Shareholder orientation and the framing of management control practices: A field study in

Description
This paper explores how notions of enhanced shareholder orientation influenced the evolution
of management control practices in a Chinese state-owned enterprise over a
ten-year period. Drawing on the social movement literature and adopting a historically
informed field study approach we examine how this took the form of a protracted framing
process where an emerging, shareholder-focused frame interacted with the extant work
unit frame embedded in Maoist ideology and the broader cultural system of
Confucianism and imbued control practices with context-specific meanings. Particular
attention is paid to how this interplay fostered varying degrees of frame alignment, denoting
the extent to which particular frames are congruent with those enacted by various
social actors, and how this affected organisational action.

Shareholder orientation and the framing of management
control practices: A ?eld study in a Chinese state-owned
enterprise
ChunLei Yang
a
, Sven Modell
a,b,?
a
Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
b
NHH – Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Available online 27 June 2015
a b s t r a c t
This paper explores how notions of enhanced shareholder orientation in?uenced the evo-
lution of management control practices in a Chinese state-owned enterprise over a
ten-year period. Drawing on the social movement literature and adopting a historically
informed ?eld study approach we examine how this took the form of a protracted framing
process where an emerging, shareholder-focused frame interacted with the extant work
unit frame embedded in Maoist ideology and the broader cultural system of
Confucianism and imbued control practices with context-speci?c meanings. Particular
attention is paid to how this interplay fostered varying degrees of frame alignment, denot-
ing the extent to which particular frames are congruent with those enacted by various
social actors, and how this affected organisational action. We illustrate how the
shareholder-focused frame challenged extant control practices but was also complemented
and ultimately replaced by the work unit frame to address an escalating performance crisis.
These ?ndings lead us to re?ect on how resistance to shareholder-focused control practices
is brought about and what roles alternative and more deeply embedded frames play in
constraining as well as enabling collective action. We also discuss how the approach to
framing informing our analysis may complement cognate accounting research drawing
on notions of performativity and social psychology.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Over the past two decades a notable wave of change in
corporate governance discourse and practice epitomised
by increasing demands for accountability and returns to
shareholders has swept across many parts of the world
(Fiss & Zajac, 2004; Meyer & Höllerer, 2010; Roberts,
Sanderson, Barker, & Hendry, 2006). This increasingly glo-
bal quest for enhanced shareholder orientation has taken
the form of a social movement underpinned by a pro-
nounced ideological commitment to economics-based con-
ceptions of the ?rm (Davis & Thompson, 1994; Lazonick &
O’Sullivan, 2000). Following the tenets of especially agency
theory much of the unfolding corporate governance
discourse has pivoted on how to devise performance
contracts that ensure that the goals and interests of
managers are aligned with those of shareholders (Dobbin
& Jung, 2010; Roberts, 2001; Zajac & Westphal, 2004).
Accounting scholars have taken increasing interest in
how this ideological shift towards enhanced shareholder
orientation shapes management accounting and control
practices and how various actors go about resisting such
practices (e.g., Ezzamel & Burns, 2005; Ezzamel,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.06.001
0361-3682/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
?
Corresponding author at: Manchester Business School, University of
Manchester, Crawford House, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB,
United Kingdom.
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Modell).
Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aos
Willmott, & Worthington, 2008; Kraus & Strömsten, 2012).
We extend this line of inquiry to a state-owned enterprise
(SOE) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and ask how
this ideological shift in?uenced its management control
practices.
Whilst de?nitions of ideology abound we adhere to
Gerring’s (1997, p. 980) core de?nition of the concept as
a reasonably stable and coherent ‘‘set of idea-elements that
are bound together, that belong to one another in a
non-random fashion’’ and guide politically motivated
actions. This de?nition stresses the consistency of mean-
ings as a key attribute of ideologies and foundation for
societal governance regimes. However, several authors
have emphasised the need to extend the analysis of ideolo-
gies as a society-level phenomenon to examine how their
meanings are transformed in particular organisational con-
texts (e.g., Brunsson, 1982; Meyer, Sahlin, Ventresca, &
Walgenbach, 2009). To examine this phenomenon we
mobilise the concept of framing, denoting the process
through which ideologies imbue management control
practices with more or less shared, context-speci?c mean-
ings. A key assumption behind this approach is that ideolo-
gies constitute an important source of inspiration for the
more speci?c frames, or interpretative schema, that make
social practices meaningful. But emerging ideologies are
not necessarily identical with such frames as the latter
are also in?uenced by extant and more context-speci?c
meaning systems. We pay particular attention to how the
focal framing process was fuelled by the emerging,
shareholder-focused ideology as well as extant frames
embedded in Maoist ideology and the broader cultural sys-
tem of Confucianism and the consequences this had for
organisational action.
Whilst the literature on framing informing contempo-
rary organisational analyses is very diverse (see
Cornelissen & Werner, 2014), prior accounting research
using this concept mainly falls into two categories. One
stream of studies extends economics-based models with
insights from social psychology to examine how the mean-
ings attached to implicit contracts condition the propen-
sity for self-interested behaviour (Christ, Sedatole, &
Towry, 2012; Rowe, 2004; Rowe, Birnberg, & Shields,
2008). In doing so, they start from the premise that there
is an innate tendency for misalignment of interests in
organisations (epitomised by the notion of agency prob-
lems) which is either ampli?ed or mitigated by
socio-cognitive framing processes. However, they do not
delve into the wider political dynamics in?uencing such
processes. This mirrors the more general lack of attention
to socio-political processes in accounting research
informed by social psychology (see Luft & Shields, 2009).
By contrast, we consider it vital to nurture such a focus
as the movement towards enhanced shareholder orienta-
tion is not a politically neutral but often ideologically con-
tested phenomenon (e.g., Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Meyer &
Höllerer, 2010).
An alternative stream of research placing socio-political
processes centre stage can be found in the burgeoning
accounting literature mobilising a performative perspec-
tive on framing (e.g., Christensen & Skærbæk, 2007;
Miller & O’Leary, 2007; Skærbæk, 2009; Skærbæk &
Tryggestad, 2010; Vinnari & Skærbæk, 2014). Rooted in
actor-network theory and especially the work of Callon
(1998), this research genre examines how accounting as
a calculative practice is implicated in framing various phe-
nomena in such a way that it performs, rather than merely
re?ects, social realities and becomes more or less
self-ful?lling. Emphasising the inherently ?uid nature of
such processes it has tended to view shared meanings, or
social consensus, as a temporary and fragile state which
may be destabilised at any point in time. Whilst this offers
valuable insights into how ongoing framing processes
unfold several accounting scholars have raised concerns
that the performativity literature has paid insuf?cient
attention to the ideologies underpinning broader pro-
grammes of societal transformation (Miller, 2008;
Vollmer, Mennicken, & Preda, 2009; Vosselman, 2014).
Miller (2008, p. 59) argued that its ‘‘almost exclusive inter-
est in calculative practices has tended to relegate the
domain of ‘ideas’ or ‘programmes’ to the penumbra of anal-
ysis’’. Similarly, in a comprehensive review of the perfor-
mativity literature, Vosselman (2014, p. 199) called for
greater sensitivity to the ‘‘virtual and ‘unlocalisable’ histor-
ically developing systems of ideology and power’’ that con-
dition evolving accounting practices. Although the
performativity literature does not negate the role of ideolo-
gies it tends to view them as merely one among many
potential contingencies that bear on framing processes
(Vosselman, 2014). However, more focused attention is
required to how emerging ideologies interact with extant
frames and how this interplay in?uences framing pro-
cesses. This is especially the case where extant frames
are ?rmly embedded in historically contingent meaning
systems that are inconsistent with emerging ideologies.
As noted by Ferraro, Pfeffer, and Sutton (2005), this may
be expected to constrain the propensity of novel ideas
and practices to become self-ful?lling. Explicit recognition
of such constraints also helps us address more general crit-
icisms of actor-network theory such as its ‘‘refusal to the-
orize structural stability’’ (Elder-Vass, 2008, p. 466)
induced by embedded meaning systems.
1
To bring notions of ideology to the fore we follow the
approach to framing advanced in the social movement lit-
erature (Benford & Snow, 2000; Snow, Rochford, Worden,
& Benford, 1986). Whilst less extensively used in contem-
porary accounting research (Bay, 2011; O’Sullivan &
O’Dwyer, 2015) this literature is centrally concerned with
how the ideologies buttressing social movements foster
shared meanings and a basis for collective action as well
as how this phenomenon is in?uenced by more or less con-
tested framing processes (Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow &
Benford, 2000). Our ?ndings show how the framing of con-
trol practices inspired by the shareholder-focused ideology
was partly reconciled with more entrenched frames
embedded in Maoism and Confucianism and gained some
initial traction. However, in the longer term, extant frames
continued to dominate the local level of the ?eld study site
and subverted the efforts to imbue control practices with a
1
See Davis (2006), Fine (2003) and Fourcade (2007) for similar criticisms
of the performativity literature for downplaying the in?uence of
pre-existing social structures on framing processes.
