting
from the researchers, and was deployed in reference to
many issues. For example, informants presented their local
units as being part of a global organization. Further, enact-
ment of global ideals occurred in a variety of ways, for
example in the quest by sub-units to obtain parts through
corporate global purchasing, in connection to competition,
or in reference to their markets. While sub-unit managers
were requested to procure their materials from a list of
international suppliers sanctioned by HQ, the more sub-
units followed such a procedure, the less the extent of
molestation as achievements came closer to the discourse
on the globalization of procurement. Yet, molestation in
the form of compromise occurred in cases where sub-units
negotiated with the HQ to use local suppliers not sanc-
tioned by HQ, thereby actively modifying the globalization
discourse of HQ.
Sub-unit actors, in consuming senior managers’ dis-
course on globalization, interpret, rede?ne, and customize
that discourse and hence author their own version of glob-
alization. Their production of alternative discourses may
partly displace the globalization discourse disseminated
by senior managers. Molestation therefore leads to alterna-
tive discourses of practice emerging. Further, just like the
globalization discourse produced by managers at the inter-
national HQ, the discourses offered by managers at na-
tional or sub-unit levels are produced from a local
vantage point. All these locales are spaces in which the glo-
bal is imagined (Robertson, 1992) and where sub-unit
managers discursively enact the global. Further, sub-units
enact globalization through their interaction with the BSC
and KPIs, as measures that translate the discourse into spe-
ci?c accounting targets.
Senior managers in Megacorp devised several systems
and processes to push a globalization initiative throughout
the company. We have argued that the BSC and KPIs have
the potential to act as intervening media, the carriers of se-
nior management’s aspirations concerning globalization,
and as a means of translating global vision into seemingly
300 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
concrete and precise targets of performance across time
and space. However, the success with which the BSC and
KPIs can deliver on this role depends largely on the extent
of molestation through the interaction of sub-unit staff
with these technologies.
The Electronics Division’s international HQ was intro-
duced to the BSC by a senior manager, who came across
some of Kaplan and Norton’s articles in the mid 1990s:
‘‘I read an article from Kaplan and I found it very attrac-
tive, so I had an idea sort of to monitor the whole busi-
ness via the four sectors [perspectives], and found it
also very attractive. So run through the process that
leads from starting with the vision and the strategy
and go into the measurements and the actions, and this
was really interesting for me.’’ (Interview)
This manager then sought the help of a local consulting
business. With this support, working groups were formed
within the Electronics Division to customize and inscribe
a BSC for each product range, with the BSC theorized as a
key technology for achieving strategic alignment:
‘‘The Balanced Scorecard is a central element to achieve
strategic alignment and consistency. It is a management
tool and discipline for achieving progress towards
short-term objectives as well as towards longer-term
strategic goals’’ (Internal document, August 1999).
This 1999 document contained diagrams which in-
scribed the link between vision and the BSC, progressing
from vision/mission, through strategic themes, to the four
quadrants: from growth (innovation) to internal pro-
cesses, to market, to ?nance. Each of the ?rst three quad-
rants of the BSC was broken down into more speci?c
themes; for example the growth/innovation quadrant
had three themes: invest in people; communication;
and employee motivation, and internal processes were
broken down into: cost leadership; world class purchas-
ing; and time to market. Each quadrant was given further
speci?city by being populated with detailed KPIs. For
example under employee motivation the following KPIs
were introduced: staff dialogue; suggestion scheme;
absenteeism; and management feedback. The ?nancial
quadrant had EBIT, EVA, asset management, and turnover
as its detailed KPIs. The aim of this translation of global
discourse and strategic vision into more detailed KPIs
was to minimize the disabling forms of molestation by
bridging the gap between strategic discourse and practice
as re?ected in measurable achievements. In other words,
KPIs were forged as the operational counterparts of the
globalization discourse, the tools through which the
broad globalization vision was to be translated into more
concrete, time-bound targets of performance against
which actual progress towards this vision can be assessed.
As Miller and O’Leary (1990) note, making accounting
practical is not just about the managerial use of particular
technologies like the BSC and KPIs, but it is also about
creating categories such as absenteeism, cost leadership,
communication and so on that can then be linked to a
concern with globalization, such as promoting global inte-
gration of markets or global supply chains. The quadrants
of the BSC create global categories that can be expanded
to encourage managers to think and act in terms of action
plans and initiatives that can be authored as concerned
with the global, understood as being driven by markets
and technology.
The development of a BSC for the Electronics Division is
summarized in an undated document consisting of several
sections: reasons for introducing the BSC; directions/orien-
tations of the BSC; function and content of the BSC; Divi-
sional drilling down of BSC measures; and future
perspectives on the BSC. That document stressed the per-
ceived need to align sub-unit activities and results with
Fig. 1. Time strategy implementation.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 301
those of the visions of Megacorp and the Electronics Divi-
sion. For example:
‘‘[The] starting point of the direction/orientation of the
[Electronics Division] balanced scorecard is the [Mega-
corp] model (e.g., general principle), at which the [Elec-
tronics Division] vision is oriented’’ (Undated internal
document: 7).
Given the global focus of the vision of the Electronics
Division, as noted earlier, the senior managers who
authored the internal document saw in the BSC a means
through which their global aspirations could be achieved.
Fig. 2 summarizes the general perspective. Despite this
drive for a ‘globalizing’ BSC within Megacorp, the attitude
of Megacorp’s HQ towards BSC adoption by sub-units
seems to have been relaxed. Asked if Megacorp required
all its business units to adopt the BSC, one senior manager,
Electronics Division HQ, said:
‘‘No, what you do from corporate level or from group
level is [make] recommendations. That’s quite clear.
But it is not necessary that operating units use all the
things here, but they have seen that in the other busi-
ness units they’re pretty successful by using this kind
of toolbox [BSC]. And therefore they’re using the tool-
box, for example if you take a look in [Electronics] nine
of ten group divisions use the balanced scorecard for
steering their own business. . . It depends on how suc-
cessful you are. If you have a division that is really suc-
cessful. . . then they would not be pressurized to use it.’’
(Interview)
This quote helps explain the varying levels of BSC up-
take across the units we studied, and our research suggests
that the claim that ‘‘nine of ten group divisions use the bal-
anced scorecard’’ might be an exaggeration. Successful per-
formance (and as we will see later this was typically
assessed in terms of pro?tability) was the insurance that
bought local units the discretion to use accounting and
control systems other than those seemingly mandated by
international HQ. We were also informed that as soon as
performance of local units fell below targets, preferred
HQ systems were imposed upon these local units (for more
detail see Cooper, Ezzamel & Robson, 2012). The BSC has
been introduced, and seemed to be used evangelically in
ElectronUK from the level of the plant GM to the middle
management level, with an on-going process of adaptation,
translation and authoring. A further explanation for the
variety of adoption relates to the importance of the mech-
anisms of authoring in that various units were represented
on cross national working parties that developed local
BSCs. A manager from ElectronUK was active in one of
these working parties, becoming an ardent supporter and
promoter at plant level.
However, we were also offered examples of the extent
to which sub-units can resist some global measures by
refusing to embrace them on the grounds that they do
not make sense in the UK. Speci?cally, in a measure of
molestation by refusal, ElecronUK managers initially intro-
duced, but quickly abandoned, two KPIs advocated by
Megacorp on the grounds that they were inappropriate in
the UK, demonstrating their ability to renegotiate the types
of KPIs to be used. Further, ElectronUK adapted and incor-
porated some KPIs from the European Quality Framework
EFQM (an initiative discouraged by Megacorp) into its
BSC, again a form of molestation by refusal. In both cases,
the HQ of the Electronics Division avoided collision by pur-
suing compromise (Said, 1975/1997).
In contrast, in SalesUK the BSC was introduced, aban-
doned by a new general manager, re-introduced and then
abandoned by his replacement. The attitude taken by Sale-
sUK towards the BSC contrasts to the HQ of MegacorpUK
which actively promoted the use of the BSC as a means
of reducing molestation by bridging the gap between stra-
tegic discourse and practice:
‘‘the Balanced Scorecard . . . helps organisations trans-
late strategy into operational objectives that drive both
behaviour and performance. [MegacorpUK] uses the
Balanced Scorecard model to help businesses balance
priorities and measure performance . . . The model sug-
gests that improvements in these critical ?elds will lead
to increased pro?ts – the ultimate measure of success or
failure’’ (internal document, 2002, MegacorpUK).
The above quote indicates that the senior management
of MegacorpUK constituted the BSC as a technology that
has the ability to bring to life their globalization discourse;
one that, as Said suggests, makes a difference and impacts
employees’ perceptions and behavior by translating strat-
egy into ‘operational objectives’ that would then ‘drive
behaviour and performance’ by, for example, leading to ‘in-
creased pro?ts’. In this and subsequent documents, Mega-
corpUK cites examples of how the combined use of the BSC
and the EFQM models to track areas of improvement has
led to better results (internal document, 2003). Yet, as sug-
gested above, the BSC is not consistently embraced in
SalesUK.
The BSC has not been introduced in ElectronChina, be-
cause of the desire to ‘‘keep it simple’’ by using a small
number of KPIs to run the plant (Finance Manager, Elec-
tronChina). It was stated that ElectronChina has been
expanding signi?cantly during the period of our study
and its senior management were of the view that the plant
was doing well enough to warrant using only a few, simple
measures. In SalesChina, the uptake of the BSC seemed
rather mixed: some middle managers we interviewed did
not seem to know of it, yet their immediate manager
claimed that he has a BSC but refused to talk about it be-
cause ‘‘it is a company secret’’. Yet others (e.g., the HR sec-
tion of SalesChina) spoke of their regular use of the BSC and
provided examples of speci?c KPIs in their individual BSCs
and how achievement against these KPIs impacted their
bonuses and appraisals.
We have conceptualized the BSC as an inscribed
accounting technology that has the potential to govern
the employees of Megacorp and align their activities with
the globalizing ambitions of its senior managers. As part
of a programme of governance (Miller & Rose, 1990), the
BSC offers the potential to render the diverse activities of
the company’s business units into arenas susceptible to
management intervention. Images of the global, promoted
through broad discursive pronouncements, are converted
into something that senior managers considered speci?c
302 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
and doable in the form of quanti?ed KPIs, whereby
employees could be rendered amenable to intervention,
calculation, classi?cation, homogenization, and ordering
at various hierarchical levels. Whenever the BSC was used
in Megacorp’s sub-units, senior management appraised
subordinate performance by comparing actual achieve-
ments against the speci?c KPI targets on the subordinate’s
BSC, and such comparisons impacted the level of the sub-
ordinate’s bonus and in?uenced his/her future career pro-
gression. Similar procedures were followed in appraisals
for operators and supervisors.
It was thought that these monitoring procedures would
mitigate disabling forms of molestation (Said, 1975/1997)
by bringing actual results closer to the intended effects of
managerial globalization discourse. However, this poten-
tial was never likely to be fully achieved, because while
use of the BSC was mandated formally by the international
HQ of Megacorp across all business units, it was not in-
sisted upon. Moreover, those units that introduced the
BSC inevitably engaged in a process of authoring their
own versions of the BSC. Thus, not only was the BSC not
used by some sub-units, but even those who made use of
it molded and interpreted the BSC through various transla-
tions into something that sub-unit managers argue re-
?ected their most immediate concerns and their most
relevant comparators. These examples of either not
embracing the BSC or translating it to re?ect sub-unit con-
cerns are instances of molestation. The resulting BSC, or
lack of it, is somewhat removed from the global discourse
and ambitions of senior HQ executives. Sub-unit author-
ship of the BSC is thus a form of molestation. Hence, we
encountered diversity of BSC practices across the sub-
units, although often with the frame of the global concerns
of senior management. The inevitability of sub-unit diver-
sity as the outcome of globalizing machinations is another
way of saying that the global, if it exists at all, exists as a
construction by the local (Robertson, 1992).
Enacting globalization: KPIs
Thus far, we have examined how sub-units enact glob-
alization discourse through benchmarking and the BSC.
Whilst this has yielded insight and perspective, one limi-
tation of this level of analysis is that management sys-
tems can be either too abstract or too distant from the
concerns and focus of lower management levels. For
example, a middle manager might be fully aware of the
importance of the BSC as a corporate initiative, yet pres-
sure to deliver on individual KPIs may lead this manager
to focus on them. Similarly, an operator may have heard
of a BSC as a system, but without understanding how it
might impact his/her day-to-day activities. To gain a ful-
ler perspective on the extent to which actors at sub-unit
levels enact globalization discourse, we now focus on
individual ‘global’ KPIs that are often in BSCs and are
drilled down to locations spatially distant from interna-
tional HQ. We examine both a ?nancial KPI (EBIT) and a
non-?nancial KPI (suggestions) in order to explore the ex-
tent to which enacting globalization discourse is in part a
function of the type of KPI being used.
Enacting KPIs – earnings before interest and tax (EBIT)
EBIT is a key measure of ?nancial performance across
all units in Megacorp. Meeting EBIT targets is one of the
fundamental measures used to determine cash bonuses
at the end of each ?nancial year. One senior manager of
ElectronUK said in an interview: ‘‘we’re all pro?t centres
so we have EBIT here, EBIT here, EBIT here’’. Another
manager (SalesUK) had this exchange with the
researchers:
‘‘Q: Which measure is important to you, EVA or EBIT?
A: It depends I think on the face of the moon, whether
or not we decide that EVA is more important or EBIT
is more important.
Fig. 2. From globalization to KPIs.
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 303
Q: Which face of the moon decides it is EBIT?
A: Well I think it’s the moon over [a German city].
Q: Right. OK, so it’s International HQ?
A: Yes.’’
Part of the reason for the consistent signi?cance of EBIT
across all units probably relates to the listing of Megacorp
on international stock exchanges and the adoption of a
shareholder value type measure by the International HQ.
The signi?cance of such pro?t measures was reinforced
by the international movement of senior managers-for
example many senior Chinese managers had spent up to
a year in Germany and the International HQ. Edström
and Galbraith (1977) argue that the transfer of managers
is a powerful management control mechanism in multina-
tionals. The GM of ElectronChina indicated in an interview
that EBIT is the most important KPI for his plant and for
himself: ‘‘if our EBIT is less than predicted in the budget
then we have a problem, sure.’’ In reinforcing his views
that all measures, be they ?nancial or operational, are ulti-
mately re?ected in EBIT, this manager stated: ‘‘everything
comes together in the EBIT, no matter what you do’’. Such
repeated accounts of the importance of EBIT can be seen as
a re?ection of the globalization discourse of senior manag-
ers which emphasized optimizing Megacorp’s global value
chain, low cost operations, cost management, growth tar-
gets set at twice the global GDP, high pro?tability, global
competitiveness, and meeting the demands of interna-
tional ?nancial markets via ?nancial performance.