2 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
stronger sense of shareholder orientation. This shows how
deeply embedded meaning systems play a powerful stabil-
ising role and casts doubt on whether emerging ideologies
can produce more sustained, performative effects that
radically transform control practices. But as subsequent
developments in the ?eld study site revealed, extant
frames did not only play a constraining role but also
enabled corporate management to revitalise the framing
process in an attempt to address an escalating
performance crisis. We discuss how these ?ndings con-
tribute to extant accounting research mobilising the con-
cept of framing.
We start by advancing an analytical framework
outlining our approach to framing and linking it to the
more speci?c frames in?uencing the development of
control practices in Chinese SOEs. This is followed by
an introduction to the research setting and description
of the methods employed. Our empirical analysis then
explores how notions of enhanced shareholder orienta-
tion have emerged in recent governance reforms in
Chinese SOEs and in?uenced the framing of management
control practices in our ?eld study site over a ten-year
period. The concluding discussion summarises our key
?ndings and contributions to extant accounting research.
Analytical framework
Ideology, frames and frame alignment
Studies of framing informed by the social movement lit-
erature often start fromthe premise that social movements
depend on speci?c ideologies as a source of legitimacy for
the causes they champion and mobilise them in their
efforts to establish more widely shared meanings (e.g.,
Snow & Benford, 1988; Steinberg, 1998; Zald, 1996).
Formal theories, such as those underpinning the move-
ment towards enhanced shareholder orientation, often
form an important basis for ideologies in that they provide
inspiration and justi?cation for the broader sets of ethical,
moral and normative ideals that make up ideologies and
can play a key role in the mobilisation of politically moti-
vated actions (Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow & Benford,
2000). This explicitly political dimension distinguishes
the notion of ideology from other ideational concepts such
as that of culture. Social movement theorists have tended
to conceive of culture in primarily socio-cognitive terms
and refer to the broader and more long-standing systems
of meanings in which the ideologies espoused by social
movements are implanted (Meyer et al., 2009; Zald,
1996). The mobilisation of ideologies has also been seen
as entailing more intentional or strategic forms of agency
whilst culture is often viewed as constraining the in?uence
of emerging ideologies on social action (Oliver & Johnston,
2000; Zald, 1996).
Framing processes play a key role in mediating the
in?uence of ideologies on social action. Whilst ideologies
often form an important source of inspiration for the
frames that guide action in particular settings they are
not synonymous and need to be conceptualised as separate
analytical entities (Oliver & Johnston, 2000; Snow &
Benford, 2000). Rather, through more or less contested
framing processes the meanings associated with
emerging ideologies are often transformed into more
context-speci?c frames to achieve a degree of frame align-
ment. Following Snow et al. (1986) we de?ne frame align-
ment as the extent to which the frames originating in
speci?c ideologies are congruent with the frames enacted
by and guiding the actions of individual social actors in
speci?c contexts. To examine how such frame alignment
is brought about and fosters collective action we draw on
Benford and Snow’s (2000) decomposition of this process
into diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing.
Diagnostic framing refers to the identi?cation of speci?c
problems and attribution of causes and blame for such
problems. The creation of some consensus around these
issues forms a ?rst step towards the mobilisation of collec-
tive action. Prognostic framing extends such processes of
consensus-building to the articulation of proposed solu-
tions to identi?ed problems and tends to result in more
or less detailed plans of action. However, the creation of
such consensus is not necessarily suf?cient for problems
to be resolved. For this to materialise an element of motiva-
tional framing, or the provision of a ‘‘rationale for engaging
in ameliorative collective action’’ (Benford & Snow, 2000, p.
617), may also be required. Benford and Snow (2000, p.
617) likened this framing task to a ‘‘call to arms’’ pivoting
on discourses reinforcing the motives and commitment of
various actors to take corrective actions. Such discourses
may also be buttressed by the employment of more mate-
rial incentives as well as coercive means of enforcement
(see Bay, 2011).
Benford and Snow (2000) also outline a range of condi-
tions in?uencing the ef?cacy of the three framing tasks,
such as the malleability of the frames mobilised by social
movements and whether they resonate with extant frames
in particular contexts. Yet a long-standing critique of the
social movement literature concerns its allegedly excessive
emphasis on the discrete events where opposing actors
articulate competing and relatively monolithic frames at
the expense of longitudinal studies of how such frames
interact and in?uence framing processes over time
(Benford, 1997; Cornelissen & Werner, 2014; Snow,
Benford, McCammon, Hewitt, & Fitzgerald, 2014). This
points to a need for closer attention to how diverse frames
are brought together and how this breeds varying levels of
contestation and frame alignment. Following Werner and
Cornelissen (2014), we distinguish between two potential
outcomes of the interactions between emerging and extant
frames – frame shifting and frame blending – affecting the
degree of frame alignment. Frame shifting refers to the
mobilisation of ‘‘an alternative frame that restructures
expectations and experiences and suggests different infer-
ences’’ to those reinforced by competing frames (Werner &
Cornelissen, 2014, p. 1456). Such frame shifting often
results in wholesale replacement of one set of frames by
another. By contrast, frame blending ‘‘is de?ned as the dis-
cursive combination of two separate schemas’’ (Werner &
Cornelissen, 2014, p. 1456) and typically results in hybrids
of emerging and extant frames. Instances of frame shifting
and frame blending may be discernible in each of the three
framing tasks proposed by Benford and Snow (2000) and
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 3
may reinforce or detract from the achievement of frame
alignment. In the following sub-sections, we extend this
discussion to the two sets of frames of more direct rele-
vance to our empirical analysis.
The shareholder-focused frame
To enhance our understanding of how the interplay
between emerging and extant frames breeds varying levels
of frame alignment, we ?rst need to unpack their constitu-
tive elements across the three framing tasks proposed by
Benford and Snow (2000). Starting with the frame typically
emanating from the shareholder-focused ideology we pay
particular attention to the role of agency theory as a source
of inspiration for the transformation of corporate gover-
nance and control practices. By way of diagnostic framing,
agency theory has been instrumental in re-casting the
long-standing problems of goal alignment associated with
the separation of owners and managers as ‘‘agency
problems’’ and convincing capital markets actors of their
pervasiveness in the corporate world (Davis & Thompson,
1994; Zajac & Westphal, 2004). Such agency problems
were attributed to the inherent propensity of managers
to pursue self-interested strategies of corporate expansion
at the expense of stock market performance. Accounting
scholars have also documented how such discourses
permeate the de?nition of problems that more
shareholder-focused control practices purport to solve
(e.g., Cushen, 2013; Ezzamel & Burns, 2005; Ezzamel
et al., 2008).
The prognostic framing advanced by agency theorists to
address agency problems places considerable weight on
the design of performance contracts that either facilitate
behaviour monitoring or economise on monitoring costs
by measuring the outcomes of managers’ efforts (Bol &
Moers, 2010; Prendergast, 2000). The ?rst of these options
is generally manifest in detailed and highly centralised sys-
tems of performance monitoring, whilst the second entails
the use of more aggregate performance metrics (e.g.
accounting pro?ts, return on investment) within a more
decentralised decision-making structure (see e.g.,
Merchant, 2006; Moers, 2006). Agency theorists see the
choice between these options as dependent on their rela-
tive costs and bene?ts. However, empirical research sug-
gests that corporations pursuing enhanced shareholder
orientation have a more innate propensity to favour the
use of highly aggregate, ?nancial performance measures
for performance contracting (e.g., Ezzamel & Burns, 2005;
Kraus & Strömsten, 2012).
The prescriptions for motivational framing provided by
agency theorists pivot on the need to render incentives and
sanctions consistent with the design of performance con-
tracts whilst maintaining a reasonable cost–bene?t
trade-off. This typically entails the linking of aggregate
performance metrics to performance-based incentives
whilst heavier reliance on centralised performance moni-
toring is combined with more coercive and obtrusive
means of control (Bol & Moers, 2010; Prendergast, 2000).
However, both economics-based (Prendergast, 2000,
2002) and sociologically informed inquiries (Dobbin &
Jung, 2010; Zajac & Westphal, 2004) suggest that the use
of performance-based incentives often exceeds their rela-
tive costs due to a widely held view of them as necessary
for managers to expend efforts.
The SOE work unit frame
The emergence of shareholder-focused frames in
Chinese SOEs has unfolded in a context that was long
averse to capitalist notions, such as the primacy of capital
markets interests, as a result of the in?uence of Maoist ide-
ology and the political control exercised by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) and central government
(Ezzamel, Xiao, & Pan, 2007; Skousen & Yang, 1988).
Grounded in orthodox socialism, Maoism emphasised the
primacy of central planning and public ownership as the
cornerstones of the organisation of economic activities
and fostered a pronounced sense of collectivism. The
emphasis on collectivism was also buttressed by ideals
embedded in the more long-standing cultural system of
Confucianism such as the principle of ‘‘mutual depen-
dence’’ between managers and workers (Huang, 2006).