Some interviewees implied that the de?nition of EBIT
may have become taken as given. A senior manager, Elec-
tronChina, indicated that the rules stipulated by HQ for
measuring EBIT gave little scope for variations across dif-
ferent local units: ‘‘everything is based on US GAAP’’. Plant
managers were typically unaware of how investments
were treated and of their impact on EBIT, as well as the im-
pact on product mix changes that were often determined
by sales and decisions taken at HQ. This assumed unifor-
mity of the measure seemed to entice some managers to
think of EBIT as something unambiguously de?ned: ‘‘they
[staff] know where EBIT comes from’’ (senior manager,
SalesChina). To the extent that KPIs such as EBIT acquire
a ‘universal’ de?nition and means of measurement that
are invariant across all Megacorp’s sub-units, it would be
tempting to suggest that molestation is minimal.
However, while accounting specialists may promote a
particular way of calculating EBIT, there is always scope for
sub-unit diversity (molestation) in meeting, calculating and
interpreting EBIT targets. The Finance Manager, ElectronUK,
emphasized how, despite the lack of plant control over reve-
nues (because their products were transferred to SalesUK at
works cost + between 5% and 10% of cost), their EBIT targets
were not ?exible enough to re?ect changes in volume:
‘‘As a factory the way that our business is set up we
have no in?uence in driving volume. . . We don’t get a
dispensation to sort of say ‘well, if the volume doesn’t
come you can reduce your EBIT.’ ’’ (Interview)
The insistence of the international HQ that local plants
must aim to achieve high EBIT targets can be seen both
as an instance of a globalizing pro?t imperative centered
on EBIT and as a benchmark against global competitors.
Because the management of ElectronUK felt that they
could not in?uence revenues, EBIT targets were assessed
as achievable only through cost reductions. This is a form
of molestation by the ElectronUK managers who made
the corporate dream of increasing EBIT a matter of cost
reduction. They author EBIT in terms that make sense to
them.
The calculation of EBIT for any one plant (e.g., the ?gure
of works cost used to calculate the mark-up for the transfer
price received by ElectronUK) was dependent upon the re-
sults achieved by other plants within Megacorp. While
speci?c EBIT targets are set for each unit within Megacorp,
with some scope for variation (between 5% and 10%)
depending on how Megacorp models different local con-
texts, each unit then has to decide what speci?c actions
(e.g. growth, productivity) would best achieve its EBIT tar-
get. Such a process is inevitably an exercise in which a sub-
unit constructs an understanding of its own situation in
relation to HQ’s benchmarks. For example, the GM, Electro-
nUK, alluded to the process of interpretation concerning
how an EBIT target may be achieved:
‘‘You must get this growth, you must get this EBIT, how
we do that in turn is up to us. Or I interpret that for us
[it has] to be productivity, but if I was in the sales divi-
sion I’d interpret it as growth.’’
Thus, different sub-units might pull different levers in
trying to reach the target, which could then affect other
performance measures, such as productivity or growth.
Managers consider alternative means of reaching a partic-
ular target. One such set of scenarios is offered by a ?nance
manager, ElectronUK, who explained how different ways
of calculating revenues and costs can be pursued in order
to meet the EBIT target set for his sub-unit. Thus, even if
corporate manuals (or US GAAP) were thought to unam-
biguously de?ne what enters into the calculation of EBIT,
each sub-unit has a different perception of what measures
have to be managed to achieve the target:
‘‘We said, right, even though EBIT is a top level KPI, also
one of our top level KPIs should be volume. So how do
you now want to measure that? Do you want to mea-
sure that in terms of sales and pieces that you’ve
received against the budget which really you’ve got sort
of in?uence over, or do you want to measure volume in
terms of accuracy of orders against forecast, percentage
deviation, that sort of thing? Because we obviously have
quite a ‘mix of orders’ problem, so that’s one thing. You
look at it on the other hand and say ‘right, the other side
are costs, so therefore what can we do to in?uence the
cost side of it’. Should we set purchase targets, cost
reduction and measure that on a monthly basis against
cost? In addition to that there are overheads. Should we
now set a target for overhead cost reduction even
though you may identify a certain group of overheads
which you would apply that logic to because some are
?xed, some are variable? The other thing is then looking
at our global business productivity, design-to-cost, do
we set a target? We speak to design and say, ‘what
are you envisaging changing this year, should we be
304 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
looking to, for example, make certain product lines
cheaper through re-design?’ And the other part is
assets, so therefore what can we do? So we then sit
down and say, ‘right, what are the integral parts of busi-
ness assets?’ So we look at things like inventories, debt-
ors, liabilities and ?xed assets.’’ (Finance Manager,
ElectronUK)
The above quote shows how in making sense of and
engaging with EBIT, sub-unit managers construct a dis-
course that translates the HQ measure to the sub-unit le-
vel, by interpreting their operational context, identifying
?nancial and design parameters, and assessing the scope
for action that could be pursued. In this particular case,
parameters and cognitions of volume, overheads, and de-
sign-to-cost are brought to bear on how to manage EBIT.
The above manager authors his discourse on EBIT, and
managers in other sub-units may engage in alternative
authoring by considering other questions they deem more
pertinent, or even if they raise the same issues they may
express different preferences for addressing them. These
variations in interpretation result in molestation between
the aspired levels and the actual achievements of even
such seemingly universal KPIs as EBIT, as this indicates col-
lisions and compromises (Said, 1975/1997) in the interpre-
tations of senior management’s intentions. Hence, enacting
HQ discourse at sub-unit level triggers an exercise in
authoring by sub-unit managers which leads to the emer-
gence of a set of alternative discursive practices that aim to
make sense of the HQ discourse and customize it. The ele-
ments of sub-unit discourses tend to be sub-unit speci?c,
such as the technology used, its cost structure, its design
parameters, its revenue generating opportunities, and so
on. And the mobilization of such discourse is simulta-
neously an exercise in complying as much as possible with
HQ KPIs and also in introducing some measure of molesta-
tion via appeals to special circumstances, or local manage-
ment discretion and judgment. Molestation may also
re?ect concerns about the completeness (and perhaps even
honesty) of the possible alternatives suggested by the Fi-
nance Manager in the quote above. These expressions of
molestation should not necessarily be interpreted as dis-
abling: they are enabling to the extent that they rescue
the globalization discourse of senior managers from being
over-ambitious or too abstract.
Further, additional factors, suchas foreigncurrency trans-
lations, can render the understanding of EBIT ambiguous:
‘‘Q: So how ambiguous can a measure become?
A: Very. I mean the most simple measure of all is gross
margin, but if I put gross margin up as at today and com-
pare it with gross margin about two years ago, we sell
primarily in Sterling and buy in Euros, the Euro . . .com-
pared to six months ago we were about one forty-nine,
and it’s about one forty-three today. Even if we were
selling to the same customers, the same products, the
same values our costs are now a lot higher, the margin’s
come down.’’ (Financial Controller, SalesUK)
Given that sub-units could pursue different procedures
to manage the effect of foreign currency translations on
their EBIT, diversity is likely to occur in how sub-units
enact HQ measures. The discourse that sub-unit managers
construct in order to explain to HQ why performance is be-
low par demonstrates the lack of clarity and controllability
of EBIT. Sub-unit managers in the UK were able to author
discourses that presented failure to meet targets as the
outcome of the unfavorable currency ?uctuations.
The customization of senior management discourse to
lower organizational levels is problematical especially at
shop ?oor level. As the GM ElectronUK suggested: ‘‘how
do I translate a ten percent EBIT growth to someone on
the shop ?oor who is talking about labor productivity or
?rst past yield?’’ Similarly, a plant supervisor (team leader)
pointed out:
‘‘They [shop ?oor] don’t understand EBIT, [so] all we do
in the team brief is ‘this is the target for the year and
we’re aiming to meet the two point ?ve million’. So
we’ve got the graph and we’ve got the target line and
really they understand that aspect of it, not how it all
comes together and how it’s all worked out commer-
cially. Because I mean I’ll be honest with you, I don’t
understand it’’.
These statements by the GM and the team leader are
signi?cant for two reasons. First, they show how shop ?oor
operators are far removed from the HQ discourse on glob-
alization. Their day-to-day concern is with dealing with lo-
cal, non-?nancial KPIs, such as labor productivity or ?rst
past yield, on which their performance is assessed and to
which they can relate. Thus, for those working at lower lev-
els of the organization, HQ strategic discourse is conspicu-
ously absent, as the connection forged between
globalization discourse and the ability of KPIs to motivate
action is one that is assumed at higher levels. Second, the
GM’s and team leader’s statements also point to one source
of molestation: the dif?culty of translating an increase in
EBIT to the shop ?oor. This is not necessarily about overt
resistance to the imposition of EBIT targets, but indicates
the molestation of a discourse due to different perspectives
of employees at different hierarchical and geographical
locations; thus customization of HQ BSC and KPIs through
the translation process is a source of molestation. While
appearing to make every possible effort to nullify molesta-
tion, diversity in local practices, local managers’ cognition
and interests produce it.
Enacting KPIs – Suggestions
We now consider suggestions as a non-?nancial KPI.
Every location we visited within Megacorp had a KPI based
on suggestions made by employees. This KPI was variously
identi?ed as linking to the BSC quadrant of innovation and
growth or as a measure of internal business processes. In
contrast to EBIT, at ?rst sight it may seem dif?cult to link
directly this type of KPI to senior management discourse
on globalization. However, global growth is part of the dis-
course that emphasizes the notion that growth bene?ts all,
and that globalization is driven by technology. Moreover,
Megacorp’s commitment to ‘‘the skills of local specialists’’
(see earlier), offers a link between suggestions KPIs and se-
nior executive discourse on globalization. Certainly, our
informants said that suggestions have the potential to pro-
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 305
duce signi?cant savings, thereby reducing cost levels and
enhancing pro?tability and growth. They also stated that
having a suggestions scheme motivates employees more
strongly to be loyal to the company through feelings of
ownership. These arguments connect with senior manage-
ment’s concern with securing high pro?tability, strength-
ening performance in international ?nancial markets, and
improving corporate global competitiveness.
In this part, we trace out the authoring and molestation
of a global measure of suggestions. We concentrate mainly
on ElectronUK because of the long history of this KPI at
that site. The HR Manager of ElectronUK introduced the
?rst suggestions scheme in 1988 which, he claimed, was
‘‘entirely developed here, it was local’’ because his boss
said ‘‘we should have a suggestions scheme’’. The sugges-
tions scheme sought a ‘‘few big suggestions [about ten
per year for the whole plant] that saved a lot of money
and you pay out big awards for those few’’ (HR Manager).
However, ?nancial savings turned out not to be large and
the scheme was criticized for being ‘‘antiquated’’ and inef-
fective. Molestation, in terms of lack of support from senior
plant management and poor promotion meant that after
its introduction this scheme was ‘‘drifting along’’.
A new initiative in 1997 coincided with the return of
this HR Manager from SalesUK, and the arrival of a new
Operations Manager who encouraged factory staff to make
suggestions to improve manufacturing processes. This, the
HR Manager said, led to a rise in suggestions from about
ten to about 100 per year. In 1999 the new Managing
Director (MD) of ElectronUK requested a workable sugges-
tion scheme, ‘‘because they have one at international HQ’’.
Authority (Said, 1975/1997) seems evident in the develop-
ment of this suggestion scheme at two levels.
First, as we will see below, there is the authority of the
HR Manager as an author of a scheme that drew on other
schemes. The HR Manager stated:
‘‘ went over to Germany then and benchmarked it
[suggestions scheme] and saw it was good. We were
also members of . . .the National Association of Sugges-
tion Schemes, and we picked up a few ideas from
there.’’
The emerging scheme combined the system at Mega-
corp’s HQ and the UK system, but the sub-unit context
loomed large in customization: ‘‘the German system was
very good in a lot of ways but they still went for big
awards. . . we were always going to have to develop inter-
nally to suit our own needs’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK).
The senior management of ElectonUK decided that the de-
sign of the new suggestion scheme must be informed by
the site’s own previous experience, and avoid the pitfalls
of the previous scheme. In particular, it was felt that a
scheme that kept people waiting for decisions on sugges-
tions, and that ?nance people took a long time to sign off
the big cheques, ‘‘killed the old scheme’’. Thus:
‘‘What we needed was to ensure that we had rapid
turnover of suggestions; that meant we had to do two
things. One, we had to develop the responsibility right
down to the lowest level in the organization [Electro-
nUK], so basically everybody who supervises people
evaluates the suggestions of their people. And in addi-
tion, because we decided to make awards only between
ten and ?fty pounds, it meant we didn’t need any big
signatures.’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK)
A new suggestions scheme was introduced in October
2000.
Second, authority occurs because the suggestions
scheme seems also to owe its existence to the authority
of the new MD, who was a big supporter of suggestion
schemes. Supervisors and managers were evaluated on
the basis of how many suggestions were implemented in
their teams, and this became one of the KPIs on their BSCs.
The enactment of the globalization discourse by Electro-
nUK entailed several strategies which, as we have seen, in-
cluded borrowing, but also authoring ideas in line with
what actors understood as their speci?c context. The sug-
gestions scheme at ElectronUK was part of a larger scheme,
called ‘Ideas Unlimited’, which included a Continuous
Improvement Process (CIP) and Ideas Mobile. The naming
of the suggestions scheme ‘Ideas Mobile’ was ‘‘pinched
with pride’’, the HR Manager suggested, from a Megacor-
pUK presentation. Once developed, ElectronUK’s Ideas Mo-
bile continued to be the subject of authoring through
adaptations, revisions, and use of various measures. Thus,
initially the scheme had ‘‘loads of measures, I mean they
were coming out of our ears’’, but through a 6-month
re?nement process three key inscriptions emerged: ‘‘the
implementation chart, the savings chart, and the league ta-
ble of managers by how many [suggestions] they have
implemented per head.’’ (Manager, ElectronUK).