This principle required managers to possess high moral
standards and take the masses’ interests to heart to com-
mand their respect and maintain harmonious workplace
relations. In return, subordinates were expected to display
a high degree of loyalty to their superiors and higher
authorities (Lieberthal, 2004). Similar to Maoism,
Confucianism also embodied a pronounced scepticism of
the use of material incentives and assumed a high
degree of voluntarism and self-sacri?ce on the part of the
masses (Huang, 2006; Lieberthal, 2004; Shenkar & Ronen,
1987).
Insofar as the framing of SOE control practices is
concerned, this con?uence of Maoism and Confucianism
created a complex amalgam of ideals epitomised by the
so-called work unit system (henceforth the work unit
frame). The key problem, forming a basis for diagnostic
framing, was here seen as that of aligning people’s atti-
tudes with the ideological and political agenda of central
authorities in the pursuit of economic objectives.
Problems of goal alignment were generally framed in
terms of ‘‘localism’’ and a lack of ‘‘correct thinking’’,
denoting a want of appropriate attitudes conducive to
economic and political progress. The notion of ‘‘correct
thinking’’ was upheld as one of the pillars of Maoism
2
but can also be traced to Confucian ideals of how to imbue
the workforce with a sense of loyalty to higher authorities
(Lieberthal, 2004). Failures to display attitudes testifying
to such thinking were typically seen as indicative of
deeper problems of lacking commitment to Maoist ideology
and often resulted in reprimands or other forms of
penalties.
The solution, or prognostic framing, typically advanced
to ensure that notions of ‘‘correct thinking’’ were trans-
lated into appropriate courses of actions pivoted on the
2
Mao maintained that ‘‘correct thinking’’ was the source of ideologically
correct behaviour and proper motivation. Since Mao came to dominate the
CCP in the 1940s, instilling ‘‘correct thinking’’ through so-called ‘‘thought
reforms’’ became the Party’s core mechanism of political control and
personnel management (Schurmann, 1968).
4 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
so-called ‘‘mass-line principle’’. This distinctly Maoist con-
cept was intended to complement central planning and
aimed at releasing the willpower presumably inherent in
the masses’ sense of voluntarism. Whilst central planners
governed SOEs through administrative commands and
controlled key decisions pertaining to pricing, personnel,
resource allocation and investments (Hassard, Sheehan,
Zhou, Tong, & Morris, 2007; Steinfeld, 1998), this was
typically combined with appeals for solidarity with
higher, political authorities and the exercise of willpower
to overcome barriers to economic progress. Compliance
with such appeals was in turn seen as a sign of whether
the workforce was imbued with a sense of ideological
conviction (Unger & Chan, 2007). By framing the pursuit
of economic objectives in such explicitly ideological terms
it was largely equated with actions undertaken in the
name of Maoism (Mitter, 2004). For instance, the
imperatives of meeting objectives for cost reduction and
production targets laid down in central plans were
typically framed in terms of moral appeals to ‘‘saving for
the nation’’, using military-style metaphors of ‘‘battling’’
against any material odds, even though ?nancial
responsibilities and decision-making rights were relatively
constrained (Chow, Duh, & Xiao, 2007; Scapens & Hou,
1995).
By way of motivational framing, the ‘‘mass-line princi-
ple’’ was combined with educational activities in the form
of regular ‘‘political learning seminars’’ to study of?cial
documents and engage in collective self-criticism and peri-
odic campaigns of moral persuasion to galvanise the
masses into action (Lieberthal, 2004; Unger & Chan,
2007). Visible demonstrations of compliance with such
campaigns, such as displays of ideological fervour and
self-sacri?ce in the form of volunteering for strenuous
tasks, were pivotal for managers and workers alike to sig-
nal their commitment to Maoism and avoid more coercive
forms of personnel control such as forced demotions and
transfers. By contrast, the use of ?nancial incentives to
reward individual performance was generally limited due
to the collectivist ethos embedded in Maoism as well as
Confucianism. Even though work units used individual
performance scorecards at all levels, performance scores
tended to be interpreted in such a way that the deeply
embedded convention of ‘‘saving face’’ that is typical of
Confucianism could be maintained (Henderson & Cohen,
1984). Workers were also expected to display a degree of
modesty and attribute achievements to collective rather
than individual efforts. Taken together, this fostered a
prevalent ‘‘average mentality’’ preventing individual per-
formance evaluation from having any major in?uence on
the distribution of rewards (Henderson & Cohen, 1984;
Yang & Zhou, 1999). However, the moral expectations
associated with the Confucian notion of ‘‘mutual depen-
dence’’ also placed considerable pressures on managers
to compensate for the lack of individual incentives and
low levels of of?cial pay by creating so-called ‘‘private
treasuries’’, or unauthorised budgets, to fund unof?cial,
collective pay-rises and staff bene?ts. Doing so has
generally been regarded as necessary to maintain social
cohesiveness, avoid tendencies towards social unrest
and safeguard the political standing and career prospects
of SOE managers (see Hassard et al., 2007; Steinfeld,
1998).
3
Whilst sharing the concerns with problems of goal
alignment the work unit frame represents a rather radical
contrast to the shareholder-focused frame (see Table 1).
However, despite nearly two decades of reforms increas-
ingly exposing Chinese SOEs to capital markets interests
(see Chiwamit, Modell, & Yang, 2014; Morris, Hassard, &
Sheehan, 2002), little is still known about how this has
affected the framing of control practices in individual
SOEs.
4
We address this issue by examining how the inter-
play between the shareholder-focused and work unit frames
gave rise to frame shifting and frame blending in the afore-
mentioned framing tasks and how this affected the degree of
frame alignment in an SOE that was initially considered to
be in the forefront of this reform programme.
Research setting and methods
In methodological terms our study heeds emerging calls
for extending the social movement literature to examine
Table 1
Summary of the shareholder-focused and work unit frames and their implications for frame alignment.
The shareholder-focused frame The work unit frame
Diagnostic framing Framing problems of goal alignment as ‘‘agency
problems’’ to reinforce primacy of capital markets
interests
Framing problems of goal alignment in terms of ‘‘localism’’ and
a lack of ‘‘correct thinking’’ indicative of lacking commitment to
Maoist ideology
Prognostic framing Matching the aggregation of performance information
with adequate decentralisation of decision-making
Reliance on the ‘‘mass-line principle’’, appeals for solidarity
with higher authorities and the exercise of willpower as a
complement to central planning
Motivational framing Investing in performance-based incentives or
economising on incentive costs through more coercive
forms of performance monitoring
Reliance on educational activities, periodic campaigns of moral
persuasion and coercive personnel control to reinforce the
‘‘mass-line principle’’. Individual, performance-based
incentives playing limited role
Frame alignment Manifest in commitment to enhanced accountability
and returns to shareholders
Manifest in loyalty to higher authorities and commitment to
Maoist ideology
3
The typical career trajectory of senior SOE managers (who are all party
members) has been to work their way up through the company hierarchy
to then join the ranks of the Party bureaucracy and, in many cases, reaching
high-level political of?ces. Nurturing political connections and avoiding
negative evaluations due to political and social unrest are therefore of vital
interest (McGregor, 2011).
4
Whilst there is some survey-based evidence of the in?uence of stock
market listings on management accounting and control practices in
Chinese SOEs (e.g., O’Connor, Chow, & Wu, 2004; O’Connor, Deng, & Luo,
2006) few case studies have investigated this topic (Xu & Uddin, 2008).
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 5
intra-organisational framing processes (Kaplan, 2008;
McAdam & Scott, 2005) whilst situating such processes in
the broader reform programme aimed at imbuing
Chinese SOEs with a stronger sense of shareholder orienta-
tion. To this end, we offer a historically informed ?eld
study in MetalCo (a pseudonym) which was part of a larger
research project that also entailed data collection at higher
levels of the Chinese SOE sector. MetalCo is a leading com-
pany in the mining and metal manufacturing industry and
was formed in 2001 as part of the efforts to consolidate
SOEs into larger, internationally competitive corporations
(cf. Hassard, Morris, Sheehan, & Yuxin, 2010). As such, it
incorporates six, previously independent production units
(henceforth referred to as ‘‘branches’’). Since its inception,
it has been part-privatised through listings on Chinese and
overseas stock markets although central government has
retained a controlling ownership stake.
Our analysis of the framing of control practices in
MetalCo mainly focuses on the interactions between cor-
porate headquarters and the largest and oldest of the
branches (HN). Access to HN and corporate headquarters
was negotiated through personal contacts of the principal
investigator who is a native Chinese and enabled us to
secure access to a rich, longitudinal data set re?ecting
developments both prior to and after the formation of
MetalCo. However, the lack of corresponding relationships
with other branches prevented us from extending the
study across a broader cross-section of the organisation.
Whilst this constrains our ability to generalise about the
effects of the unfolding framing of control practices, we
were still able to glean some insights into whether issues
emerging in HN were of more widespread concern from
our interactions with corporate headquarters and exami-
nation of corporate-level documents.