ElectronUK won trophies in 2002 and 2003 for best sug-
gestions scheme improvements within Megacorp. The
‘pinched with pride’ metaphor is the way in which author-
ing was understood at Electron UK:
‘‘What we have chosen to do at the end of the day is to
measure it [suggestions] the same way that [Megacorp
HQ] measures their suggestions schemes on the basis
that you have internal comparators. But if we thought
there was a more appropriate measure we would have
used it, as it happens on a pinched with pride basis
[because] they’ve been doing it for a long time. There-
fore it’s a pretty good likelihood that theirs is the right
way of doing it, but everything I do basically is pinched
from somewhere; it’s just a case of the mix of how you
actually decide.’’ (HR Manager, ElectronUK)
While clearly suggesting repetition, the ‘pinched with
pride’ approach entails selection, simultaneous additions
and exclusions as well as customization. As the quote sug-
gests, deciding on the mix was rendered intelligible at a
sub-unit level. The ElecronUK HR manager stated:
‘‘It’s not to say that our design ?ts somebody else,
because it depends on your culture and the make-up
of your business and your objectives and what you’re
looking to do. . . None of this is anything particularly
new at the end of the day, it’s just a case of how you
actually apply it in your own environment, but basically
all these are external measures that have been around
for ages.’’
306 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
The above quote reinforces Said’s (1975/1997) ideas
about authorship: it is a process of repetition upon repeti-
tion and addition; yet no repetition fully reproduces what
came before it because of the intention of the author(s). A
feature of the authoring of ElectronUK’s suggestions
scheme is that it is dubbed as ‘‘a little and often scheme’’,
meaning little awards and frequent small saving sugges-
tions, compared to the scheme in a sister plant which
was described as ‘big awards for big savings suggestions’
(Manager, ElectronUK). Just as we have noted in the case
of EBIT, molestation was evident in the different under-
standings by different sub-unit actors of what a suggestion
meant and the impact of this understanding on their ac-
tions. One ?nance manager, ElectronUK, stated: ‘‘what
you may call a suggestion could be just anything’’, hence
varying discourses of constructing the meaning of sugges-
tions are inevitably likely to be authored by different sub-
unit managers.
In ElectronChina, a suggestions scheme was being intro-
duced in July 2005 under the name 3i on the basis that the
international HQ wanted to see such a scheme at the plant.
Once it was introduced, targets of implementable sugges-
tions per employee were set, and suggestions were submit-
ted to the relevant manager for approval and reward. KPI
targets in 3i were entered onto the relevant BSC and com-
pared against actual achievements. Several interviewees at
ElectronChina listed the 3i KPI target as one of the most
important three to four measures they felt they must man-
age: ‘In one year, one person must have one [3i KPI] – at
least one idea’ (Group Leader, P1 Department). By the time
our interviews were concluded, the annual target for 3i had
increased from half a suggestion to four per employee.
This suggestions scheme was designed along the broad
principles of the suggestions schemes promoted within
Megacorp, but it was left to ElectronChina to decide what
was deemed to be appropriate targets. Customization and
molestation were evident in determining the level of the
KPI target, as well as the amount of reward for successful
suggestions and what counts as a suggestion. As we have
shown in the case of ElectronUK, in China local knowledge
was important in constructing 3i KPIs:
‘‘I am very interested to have good 3is. For me it is a big
part. Here in China we started already to push this issue
because it makes sense. Because sometimes the work-
ers put together something [new]. They have a better
knowledge [of] what they do and what they can do,
and when you have to listen carefully then you can
sometimes assemble in a better way.’’ (Project Manager,
ElectronChina)
In this section we have explored the enactment of glob-
alization discourse by focusing upon two KPIs: EBIT and
suggestions. We have examined the extent to which it
was possible to forge direct or indirect connections be-
tween managerial discourses of globalization and the
means of rendering such discourse practical via what
should be the focus of attention and their translation into
speci?c KPIs. These identi?ed objects to be acted on. Fur-
ther, by examining this level of detail, we have identi?ed
attempts by sub-unit actors (middle management and
the workforce) to enact HQ’s globalization discourse. The
authoring of discourses at lower-levels was informed by
speci?c sub-unit knowledge and various manifestations
of molestation. We have also noted how there was an ‘ab-
sence’ of HQ’s discourse on globalization because at the le-
vel of team leaders and operators they were
understandably concerned with the day-to-day KPIs, such
as quality or capacity utilization, on which their perfor-
mance was evaluated. If detailed KPIs were effective in
translating senior management’s vision on globalization,
and if monitoring and rewarding schemes enhanced em-
ployee compliance with KPIs through the exercise of man-
agement authority (as authors of the globalization
discourse), then the scope for molestation would have
been reduced signi?cantly. In this case senior manage-
ment’s discourse on globalization becomes embedded in
KPIs and reward structures. The lack of an explicit dis-
course on globalization at operational and sub unit levels
is not an indication that concerns about globalization were
and are absent. Concerns about globalization can instead
be incorporated within performance measures and a con-
cern with benchmarking, and these thereby impact how
employees act.
Discussion and conclusions
We have examined how management systems, in par-
ticular the BSC, and individual KPIs, function as intervening
media intended to convert the discourses of senior manag-
ers into something practical. Accounting technologies like
the BSC offer the promise of converting the discourse of se-
nior management into a series of actionable initiatives.
Although we did not have the opportunity to observe man-
agers in action, we offer a rich and detailed examination of
how managers talk about and make sense of concepts and
ideas, which is an important element of seeking to make
discourse practical. The ideas of competition, benchmark-
ing, cost management, pro?t, motivation or innovation
can be given shape in terms of, for example, expanding
production, shifting product mix, re-assigning sales and
encouraging worker engagement. Ideas about globalization
are given speci?c shape through the use of accounting
technologies and these can signi?cantly impact the under-
standings of the discourse and the ways in which perfor-
mance targets can be achieved.
In order to better understand the extent to which glob-
alization discourse can be made practical, we ?rst explored
how at an MNC such discourse was produced, authored,
and connected to the wider discursive ?eld. We then ana-
lyzed in detail how global ideas were enacted at sub-unit
levels and the role of accounting technologies in making
possible such enactment. Our study therefore gives voice
not only to the discursive pronouncements of senior man-
agers but also importantly to sub-unit actors. It goes be-
yond the common sense view that senior managers
propose and junior managers respond. Thus, this paper
adds to the extant accounting literature by providing a sys-
tematic and detailed examination of the largely neglected
interconnection between processes and decisions of glob-
alization and accounting. Our approach has been to depart
from the research that treats the global and the local as a
duality that either underscores homogeneity or diversity
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 307
(Barrett et al., 2005; Cruz et al., 2011). Such dualisms tend
to occlude the multiple authorings and molestations that
make texts work (or not).
We have explored how, in the context of Megacorp, cor-
porate discourse on globalization was produced, promoted
and controlled by the senior managers of an MNC, how
such discourse can be usefully understood if related to
Megacorp’s context (itself a discursive construction) but
also how it connects to the wider discursive ?eld on glob-
alization. We have also suggested, following Said (1975/
1997), that every discourse involves authorship which
may entail signi?cant repetitions, additions and deletions,
but also recoding, organization, translation and interpreta-
tion, in short, molestation. In written texts, a manager has
the opportunity to ‘‘present his own contribution as some-
thing novel’’ (Assmann, 2006: 117), for example as his own
version of globalization whilst retaining strong connec-
tions with key elements circulating in the wider discursive
?eld.