The ?eld study in MetalCo comprised four annual site
visits between 2008 and 2011, each lasting several weeks,
and a week-long follow-up visit to HN in 2014. In between
these visits, we engaged in regular exchanges with key
informants (mainly via electronic mail) to follow unfolding
events and validate emerging interpretations. During the
site visits the principal investigator conducted a series of
formal interviews at both corporate headquarters and in
HN, engaged in extensive informal conversations and
observations and secured access to archival data re?ecting
historical as well as concurrent developments. In total, 90
semi-structured interviews and extended conversations
with a broad range of mostly managerial staff were con-
ducted during the site visits (see Appendix A). The majority
of the interviewees had spent their entire careers with HN
and/or MetalCo. Key informants in HN, such as the Party
Secretary-General, the Assistant to the Managing Director
and the Head and Deputy Head of the Accounting and
Finance Department had served the branch for over two
decades. Interviews were documented through extensive
note-taking and the notes were transcribed as soon as pos-
sible after each interview occasion. Archival data included
over sixty semi-of?cial company records, hundreds of
internal memoranda and more than twenty internal
research reports. These data sources document develop-
ments in HN as far back as the 1950s and give relatively
detailed insights into the discourses mobilised by
corporate management to frame control practices since
the formation of MetalCo.
In analysing the ?eld data, we adopted an essentially
abductive approach that took advantage of having one
member of the research team with a profound, emic
understanding of the often subtle, context-speci?c mean-
ings attributed to evolving control practices whilst the
other assumed the role of a theoretically informed ‘‘out-
sider’’ interrogating these interpretations from a more etic
perspective (Lukka & Modell, 2010). Propagators of histor-
ically informed ?eld research emphasise the importance of
balancing such emic and etic aspects but recognise the
challenges of understanding ‘‘meanings-in-situ’’, or what
particular phenomena meant to particular actors at speci-
?c points in time, and what effects such meanings had on
human behaviour when examined retrospectively
(Whittle & Wilson, 2015). We sought to address this issue
by adopting the following analytical approach.
Following a process-orientated approach, we mapped
out what seemed to be the most signi?cant attempts to
frame control practices over a ten-year period (2001–11)
and traced the reactions of our informants to these framing
efforts. The starting point for this analysis was the exami-
nation of memoranda, transcriptions of speeches and other
forms of of?cial, corporate communication to the branches
outlining the rationales for particular control practices at
speci?c points in time. We also sought to situate this of?-
cial framing of control practices in the broader reform con-
text by consulting policy-level documents, extant research
on Chinese SOE reforms and our interview data. The effects
of such framing efforts on more widely shared meanings
were then explored by contrasting the of?cial, corporate
communication with interview data solicited from a rela-
tively broad range of managerial staff within HN and
assessing the degree of frame alignment manifest in their
responses. To trace ‘‘meanings-in-situ’’ and assess their
effects on evolving patterns of action, we systematically
asked our interviewees to re-call their reactions to major
events associated with the framing of control practices
and compared interview data from a variety of informants
experiencing the same events. Where possible we also con-
trasted these oral histories with relevant archival data to
reduce the risks of retrospective bias associated with indi-
vidual memory loss and re-construction of past events
(Collins & Bloom, 1991).
These analytical procedures compelled us to compress
the development of control practices within MetalCo into
three analytically distinct phases characterised by rela-
tively major changes in the focal framing process. Given
the intra-organisational emphasis of our analysis, we pri-
marily traced such changes to organisation-speci?c devel-
opments but also sought to relate these developments to
the general evolution of governance reforms in Chinese
SOEs. We believe this strategy of temporal bracketing
(Langley, 1999) reduces the risk of confounding staff reac-
tions to the more signi?cant framing efforts and alleviates
the problem of tracing shifts in interviewees’ meanings
over time. It also enabled us to examine the emergence
and relative salience of different frames across the three
phases and thus address the criticism of the social move-
ment literature for failing to explore how diverse frames
6 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
evolve and interact over longer periods of time (Benford,
1997; Cornelissen & Werner, 2014; Snow et al., 2014).
However, it restricts the level of detail into which we are
able to unpack the more mundane framing efforts unfold-
ing within each of the three analytical phases. As we were
only able to observe parts of the second and most of the
third phase in real time we are also unable to fully rule
out the risk of retrospective bias associated with histori-
cally informed ?eld research (cf. Whittle & Wilson, 2015).
5
The development of management control practices in
MetalCo
The modern enterprise system and the formation of MetalCo
Market-orientated reforms entailing increasing decen-
tralisation of decision-making and the gradual transforma-
tion of Chinese SOEs into independent legal entities started
in the mid-1980s. However, notions of enhanced share-
holder orientation have mainly been associated with the
so-called Modern Enterprise System (MES) that evolved
from the mid-1990s. Emerging as an integral part of the
‘‘socialist market economy’’ this reform was prompted by
alleged shortcomings of prior reforms, such as the failure
to specify clear property rights and enhance the ?nancial
accountability of SOEs. Many SOEs had long been plagued
by so-called ‘‘irregular behaviours’’,
6
such as waste, inertia,
data manipulation, pilfering and asset stripping, and declin-
ing productivity (see Hassard et al., 2007; Steinfeld, 1998).
Such symptoms of inef?ciency, collectively referred to as
the ‘‘SOE illness’’, led to a nearly permanent decline in prof-
itability for the SOE sector as a whole and created pressures
for more radical reform (Hussain & Zhuang, 1997; Steinfeld,
1998).
The MES reform was preceded by the establishment of
domestic stock markets in the early 1990s and was
inspired by the international movement towards enhanced
shareholder orientation (Clarke, 2003; Wong, 2005). In
contrast to prior reforms, it initially relied on extensive col-
laboration between central government of?cials and key
exponents of the ideology underpinning this movement
such as the World Bank. Following the strongly
neo-liberal reform agenda guiding its work as a policy
advisor at the time,
7
the World Bank framed the need for
more radical reforms in terms of giving capital markets
interests fuller sway and consistently rehearsed agency the-
oretic arguments as a basis for both diagnosing prevailing
problems and prescribing solutions (e.g., World Bank,
1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1997a, 1997b). By way of diagnostic
framing, long-standing behavioural problems such as asset
stripping and data manipulation were re-cast as ‘‘agency
problems’’ and attributed to inadequate systems of perfor-
mance monitoring and the readiness of the State to accept
such behaviours in the interest of upholding social and
political stability. The World Bank also reinforced the notion
that prior SOE reforms exacerbated such problems by failing
to strike an adequate balance between managerial
decision-making autonomy and accountability in a manner
prescribed by agency theorists. For instance, in one of its
earliest reports it observed:
‘‘Agency problems and insider control [were] brought
about by extensive decentralization coupled with weak
monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure
the interests of the owner (the State) are being best
served.’’
[World Bank, 1995b, p. 113]
To resolve the problems of weak accountability for
?nancial results and excessive state intervention, the
World Bank attached considerable weight to large-scale
privatisation through accelerated stock-market listings.
To support such a development it recommended the cre-
ation of more independent boards of directors with a clear
mandate to devise adequate systems for performance
monitoring and a better balance between the delegation
of decision-making rights and accountability for ?nancial
results. It also advocated some crystallisation of the role
of the State as shareholder by transferring its remaining
ownership stakes to a separate governing body and
thereby reducing the pressures on SOEs to compromise
?nancial performance for broader, social concerns such as
the maintenance of staf?ng levels and provision of social
welfare services (see e.g., World Bank, 1995a, 1996,
1997a).
Not surprisingly, these relatively radical proposals for
reform were partly contested by central government and
the CCP. Whilst heeding the World Bank’s advice of fur-
thering privatisation through a policy of ‘‘keeping the large,
letting go of the small’’, the 15th Party Congress convening
in 1997 was cautious not to frame it in such a way that it
was seen as challenging core principles of the ‘‘socialist
market economy’’ (Morris et al., 2002; Xu & Uddin,
2008). The World Bank’s proposals for large-scale privati-
sation were rejected and the efforts to sell off smaller
SOEs were framed in terms of ‘‘corporatisation’’ or ‘‘com
mercialisation’’ to avoid ideologically charged debates
between reform-minded and more conservative factions
of the CCP (Morris et al., 2002). Central government has
also retained ?rm control over large and strategically
important SOEs and adopted a policy of merging them into
more ?nancially viable group companies to be nurtured
into major international players whilst listing many of
them on Chinese and foreign stock exchanges to raise cap-
ital to this end (Chiwamit et al., 2014; Clarke, 2003).
Of?cially, the MES reform aimed at nurturing a rather
vaguely de?ned, ‘‘scienti?c’’ approach, denoting a break
with traditional governance practices, to facilitate stock
market listings. However, the State continues to hold a
controlling ownership stake in most listed SOEs.
This cautious and rather selective approach to gover-
nance reforms is representative of the pronounced spirit
of pragmatism accompanying the development of the ‘‘so-
cialist market economy’’ (see Ezzamel et al., 2007; Sigley,
2006), epitomised by Deng Xiaoping’s famous assertion
5
Our data collection commenced a few months before the events
triggering the third phase of our analysis started to affect HN.
6
A direct translation of a Chinese term signifying non-compliance with
the goals of higher authorities.
7
See Annisette (2004) for a review and critique of how this neo-liberal
reform agenda of the World Bank may be seen as an integral part of a
broader ideology privileging international, capital markets interests.
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 7
that ‘‘t does not matter whether the cat is black or white.
As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.’’ The pursuit of
such pragmatism and avoidance of heated ideological
debates has imbued the notion of ‘‘correct thinking’’ with
new meanings signifying the transformation of SOEs into
‘‘modern’’, ?nancially viable corporations without jeopar-
dising the political control exercised by higher authorities
(Modell & Yang, 2014). The efforts to reconcile the pursuit
of enhanced shareholder orientation with more
context-speci?c frames are especially notable in the gover-
nance practices devised by the State Assets Supervision
and Administration Committee (SASAC) which was estab-
lished as a new governing body for SOEs in 2003. The
SASAC implemented performance contracts placing
increasing emphasis on more aggregate ?nancial metrics
(e.g., return on investment) and encouraged SOEs to adopt
the same, shareholder-focused ‘‘language’’ as listed,
Western corporations but has sought to balance ?nancial
performance improvements with measures devised to
avoid social and political unrest (Chiwamit et al., 2014;
Du, Tang, & Young, 2012). The challenges of upholding
such a balance have also increased as the MES reform
enhanced the pressures on SOEs to reduce staff and their
often extensive provision of social welfare services
(Hassard et al., 2007).
The formation of MetalCo in 2001 was a direct outcome
of the MES reform and was heralded as an integral part of
the process of ‘‘furthering industry consolidation, curtail-
ing the SOE illness and improving the ?nancial perfor-
mance of SOEs’’.
8
Following its incorporation MetalCo
adopted an aggressive, international growth strategy and
quickly became one of the largest manufacturers in the
world in its industry. In the years following its formation
it also stood out as an of?cial ‘‘?agship’’ of continued gover-
nance reforms as a result of the development of a new man-
agement control system – the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ – which
provides the focus of our empirical analysis. Following the
analytical framework advanced in the foregoing the ensuing
sub-sections describe the framing of control practices across
three relatively distinct phases (see Table 2). We pay
particular attention to how the interplay between the
shareholder-focused and work unit frames and the subse-
quent frame shifting and blending affected the degree of
frame alignment across the three phases.
The rise of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ (2001–2004)
Even though the MES reform provided some general
impetus for enhanced shareholder orientation, the changes
to this end in MetalCo were largely catalysed through the
appointment of a new Chief Financial Of?cer (CFO) steeped
in the ‘‘Western’’ shareholder-focused ideology. Whilst a
native Chinese, he lacked prior experience of managing
SOEs but had a background as a quali?ed accountant and
senior executive of a large European company. As such,
he had a reputation for possessing strong, ‘‘Western’’ busi-
ness acumen and was handpicked by the Chairman of
MetalCo to facilitate the listing of MetalCo’s shares on
international stock markets. The Chairman also endorsed
a development whereby the CFO came to be widely
regarded as the ‘‘real’’ executive head of MetalCo. In this
capacity, he placed considerable emphasis on the
shareholder-focused ideology as an alternative to what
he saw as an alarming lack of stringent ?nancial control
across the newly incorporated branches. As explicated
below, however, the initial framing of the ‘‘MetalCo
Model’’ also entailed a notable element of frame blending
to align it with the frames enacted by branch managers.
A particular problem, featuring prominently in the
CFO’s internal communication, concerned the widespread
creation of ‘‘private treasuries’’ through various forms of
‘‘irregular behaviour’’. Such practices were especially
prevalent in HN, where managers had allegedly taken the
autonomy afforded by prior SOE reforms as a ‘‘golden
opportunity’’ to provide unauthorised staff bene?ts. The
pressures on managers to do so were reinforced by the
foundation of HN in a desolate region ‘‘cut out from all
civilisations’’.
9
This isolation fostered a strongly communal
sense of belonging and reinforced the importance of mean-
ings associated with the work unit frame, such as the
Table 2
The framing of management control practices within MetalCo.
Analytical phase The rise of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ Re-framing the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ The fall of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’
Time period 2001–04 2004–08 2008–11
Diagnostic framing Shareholder-focused frame
dominant and advanced as
alternative to work unit frame
(frame shifting)
Limitations of shareholder-focused frame
recognised and complemented with work unit-
inspired emphasis on operating-level issues
(frame blending)
Work unit frame dominant and
replacing shareholder-focused frame
(frame shifting)
Prognostic framing Shareholder-focused frame
dominant and advanced as
alternative to work unit frame
(frame shifting)
Shareholder-focused frame revised to enhance
accountability for pro?ts and operating-level
performance (frame blending)
Work unit frame dominant and
replacing shareholder-focused frame
(frame shifting)
Motivational framing Partial reliance on work unit
frame to support shareholder-
focused frame (frame blending)
Continued reliance on work unit frame to
support shareholder-focused frame (frame
blending)
Work unit frame dominant and
replacing shareholder-focused frame
(frame shifting)
Frame alignment Limited and super?cial
alignment with shareholder-
focused frame at branch level
Some initial alignment with revised frame at
branch level, but shareholder-focused frame
gradually losing traction
Nearly instant alignment with work
unit frame at branch level, but
requiring repeated mobilisation to be
maintained
8
Extract from company publicity material.
9
Interview with the Party-Secretary General of HN, 2010.
8 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
signi?cance of upholding a sense of ‘‘mutual dependence’’
and harmonious workplace relations. This was an environ-
ment where the ‘‘average mentality’’ associated with perfor-
mance evaluation was rife and the keeping of ‘‘private
treasuries’’ was regarded as an inherent responsibility of
managers. Whilst company archives pre-dating the forma-
tion of MetalCo repeatedly condemned such practices, our
interviewees drew attention to how they continued to
?ourish:
‘‘Private treasury is more or less a historical constant. . . .
No matter what reforms say, there are people to be fed.
You can’t just ignore them, can you? Especially for a
company of this kind of size having a harmonious and
uni?ed work force has tremendous social and political
impact. If they are unhappy, they can cause a great deal
of social unrest which would re?ect extremely badly on
the management board. Our bosses all have political
ambitions of one kind or another. They certainly can’t
afford to make such political mistakes.’’
[Interview, Deputy Head of the Of?ce of HN, 2008]
For a long period of time, managers in HN were able to
de?ect pressures for more stringent ?nancial control in
their efforts to avoid social disharmony and unrest.
Negative deviations from ?nancial targets were routinely
subject to ‘‘adjustments’’ in conjunction with periodic per-
formance evaluations. Branch managers also explained
how such adjustments were justi?ed and accepted with
reference to allegedly ‘‘uncontrollable’’ factors, such as pol-
icy initiatives geared towards avoiding social and political
unrest, as well as ‘‘historical’’ factors such as the costs of
maintaining the branch’s extensive social welfare obliga-
tions. Earlier SOE reforms did little to rectify this or as
the former Head of Accounting and Finance explained:
‘‘Throughout the 1990s, the fundamental control
mechanism was never one based on accounting
numbers, but on the personal liking and disliking of
the head of the company. . . the [accounting] targets
were soft and negotiable . . . meeting or missing the cost
targets was merely a side issue that no one took
seriously’’.
[Interview, former Head of Accounting and Finance of
HN, 2010]
The CFO’s framing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ marked a
radical break with this long-standing understanding of
?nancial control as subservient to practices reinforced by
the work unit frame. The model was of?cially launched
shortly after the formation of MetalCo in 2001 and was fol-
lowed by concerted efforts by the CFO to compel branch
managers to change their attitudes to ?nancial control as
it was further developed over the following years. By
way of diagnostic framing, he repeatedly chastised branch
managers for sticking to ‘‘old’’ SOE practices, such as
attempting to maintain ‘‘private treasuries’’ through ‘‘ir-
regular behaviour’’, and prioritising branch interests over
more corporate-wide concerns with increasing returns to
shareholders. For instance, a little over a year after the
launch of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’, he issued a statement
summarising his concerns with the recently completed
budgeting process:
‘‘Last year’s budgeting was a disaster . . . instead of
thinking on behalf of MetalCo, many branches stood
in opposition to headquarters and engaged in extensive
gaming, adding layers and layers of ‘‘water’’ to their
resource claims. . . . These problems are underpinned
by the old SOE style of thinking. But we are not an old
SOE anymore. We are a consolidated, integrated, listed
modern enterprise. . . .. I must remind everybody that
the rule of the game has changed, the business context
has changed and our thinking and mode of manage-
ment must change accordingly. We are no longer
self-serving work units, we work for our investors, or
we will be voted out.’’