At a broad level of analysis, we examined a number of
discursive statements spoken or inscribed by senior Mega-
corp’s executives intended to produce meanings as to what
globalization entails for them, and how this makes possible
the production of Megacorp as a global organization (Said,
1975/1997). Consistent with the ?ndings of Fiss and Hirsch
(2005), globalization was presented as inevitable and con-
sistently received favorable press in Megacorp’s annual re-
ports and internal documents. The virtues of globalization
connected most directly with the advantages claimed by
its advocates, in particular being credited with global mar-
ket integration, driven by the force of the market, and
offering a win-win scenario for all corporate employees
(Steger, 2005). Terms such as ‘world-wide leadership’ and
‘global competitiveness’ were emphasized at the highest
executive levels of Megacorp, but even here, some rela-
tively speci?c connections were made between what we
may term ‘globalizing technologies’ and the re-shaping of
Megacorp’s activities. We have explored several discourses
connected to globalization made at four levels of Mega-
corp’s hierarchy: corporate CEO/Vice CEOs; Divisional
CEOs, National CEOs, and sub-unit general managers
(GMs). Table 1 summarizes these discourses. In focusing
on a speci?c managerial position at each level in the hier-
archy of Megacorp we do not wish to imply that the pro-
duction of globalization discourse is necessarily restricted
to these individuals or that it ?ows in an hierarchical man-
ner, but we do so in order to provide some depth and detail
to our analysis.
At the highest level in Megacorp, that of the CEO and
Vice-CEOs, a number of themes were emphasized in their
discourse: being globally competitive; securing global pro-
curement; optimizing the value chain; achieving ef?ciency
of service and cutting costs; customer focus; leveraging
skills world-wide; intensifying and improving communica-
tion within the MNC; and unleashing entrepreneurial spirit
among employees. The discourse is typically aspirational
with very broad themes, and connects to what Kristensen
and Zeitlin (2005) refer to the global discourses of manage-
ment gurus, business schools and business media.
At the level of the Electronics Division of Megacorp,
Table 1 shows that senior divisional management
emphasized issues relating to market expansion and differ-
entiation; global sales, detailed attention to customers;
and investment and development of R&D. Several of these
themes connect strongly with accounting as a technology
that not only converts discursive aspirations into perfor-
mance targets, but also operates as a means of achieving
cost reduction, value-chain optimization, ef?cient global
procurement and enhancing corporate competitiveness.
Thus, the intervention of accounting is not restricted to a
contribution to the vocabulary of the globalization dis-
course through the use of such terms as ‘value chain’, ‘ef?-
ciency’, ‘cutting costs’, ‘cost management’, ‘investment in
R&D’ and so on, but goes beyond that in offering technolo-
gies (e.g. the BSC, KPIs) that hold the promise of being per-
formative by rendering such discursive utterings
actionable. Many, if not all, of these themes are not unique
to Megacorp, as similar themes can be found in the dis-
course of senior managers of other MNCs. This underscores
the value of Said’s (1975/1997) emphasis on the repetition
in discourse. However, all discourses are authored, so we
should expect variation in the way all or some of these
themes have been interpreted, coded, translated and oper-
ationalized elsewhere.
At the national HQ level the discourse of globalization
becomes more strongly connected to the regional and na-
tional discursive ?eld. Naturally, the discourses of the
MNC CEO and Vice CEOs have a strong impact on the dis-
course produced by the national CEO, but the latter is also
in?uenced by the national CEO’s perceptions of national
and regional discursive ?elds. CEO discourse is also
strongly impacted by the knowledge base and history
within the sub-units that form the national company,
although there are always possibilities for knowledge
transfers within the global MNC. Thus in MegacorpChina,
the BSC is embedded in beliefs about growth of the market,
nature of local competitors and capacities of the workforce.
Finally, at the level of the sub-unit GM the globalization
discourse becomes a combination of the discourses of the
above three higher levels of the hierarchy, but is also
strongly moderated by local assessments of the sub-unit’s
strengths and opportunities, its knowledge and skill base.
Thus, the discourse becomes sub-unit speci?c. We provide
examples that demonstrate how more speci?c globaliza-
tion themes were present in several discursive statements
made by Megacorp’s managers. In particular, we provided
two examples relating to the injunctions ‘Think global, act
local’ and ‘Think customer, act customer’. In both these
injunctions, many elements were borrowed fromthe wider
discursive ?eld and thus were not unique to Megacorp’s
discourse. Notwithstanding this repetition, we have also
drawn attention to the authoring activity that goes on, in
the sense of interpretation, recoding, revising (through
addition or exclusion of detailed elements) and customiz-
ing, so that at different local units engagement with global
injunctions engenders both homogeneity and diversity. We
have made some speci?c reference to the form in which
this occurs, including the identi?cation of which ?nancial
parameters were thought best for sub-units to engage with
and the types of metrics developed for that purpose. Senior
management discourse on globalization was connected,
through a chain of rationales, systems, perspectives and
308 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
goals, to individual KPIs (as shown in Fig. 2). The sugges-
tions and EBIT KPIs were connected directly or indirectly
to the discursive statements concerning optimization of
the company’s global value chain, managing and reducing
costs, increasing sales, achieving higher pro?ts, enhancing
the company’s global competitiveness, and meeting the
demands of international ?nancial markets.
At the most general level, each statement is structured
by an assumed distinction between thinking and acting.
For in each injunction, the ?rst half emphasizes ‘thinking’
and the second half underscores ‘acting’. Thinking entails,
among other things, a process of interpretation, recoding,
and selection, as employees seek to make sense of global
injunctions, while acting involves converting thought into
outcomes. Both these parts are likely to produce some
measure of homogeneity, to the extent that thinking and
acting connect with the global ideas pronounced by HQ,
and they promote an element of convergence to the discur-
sive aspirations of senior managers. Both injunctions also
generate some measure of diversity, given the different
molestations involved across local levels. The greater the
level of such diversity the greater is the molestation (Said,
1975/1997).
We have been able to trace a number of sources of
molestation which vary across the organizational levels
of an MNC (Table 2).
7
At the level of an MNC’s CEO or its
Vice CEOs, one source of molestation is the consciously inten-
tional (Said, 1975/1997: 12) ritualistic, or in Said’s (Said,
1975/1997: 24) terms ‘dream’, part of their discourse on
globalization. Such intentionality of authoring a ‘‘dreamy’’
discourse is not taken here as an indication of senior execu-
tive’s dishonesty; rather we understand it as part of an at-
tempt by them, for example to inject greater optimism
among the employees of the MNC and to indicate their aspi-
ration of producing a global organization. It is a kind of se-
nior managerial complicity authored for ‘good’ reasons.
Further, unconscious (Said, 1975/1997: 12) molestation
could arise because of the CEO or Vice CEOs’ inadequate
knowledge of the contexts of the MNC, particularly those
of geographically or hierarchically distant units within the
MNC (Goodall & Roberts, 2003). As we move to the level of
the divisional CEOs molestation occurs in the process of
translating higher level discourses of globalization to the le-
vel of the division, including the speci?cation of KPIs and the
division’s BSC, in addition to the impact of the division’s own
limitations, ambitions, history and speci?c attributes. At the
level of the national CEOs, the same argument applies except
that here we have national speci?c characteristics, such as
geographical location, tradition, etc., as an additional source
of molestation.