[Excerpt from CFO memorandum to branches, 2003]
Such concerns with enhanced shareholder orientation
were also mirrored by the CFO’s prognostic framing. In
his communication with branch managers he consistently
emphasised the need to reinforce the central accounting
function as a solution to the problem of enhancing
accountability to shareholders and adopted what many of
our interviewees described as a pronounced ‘‘mana
ging-by-numbers’’ approach. For instance, in a
corporate-wide training session the CFO proclaimed:
‘‘In the past . . .we were accountable to [political] lead-
ers and higher level authorities. Now I emphasise that
we are accountable to all of our shareholders, to society
and to our investors. This is because we are a listed
company and we need to ful?ll the expectations of
the capital market. In line with the latest US stock mar-
ket regulation, we need to conceive of the importance of
accounting work from a new, strategic height. . .ac-
counting control must be the core of our internal man-
agement system. As long as we follow this principle and
use budgeting as the key vehicle for planning and con-
trol, our overall management infrastructure will have a
solid foundation and promising starting point.’’
[Excerpt from CFO speech at internal training confer-
ence, 2004]
Interestingly, the CFO’s prognostic framing was but-
tressed by explicit references to agency theory. But in con-
trast to the use of aggregate performance metrics within a
decentralised decision-making structure often associated
with the international movement towards enhanced
shareholder orientation, he placed considerable emphasis
on centralisation as a means of resolving agency problems:
‘‘A modern corporate governance structure is based on
agency thinking. Western agency theory argues that a
company is a network of performance contracts
between layers of management. It is concerned with
the design of these contracts and the division of the
responsibility between different levels of the business.
For example, in MetalCo headquarters has headquar-
ters’ agendas, branches have branches’ agendas. How
do you coordinate these agendas so that we are moving
in the same direction? Centralisation is the most suit-
able way to regulate the relationship between the head-
quarters and the branches, to optimise resource
allocation, and to standardise ?nancial and operational
practices.’’
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 9
[Excerpt from CFO speech at internal training confer-
ence, 2004]
The weight attached to centralisation as a solution to
the problems experienced by the CFO was also re?ected
in the control practices implemented as part of the
‘‘MetalCo Model’’. From having constituted independent
legal entities with full responsibility for pro?ts, branches
were transformed into cost centres and were subjected to
tight cash management and budgetary control. Branches
were initially held accountable for manufacturing costs
and branch overheads whilst no attempts were made to
allocate corporate overheads. This reliance on less aggre-
gate ?nancial performance metrics was accompanied by
a withdrawal of decision-making rights from the branches
across a range of key operating areas. In 2002, the authori-
sation of operating budgets, capital investments, research
and development and repair and maintenance budgets
was centralised to headquarters. This was followed by cen-
tralisation of most of the personnel, production planning,
sales and purchasing functions over the following years.
To facilitate central performance monitoring league tables
were also devised to rank the branches across a range of
?nancial and non-?nancial performance indicators on a
monthly basis. Another manifestation of the ambition to
strengthen central performance monitoring was the deci-
sion to implement an enterprise resource planning system
in 2004. This decision was also justi?ed as a solution to the
problem of how to make MetalCo a more
shareholder-focused corporation whilst complying with
emerging regulatory requirements such as the Sarbanes–
Oxley Act.
The initial diagnostic and prognostic framing of the
‘‘MetalCo Model’’ thus relied heavily on the
shareholder-focused frame as an alternative to the work
unit frame and signify an instance of frame shifting
(Werner & Cornelissen, 2014). However, in his efforts to
motivate branch managers to take the model to heart,
the CFO partly fell back on the work unit frame and
engaged in a degree of frame blending. On the one hand,
he made extensive references to the acclaim bestowed on
the company by various government authorities and the
business press
10
for its transformation into a ‘‘modern’’
SOE, representing the pinnacle of ‘‘correct thinking’’ in the
MES era, to persuade branch managers of the merits of the
‘‘MetalCo Model’’. A pay-for-performance system giving
branches the discretion to allocate 40 per cent of their salary
budgets as performance-related pay to departments and
individuals to reward ‘‘peak performance’’ was also devised
to compensate for the withdrawal of ‘‘private treasuries’’. On
the other hand, the efforts to imbue branch managers with a
sense of ‘‘correct thinking’’ conducive to the pursuit of
shareholder orientation relied heavily on practices reminis-
cent of the work unit frame such as educational activities,
intensive campaigns of moral persuasion and coercive
personnel control. Between 2002 and 2004, branches were
required to devote their weekly political learning seminars
to study the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ to enhance the loyalty of
managers and workers to headquarters and the broader
reform agenda. Branch accounting personnel, in particular,
were urged to recognise the new, strategic signi?cance of
their position by ‘‘broadening their horizons, take into heart
the collective interest of MetalCo and follow headquarters’
commands whenever they are in con?ict with local deci-
sions’’.
11
Such tactics of moral persuasion, typically framed
in terms of calls for enhanced ‘‘cooperation’’ from the
branches, were complemented with rather heavy-handed
use of personnel controls, such as demotion of
‘‘trouble-makers’’ and systematic rotation of branch man-
agers to and from headquarters to ?ll important posts with
‘‘loyalists’’.
The use of the work unit frame to imbue branch man-
agers with a commitment to enhanced shareholder orien-
tation seems to have produced somewhat mixed results.
Even though branch managers did not openly challenge
these efforts, many of them interpreted headquarters’ calls
for ‘‘cooperation’’ as entailing considerable ‘‘self-sacri?ce’’
implying a degree of voluntarism not dissimilar to that
expected in the Maoist era. Whilst the intensity of the cam-
paigns and the publicity surrounding the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’
fostered a climate where compliance was seen as an hon-
ourable way of furthering the ‘‘?ght for China’’ this seemed
to take a rather heavy toll on staff:
‘‘It is dif?cult to describe how much we sacri?ced for
this. [It is] huge. Everybody lost something. It is an
untold story with many unsung heroes. We let go of
many business opportunities, we laid off many
long-time colleagues, we handed over our freedom
and resources. Normal family life was disrupted [by
the staff rotation scheme] . . .[because] we want to con-
tribute towards this vision. . . .’’
[Group conversation with the Head of Of?ce and Head
of Salary and Remunerations of HN, 2010]
Some branch managers also seem to have complied
with the demands of headquarters more as a result of
expediency than genuine conviction. Questioning the
‘‘MetalCo Model’’ was seen as tantamount to challenging
notions of ‘‘correct thinking’’ and jeopardising career
opportunities or as one of our informants explained:
‘‘Questioning [the economic feasibility of] the model is
to question headquarters, that is to say the govern-
ment’s political agenda, which would be very career
limiting. . . it is hard to say which kind of mistake [ques-
tioning the model on economic or political grounds] is
graver, at the end of the day they are the same. . . given
that centralisation is politically correct, it must also be
economically right no matter what you think.’’
[Interview, Assistant to Managing Director of HN, 2010]
The pressures for compliance with the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’
seem to have been relatively effective insofar as it initially
reduced the extent of ‘‘irregular behaviour’’ geared
10
This acclaim included the CFO receiving the ‘‘CFO of The Year’’ award
from the country’s best-selling business magazine on two occasions and
was reinforced by the establishment of MetalCo among the top ten SOEs in
the league table for SOEs administered by the SASAC. Liberal references to
these achievements were found in the CFO’s communication to branch
managers.
11
Excerpt from internal memorandum, 2003.
10 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
towards maintenance of ‘‘private treasuries’’. By the end of
2003, such practices had all but stopped as the branches
agreed to give up local accounts where ‘‘private treasuries’’
were kept and facilitate internal audits. Some branch man-
agers also agreed that the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ initially
brought signi?cant change to control practices:
‘‘Centralisation led to a more disciplined managerial
regime. That fact is beyond dispute... Previously our
annual budget was treated like a joke and adjustments
were made all the time. Since incorporation . . .we have
taken annual budgeting more seriously and been doing
our best to produce more accurate plans. Financial
management was modernised as a result.’’
[Interview, Head of the Budgeting Of?ce of HN, 2008]
On balance, however, the removal of ‘‘private trea-
suries’’ seemed to owe more to the coercive measures
imposed on the branches and the CFO’s ‘‘absolutely
non-negotiable’’ approach to ?nancial control than any
deeper frame alignment entailing a more fundamental
change in managerial mindsets. With the backing of the
Chairman, the CFO bluntly rejected any attempts to invoke
‘‘exceptional’’ or ‘‘uncontrollable’’ circumstances as a basis
for avoiding more stringent, ?nancial accountability and
expected branch managers to comply to the letter with
such demands. But such expectations resonated poorly
with the sense of ‘‘self-sacri?ce’’ in HN. Whilst branch
managers expected some acknowledgement, appreciation
or even gratitude for their sacri?ces, the CFO merely con-
sidered their ostensible acceptance of the model as ‘‘good
management work’’ claiming that ‘‘whilst there is consid-
erable improvement, we still have a long way to go’’ in a
visit to HN in 2004.
12
This lack of sensitivity to local senti-
ments bred a degree of resentment or as two of our infor-
mants recalled:
‘‘Talking about it makes us emotional, because it seems
all this [sacri?ce] got us nowhere, no appreciation, no
compensation. In short, we were just comprehensively
worse off.’’
[Group discussion with the Head of Of?ce and Head of
Salary and Remunerations of HN, 2010]
A similar lack of frame alignment was discernible in the
views of how to motivate personnel. Although the CFO saw
the pay-for-performance system as a powerful means of
incentivising staff, our informants in HN indicated that it
largely failed to compensate for the removal of ‘‘private
treasuries’’.
13
They also explained how they found it dif?cult
to reconcile the notion of performance-related pay with
meanings associated with the work unit frame such as the
signi?cance of maintaining harmonious workplace relations:
‘‘The designer clearly has no idea of the reality of SOEs
where you need to save people’s face and cannot differ-
entiate their performance scores to create big pay gaps.
If you do, you get a bad name for yourself and your win-
dow might be smashed at night.’’
[Interview, Head of the Human Resource Department of
HN, 2008]
Managers in HN thus refrained from applying the
pay-for-performance system as intended by the CFO and
continued to even out individual performance scores to
minimise pay gaps. One of them explained:
‘‘After modi?cation and adjustment the performance
scores never differ much and we all get more or less
the same performance-related pay. . .this may sound
strange to you, but the workforce has lived and worked
together for three generations since the late
1950s. . .people are very conscious of saving each
other’s face. It is just not possible to create huge pay
gaps.’’
[Interview, Head of the Salary Of?ce of HN, 2009]
The initial implementation of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ thus
appears to have produced relatively limited and super?cial
frame alignment. Although there were no overt attempts
by branch managers to challenge the shareholder-focused
frame, their responses to the CFO’s motivational framing
revealed some clear discrepancies in meanings. As expli-
cated below, such discrepancies grew increasingly salient
over the following years despite some attempts to resolve
emerging problems.
Re-framing the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ (2004–08)
The broader reform programme aimed at imbuing SOE
control practices with a stronger sense of shareholder ori-
entation gradually gained momentum after the formation
of the SASAC in 2003 (see Chiwamit et al., 2014). In
MetalCo, however, some re-framing
14
of control practices
entailing an increasing element of frame blending was
prompted by emerging, organisation-speci?c problems of
producing stronger frame alignment. One manifestation of
such problems was the reversal to a relatively passive mind-
set once the initial fervour surrounding the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’
subsided. Although the model produced some ostensible
improvements in ?nancial accountability and probity, the
tendency for branch managers to comply with it for fear of
challenging notions of ‘‘correct thinking’’ rather than engag-
ing in more forceful, ‘‘entrepreneurial’’ actions to improve
operations grew over time and fostered widespread tenden-
cies towards so-called ‘‘stagnation’’.
Somewhat paradoxically, the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ also fos-
tered behaviours detracting from more stringent ?nancial
control practices. This was especially manifest in what
headquarters referred to as ‘‘problematic target setting’’
and ‘‘irresponsible purchasing’’. These partly inter-related
problems originated in the centralisation of
decision-making which created a considerable knowledge
gap between the branches and headquarters and forced
the CFO to concede to the supposedly ‘‘temporary’’
12
Excerpts from transcript documenting the CFO’s ?eld visit to HN, 2004.
13
According to some of our informants, unof?cial payments originating
from ‘‘private treasuries’’ could amount to as much as 100 and even 150 per
cent of formal pay which far exceeded the remuneration available through
the pay-for-performance system.
14
Following Snow and Benford (2000) we de?ne re-framing as the
remedial work undertaken to address de?ciencies in a particular frame
without the fundamental rationale behind the frame being questioned.
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 11
measure of allowing for an element of local participation in
target-setting and coordination of the supply network. This
enabled the branches to submit allegedly in?ated purchas-
ing requests and thereby enhance the overall achievability
of their cost targets. Headquarters seems to have been
unable to reverse such practices and between 2003 and
2008 all branches consistently enjoyed the status of ‘‘star
performers’’ in the league tables used to evaluate their per-
formance. However, the submission of in?ated purchasing
requests became a frequent source of friction between
headquarters and the branches. In 2005, the CFO openly
condemned such practices using his now routinely
rehearsed, shareholder-focused rhetoric:
‘‘We all know that grade 6 [ore] is perfectly ade-
quate. . .then why did some branches insist headquar-
ters provide them with grade 7? .. .One particular
branch even requested headquarters to provide them
with XX [a key chemical input] at the laboratory stan-
dard . . . What kind of attitude lay behind such requests?
Where is your cost awareness?... I repeat one more
time, circumstances have changed, your mindset must
also change. ... We can no longer afford such astounding
wastefulness and irresponsibility. We are now a listed
company. Not only I, but the market is watching you.
Investors will abandon us if we do not deliver. Then
what would become of us? Have any of you thought
of that?’’
[Extract from CFO’s speech at internal annual perfor-
mance review meeting, 2005]
These emerging, operating-level problems came to a
heed in late 2004, as the branches proved reluctant to
reduce production in response to a temporary market
downturn for fear of missing their overall cost targets
(which included ?xed capacity costs). This prompted some
re-framing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ in favour of what many
of our informants saw as a more ‘‘pragmatic’’ approach res-
onating with the work unit frame. The key champion of
these re-framing efforts was the Chief Executive Of?cer
(CEO), who in 2005 ‘‘volunteered’’ to take up the role of
Head of the Corporate Performance Management and
Measurement Committee and began to attend to more ‘‘or-
ganisational’’ aspects of performance management along-
side the CFO. Mobilising rhetoric reminiscent of the work
unit frame he carefully portrayed himself as a
down-to-earth, ‘‘traditional SOE man’’ and claimed to be
rather ‘‘a-theoretical’’ and an ‘‘amateur in numbers’’.
15
In
contrast to the CFO’s distanced, ‘‘non-negotiable’’ approach
to ?nancial control, he was also at pains to reach out to
branch managers urging them to cooperate and be more
pro-active in resolving operational problems. The diagnostic
framing underpinning his appeals to branch managers
recognised how the application of the model had fostered
a rather passive, ‘‘managing by numbers’’ approach and a
certain lack of social harmony across the corporation. The
key problems requiring attention were described as follows:
‘‘Our existing system is well established and accom-
plished signi?cant results. It is a solid platform for
future re?nement and development. A major issue in
the next step of development is to fully motivate man-
agers at both headquarters and the branches. I am sorry
to observe the hostility and passivity at these levels of
management . . . I am not suggesting that the goals must
be absolutely identical. This is not realistic. However, at
present there is a considerable gap between the direc-
tions of headquarters and the branches. It seems to
me that branches have degenerated into ‘‘operating by
accounting numbers’’ whereby meeting cost targets is
the sole objective of directors.’’
[Excerpt from CEO’s review of annual performance,
2005]
But the blame for these problems was not solely attrib-
uted to the branch managers. Rather, the CEO’s appeals to
the branches were couched in the form of self-criticism
expected under the work unit frame and he admitted that
MetalCo’s management board had failed to pay attention
to emerging problems and called for ‘‘much broader con-
sultation’’
16
as to how to resolve them. Yet he stopped short
of challenging the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ and the pursuit of
shareholder orientation at a more fundamental level and
stressed the need for continuity and re?nement of the
model. The solution, or prognostic framing, advanced to this
end pivoted on an abandonment of the emphasis on ‘‘cost
containment’’ in favour of ‘‘pro?t maximisation’’ to foster a
more ‘‘entrepreneurial’’ spirit and enhance branch man-
agers’ sense of accountability for operating-level perfor-
mance. The ?nancial responsibility of the branches was
rede?ned as ‘‘pro?t-conscious cost centres’’ and a
market-based transfer pricing system was devised to enable
compilation of pro?t metrics as a complement to existing
performance measures (see Appendix B). Consistent with
his appeals for broader consultation the CEO called on
branch managers to collaborate in re?ning these control
practices and ‘‘uplift our collective morale’’.
17
However,
the re-framing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ did not entail any
substantial delegation of decision-making rights. To enhance
branch managers’ sense of accountability for purchasing
decisions headquarters allowed about 40 per cent of sup-
plies to be organised at the branch level but decentralisation
never went beyond the purchasing function.
The CEO’s efforts to position his actions as consistent
with the work unit frame and draw attention to
operating-level problems without questioning the pursuit
of shareholder orientation may be seen as an indication
of frame blending (Werner & Cornelissen, 2014). A contin-
ued element of frame blending is also discernible in his
motivational framing. Rather than changing the remunera-
tion practices implemented by the CFO, the CEO adopted
the same approach of appealing to branch managers’ sense
of voluntarism and called on them to engage in a ‘‘brain-
storm’’ around how to improve control practices. To the
interviewed branch managers, these appeals resonated
strongly with the means of motivational framing associ-
ated with the work unit frame. In the Maoist era, such invi-
tations to participate in decision-making were indeed seen
15
Extracts from internal memo, 2005.
16
Quote from CEO’s review of annual performance, 2005.
17
Quote from CEO’s review of annual performance, 2005.