In the case of sub-units, we identify three levels of
molestation. At the level of the sub-unit’s GM/senior man-
agement team, regional and national contexts and the sub-
unit’s speci?c attributes can produce molestation as they
impact the translation of discourses of globalization. A fur-
ther source of molestation is non-compliance with MNC’s
control systems, such as the BSC. As we move to middle
management and the shop ?oor, further molestations can
7
Note that human agency can play an important role as a source of
molestation, but, as this is likely to be common across organizational levels,
we do not discuss it further.
Table 1
Authorship and elements of discourse.
Author of discourse Elements/attributes of discourse
MNC’s CEO/Vice CEOs Global discursive ?eld
Broad and aspirational
Corporation’s major technical strengths and opportunities
MNC CEO’s ambitions of corporate and personal leadership roles
Global competitiveness
Optimizing value chain
Cost reduction
Corporate knowledge-skill base
Divisional CEO Global discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
Division’s major technical strengths and opportunities
Detailed customer focus
Global sales
Market expansion
R&D investment
Divisional knowledge-skill base
Division-speci?c
National CEO Regional and national discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
National knowledge base
Nation speci?c
Sub-unit GM National/regional discursive ?eld
MNC CEO’s discourse
Divisional CEO’s discourse
National CEO discourse
Sub-unit strengths and opportunities
Sub-unit knowledge base
Sub-unit speci?c
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 309
occur because of what is ‘lost’ in the translation of higher
level discourse to these lower levels, lower level manage-
ment cognition of higher-level discourses, middle manage-
ment and shop ?oor speci?c contexts, acts of resistance to
initiatives introduced and targets set by senior manage-
ment, and the gaming that produces both con?ict and con-
sent (Burawoy, 1979; Ezzamel, Willmott, & Worthington,
2001; Hopper, Cooper, Lowe, Capps, & Mouritsen, 1986).
It is also at these levels that interpretation and adapta-
tion/change of speci?c KPIs typically take place. We must
stress that the scenarios we offer of the key themes of dis-
course (Table 1) and of the sources of molestation (Table 2)
are neither an exhaustive nor a de?nitive statement of
these constructs. Rather, they are born out of the speci?c
contexts of our own case study and other case studies
may uncover alternative scenarios. Further, they are dia-
lectical, such that neither operates without impacting the
other, even within the same text (Said, 1983).
We have argued that texts, whether in the form of
inscriptions or utterings, are intended to produce meaning
and make possible speci?c effects at temporal and/or spa-
tial distances, for example in the case of Megacorp at the
levels of manufacturing and sales units scattered around
the globe. But in order to reduce molestation between dis-
course and performance, we have posited that strategic
management systems, such as the BSC and speci?c KPIs,
can act as intervening media. The objective of such inter-
vening media is manifold, including acting as depository
or store (Assmann, 2006) of senior managers’ aspirations
concerning globalization, as translations of strategic dis-
course into speci?c localized performance targets, and also
as a means of communicating these targets across time and
space. Importantly, these intervening media (BSC, KPIs,
etc.) forge a strong connection between the targets of glob-
alization discourse and the activities of each individual in
the workplace. Yet it is not to be expected that the effects
of intervening media produce a perfect mapping between a
globalization discourse and organizational performance.
The ‘original’ globalization discourse authored by senior
managers will always be in a state of continual ?ux and
reproduction. Dambrin and Robson (2011) stress the
importance of recognizing the productive effects of ?ux,
vagueness and interpretive open-ness: ‘‘ambivalence and
opacity may in fact contribute to the working of perfor-
mance measurement networks’’ (Dambrin & Robson,
2011, 448).
Our detailed analysis of sub-unit enactment of global
ideas focused on the uptake of the BSC, but also the use
of EBIT and suggestions shows that there were pressures
from HQ to secure a high level of conformity but also
strong tendencies at sub-unit levels to customize each
KPI. Local interpretation, coding, and the ordering of the
performance parameters drives the speci?cs of the KPI. In
the case of suggestions in particular, there were strong
claims of the scheme being ‘invented’ by ElectronUK, an
invention that was subsequently re-presented as ‘pinched
with pride’, that is copied but adjusted. Hence, themes of
repetition and addition in authoring (Said, 1975/1997)
are evident there.
Moreover, discourse by senior managers and sub-unit
enactment of KPIs exhibited a subtle play between the
two levels. First, while the discourse of senior executives
at Megacorp sought to connect with global ideas, such as
being globally competitive, sub-units were more preoccu-
pied with the technological/production or sales side of
their activities. Kristensen and Zeitlin (2005: 5) also note
how different languages were used by HQ and the subsidi-
aries; the former drawing on idioms of management jour-
nals and MBA programs and targeted at ?nancial markets
and investors, whereas subsidiaries focused on narratives
of technological innovation and improvements.
These emphases do not imply some general conclusion
about the perspectives on HQ and subsidiaries except that
discourses are shaped by the location from which their
pronouncements are made. At Megacorp, engagement with
the globalization discourse entailed assessing the perfor-
mance of a particular national unit and individual produc-
tion and sales units against several benchmarks, including
Table 2
Sources of molestation.
Organizational level Sources of molestation
1. MNC’s CEO/Vice CEOs Ritualistic part of the corporate CEO discourse
Inadequate knowledge of detailed MNC capabilities
2. Division CEO Understanding of corporate CEO discourse
Division’s limitations and speci?c attributes
3. National CEO Interpretation of corporate CEO discourse
National speci?c-characteristics (e.g. culture, geographical location, etc.)
4. Sub-unit: GM Translation of national CEO’s and divisional CEO’s discourses
Sub-unit limitations and speci?c attributes
Non-compliance with MNC’s control systems (e.g., BSC, TIME)
Regional/national attributes
Middle management Translation of GM discourse
Embroilment in conditions of co-presence?
Understanding of discourse
Translation and adaptation of KPIs
Resistance
Shop ?oor Interpretation of middle managers’ discourse
Understanding of middle manager’s discourse
Shop?oor speci?c attributes
Resistance
310 D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313
within Megacorp, nationally, and internationally. The
benchmarking language mobilized has ‘‘strikingly interna-
tional connotations’’ (Kristensen & Zeitlin, 2005: 5).
We have shown how in authoring the discourse on
globalization the senior managers of Megacorp initiated
that discourse, augmented it through additions, controlled
its issue via their access to external and internal media,
and maintained the continuity of the discourse over time
(Said, 1975/1997). We have also identi?ed different ex-
tents and strategies of molestation at different levels with-
in Megacorp. Our analysis of authoring/authority and
molestation demonstrates just how interconnected these
concepts are. Neither is possible without the other, but
more importantly each constitutes and shapes the other.
How discourse is authored (the extent of author duplicity
and/or knowledge) impacts the extent and scope for
molestation (which strategies to follow: refusals, sacri?ces,
renunciations, sel?shness, collisions, and compromises).
These strategies of molestation are also impacted by the
type of relationship that exists between HQ and local
sub-units: a more accommodating and ?exible style of
management, as we have seen in our case study, is likely
to result in compromise rather than renunciation or self-
ishness on the part of sub-units. Moreover, molestation
can be enabling in making discourse believable and doable
by rescuing it from being an illusion or dream. Molestation
also displays some similarity with, but goes beyond, diver-
sity. To the extent that different organizational actors pur-
sue different strategies of molestation, local diversity is
inevitable. But the theorization of molestation adumbrated
by Said (1975/1997) and utilized here goes beyond under-
scoring difference: it emphasizes both the restrictive and
enabling qualities of molestation and further it highlights
how discourse and molestation are mutually constitutive.
This discussion suggests that any understanding of
molestation should not be solely based on its restrictive
or disabling qualities. As long as molestation does not en-
tail total denial and resistance to authoring/authority, dis-
course will continue to intentionally produce meaning and
make possible certain outcomes, mediated by the extent of
molestation present. In our case study, the authored dis-
course of the senior managers of Megacorp was intended
to produce speci?c meanings of what globalization en-
tailed and also to produce Megacorp as a global organiza-
tion. One can therefore ask: did the discourse succeed in
doing so despite the molestation we analyzed? Much de-
pends of course on how we, as evaluators or critics, per-
ceive notions such as what is a global organization. It is
relevant in this context to cite one quote from an article
published by a leading business magazine in 2008 which
refers to Megacorp as ‘‘one of globalization’s greatest win-
ners’’. If this assessment is widely shared in the business
world, then the argument that managerial globalization
discourse produces not only meanings but also objects,
such as a global organization, is vindicated. Of course the
global organization produced will not necessarily map ex-
actly onto the ‘‘dream’’ that senior managers expressed in
their discourse, for molestation would have had an impact
upon that and the above quote hides the tensions, con?icts
and restraints that are typically associated with molesta-
tion; nonetheless, a global organization was produced.
We have also commented on how ideas travelled from
HQ to sub-units and also that the authoring of the sugges-
tions scheme in ElectronUK entailed repetition (‘‘pinched
with pride’’ from other units). By the time we were con-
cluding our interviews, this particular suggestions scheme
was considered a ‘‘success storey’’ by the senior manage-
ment of Megacorp, won one award from the company
and was publicized in Megacorp’s internal magazines. We
therefore did not have the opportunity to explore the ex-
tent to which this suggestions scheme travelled across
other units in the company or to HQ in terms of its appro-
priation, further authoring and adoption. Overall, however,
our understanding is that, in the main, innovative ideas
from subsidiaries did not travel to HQ because subsidiaries
‘‘lacked the social and organizational space for communi-
cating this information, since such detailed concrete
knowledge could not be conveyed and understood within
the language of the headquarters’’ (Said, 1975/1997: 6). It
would be valuable to explore the extent to which this
restriction of the travel of detailed concrete language from
sub-units to global HQ is the outcome of the nature of the
innovation. In other words, would ideas travel more read-
ily from sub-units to global HQ if they relate to other types
of innovations, for example performance measurement
systems (PMS) and key performance indicators (KPIs),
where the language may be more commonly shared?
It would be interesting to examine the extent to which
national and geographical diversity and the type of sub-
unit activities, in our case plant vs. sales, impact global dis-
course and KPIs, more speci?cally to explore the extent to
which local speci?city feeds into universalised accounting
technologies and discourses that circulate globally. The
nature of our empirical material makes it possible for us
to offer only a few preliminary observations. First, technol-
ogies that are the carriers of speci?c national cultural
expressions even when mandated by an MNC’s interna-
tional HQ do not necessarily travel well to other national
locations. We have offered two examples of this: one re-
lates to TIME which has not been adopted in either of the
Chinese or UK plants, the other are two KPIs that Electro-
nUK abandoned because they were ‘too Germanic’ to make
sense in a UK context. Second, and relatedly, the managers
of ElectronChina seem to frame their discussion of their
control thinking and KPIs in terms of technical knowhow,
competition in South-East Asia and the training and overall
capabilities of their labor force. While ElectronUK also con-
sidered the European zone their most relevant ‘global’ con-
text, the thinking of its senior managers was impacted by
ElectronChina and the possibility of being shut down if
its performance fell below targets. Third, the contrasting
fortunes of the much trimmed down ElectronUK and con-
tinuously expanding ElectronChina seem to impact the
type of accounting control systems and KPIs used in each
sub-unit. ElectronUK used the BSC extensively and devel-
oped a battery of KPIs in search for cost ef?ciencies,
whereas ElectronChina was managed using a handful of
KPIs, without the introduction of a full blown BSC. Fourth,
there was some scope for ideas to travel across sub-units
within Megacorp; this was made possible because of work-
shops/meetings involving different sub-units to discuss
developments in KPIs and other accounting technologies,
D.J. Cooper, M. Ezzamel / Accounting, Organizations and Society 38 (2013) 288–313 311
publication of some of these developments in the MNC’s
various HQ and divisional outlets, and because all sub-
units had some computer access to ideas developed
throughout the MNC. This explains, for example, why the
characteristics of suggestions schemes and de?nition of
relevant KPIs at ElectronUK were in part in?uenced by
other units in Megacorp. Similarly, ElectronUK’s sugges-
tions scheme at the conclusion of our interviews was
judged to be so successful that it was covered in an internal
Megacorp magazine that was circulated widely within the
MNC. It would be instructive for these preliminary obser-
vations to be considered further through more detailed
empirical evidence in other organizations.
Our analysis of the emergence of globalization dis-
course at the level of an MNC did not seek to examine
the extent to which such a discourse might impact on
the wider discursive ?eld, an issue that is important. More-
over, in conceptualizing discourse as a form of ‘speech act’,
we only focus on one target audience, that of the MNC
employees at local levels. It would be interesting to explore
how other intended audiences react to, or indeed enact,
managerial globalization discourse: owners, investment
analysts, potential investors, ?nancial institutions and
money lenders, customers, suppliers, competitors, consul-
tants and indeed academics. These are possibilities that fu-
ture researchers can turn their attention to.
To sum up, this paper offers an analysis of globalization
and performance measurement systems that is informed
by Said (1975/1997). The strength of this approach is that
it provides a view of discourse that emphasizes four ele-
ments of authoring and also goes beyond notions of resis-
tance and translation in understanding how discourses are
molested. It emphasizes the dynamics between authority
and molestation in showing how molestation is a restraint
upon the invention by authority and how molestation res-
cues discourse from being an implausible dream. Said’s
work also emphasizes how writing permits and makes
possible changes in perception and behavior, and we have
conceptualized accounting technologies such as the BSC
and KPIs as one form of writing. Thus the texts considered
here, from the CEO of Megacorp in annual reports and
speeches to shop ?oor talk in sub-units, produce signi?cant
effects, such as changes in production, workforce sugges-
tions, pro?ts, and phone calls to customers, which are
in?uenced by speci?c visions and articulations of global-
ization. People within the corporation respond, across
space and time, to systems such as the BSC, related KPIs
and a concern with comparisons and benchmarking, in a
manner that acknowledges the authority and power of
the globalization discourse. Yet they do so in a manner that
is the outcome of molestations resulting from their speci?c
circumstances and interests.
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