12 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
as a ‘‘reward’’ encouraging the masses to assume owner-
ship of work units. Branch managers also expressed an
obvious sense of recognition and appreciation, noting that
‘‘this is more like it’’,
18
and welcomed the CEO’s more ‘‘prag-
matic’’ approach and down-to-earth style of communica-
tion. Many of them also shared his diagnosis of emerging
problems and agreed that something needed to be done
about the tendencies towards ‘‘stagnation’’ and the degener-
ation of staff morale.
The re-framing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ thus seems to
have produced some degree of frame alignment.
However, the CEO’s efforts to this end never overtook the
CFO’s role as the main, internal champion of the model.
The position of the CFO was bolstered by MetalCo’s notable
outward success
19
and he continued to receive praise for his
efforts to reform the corporation in the business press. Also,
his position within MetalCo was never overtly challenged by
the CEO, who was known as an astute ‘‘survivor’’ with a rep-
utation for avoiding open con?icts and a long and successful
career in one of the branches behind him. This enabled the
CFO to prevail in his defence of centralisation as a superior
means of aligning control practices with the interests of
shareholders. But these efforts failed to resonate with
branch managers’ conceptions of how to improve opera-
tions. One of them rejected the centralisation of the purchas-
ing function as ‘‘profoundly stupid’’
20
and drew attention to
how the partial decentralisation after 2005 failed to redress
the damage in?icted on local supply chains. In particular, the
removal of ‘‘private treasuries’’ had severely curtailed the
branches’ ability to nurture critical relationships with local
political authorities and avoid being discriminated against
in the negotiation of energy prices and logistics solutions.
The former Head of Accounting and Finance of HN
explained:
‘‘We used to have excellent informal relationships with
local authorities and many issues were negotiable. . ..
But now we can no longer afford presents and enter-
tainment, which is exactly what the headquarters
wanted. But dealing with of?cials at the of?cial level
is much more costly for the business. . . Our private sec-
tor competitors are extremely generous at giving
gifts. . .why do they do that? It pays off. . .we are clean
so we lose out. What I am saying is that the headquar-
ters’ idealism has a lot to answer for our present rise in
total costs.’’
[Interview, former Head of Accounting and Finance of
HN, 2010]
The Head of Purchasing of HN elaborated on the perfor-
mance consequences of these problems of keeping up with
the competition from budding, private sector companies:
‘‘HN was only 26 per cent self-suf?cient [in raw materi-
als supply]. It has been a real struggle to rebuild the
supply network. Now we have to rely on less credible
mining companies and operate with sub-standard raw
materials. This is causing a lot of ef?ciency issues. We
should not be held responsible for missing the cost tar-
get because it was the headquarters’ fault in the ?rst
place.’’
[Interview, Head of Purchasing of HN, 2011]
Branch managers also seem to have taken advantage of
the somewhat mixed messages associated with the afore-
mentioned frame blending and used it as a pretext for
avoiding ?nancial accountability. Whilst the CFO persisted
in his ‘‘non-negotiable’’ approach to ?nancial control, the
CEO’s striving to reduce frictions and resolve operational
problems were interpreted as a willingness to negotiate
and perhaps relax this approach. In HN, monthly perfor-
mance reports began to make repeated references to ‘‘his-
torical’’ factors, such as over-staf?ng and the costs of
carrying ‘‘social burdens’’, and the unstable supply chain
to explain away adverse variances. Similar tendencies were
discernible across the other branches and led to allegations
that the branches were collaborating in manipulating data
and engaging in ‘‘passive aggression’’ to reduce the trans-
parency of performance reports. To overcome such prob-
lems, headquarters placed increasing demands for
compliance on especially accounting staff. In HN, however,
such demands were counteracted by meanings associated
with the work unit frame, such as the signi?cance of main-
taining harmonious workplace relations, or as the Head of
Accounting and Finance explained:
‘‘Yes, I was appointed by the CFO and I was supposed to
act more independently on behalf of headquarters. But
this is extremely dif?cult because HN is where my roots
are – not BeiJing. I have worked here for twenty-?ve
years and I would like to retire in a decent and respect-
ful way [as a devoted manager of the branch]. Besides
my salary is paid through the branch budget, so is my
wife, my daughter and everybody else in the depart-
ment. I am morally obliged to look after the
branch. . .The CFO does not understand that. . .[hence]
his ideal [of total control over local ?nance by empha-
sising the independence of the branch ?nancial man-
agers] just won’t work.’’
[Interview, Head of Accounting and Finance of HN,
2009]
The emerging problems of aligning the frames enacted
by branch managers with the shareholder-focused frame
were also manifest in a growing sense of disillusionment.
At the outset of our ?eldwork in 2008, the managerial con-
sensus in HN was that the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ had ‘‘hit the
wall’’ and that ‘‘the CFO had turned into a UFO’’ as one of
our informants put it in a candid exchange with us. In an
attempt to enhance managerial commitment, the CFO
made some concessions to the problems of aligning the
model with the frames enacted by branch managers:
‘‘I know that not all branches are particularly happy
about certain arrangements [made by headquarters]. I
am aware that some branches feel they have been
unfairly treated or judged too harshly. . . Branch [level
management] has its own set of problems and dif?cul-
ties. I am willing to listen [to these problems]. If you
18
Interview, Assistant to Managing Director at HN, 2009
19
Between 2001 and 2007, MetalCo’s assets grew ?vefold, corporate
pro?ts soared by over 1000 per cent and its share price performance in
especially the domestic market was strong.
20
Interview with the Head of Purchasing, HN, 2011.
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 13
want headquarters to make certain changes or to
improve the system, please let us engage in an open
and frank conversation.’’
[CFO, annual performance review of 2007, 2008]
Within HN, however, such concessions were seen as
further af?rmation that the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ had failed
to produce sustainable improvements. Branch managers
also felt vindicated in their concerns by some subtle
changes in the frames mobilised by other, key members
of the management board. In contrast to the CFO’s empha-
sis on the need to break with ‘‘historical’’ practices rein-
forced by the work unit frame, the Chairman of MetalCo
announced:
‘‘I fully acknowledge the extraordinary achievements
we made over the past ?ve years. We achieved out-
standing share price performance. . . .However, I am
fully aware of the contradictions and dif?culties in our
existing performance management system. . . . We also
need to consider our traditions. For example, promoting
the culture of internal competition which sometimes
leads to envy and disharmony may or may not be con-
ducive . . . In line with the requirement of building a
modern enterprise system, our work must fully
consider our history and our unique characteristics.
We must be sensitive to the psychological threshold
of our staff and the idiosyncrasies of each branch.’’
[Excerpt from Chairman’s keynote address to the
MetalCo performance management and strategy
committee, 2007]
The growing recognition of the need to consider the
unique, historical characteristics of SOEs is indicative of
some alternative, diagnostic framing, entailing a shift away
from the shareholder-focused frame, emerging. Indeed,
there seemed to be some incipient consensus among cor-
porate management that overly stringent demands for
?nancial accountability had dampened morale, created
frictions and enhanced the risk of social unrest. There were
also indications of the management board accepting at
least some of the ‘‘excuses’’ made by branch managers to
alleviate such demands:
‘‘The [management] board is not unaware of the excuse
culture. The CFO, in particular, detests this type of beha-
viour, but he can hardly argue against ‘‘historical fac-
tors’’. Besides, the branch and the headquarters alike
must both ?ll socio-political responsibilities. There can
be nothing worse than an up-rising in a [geographically
isolated] place like HN, which would immediately
terminate their careers.’’
[Interview, Assistant to the Chairman of MetalCo, 2008]
But regardless of such emerging signs of frame shifting
no forceful attempts to openly denounce the ‘‘MetalCo
Model’’ surfaced and pressures for more radical change
were muted by the company’s continued, outward success.
The CFO also continued to attribute MetalCo’s success to
the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ despite the growing recognition of
the problems resulting from its use. In particular, the con-
tinuous problems of securing reliable supplies of raw
materials contributed to a signi?cant loss in domestic
market share for MetalCo’s key products. From enjoying a
near monopoly position at its foundation the company’s
market share gradually decreased to below 40 per cent in
2008. Yet no forceful action plans aimed at regaining mar-
ket share were implemented and the situation continued
till the end of 2008 when an escalating performance crisis
precipitated the fall of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’.
The fall of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ (2008–2011)
The ?nal phase in the history of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’
coincided with more forceful attempts by the Chinese state
to compel SOEs to prioritise returns to shareholders rather
than growth in assets. In 2007, the SASAC started to imple-
ment shareholder-focused performance metrics such as
Economic Value Added (EVA) to this end and from 2010
such metrics were made a compulsory part of SOEs’ perfor-
mance evaluation practices (Chiwamit et al., 2014). Within
MetalCo, however, the framing of control practices took a
very different trajectory denoting a forceful shift back to
the work unit frame in response to a sharp downturn in
its key product market. Following the global ?nancial crisis
trading conditions started to worsen already in early 2008.
In October, the price of MetalCo’s main product fell by
nearly 50 per cent within a few weeks and continued to
?uctuate erratically throughout the following years.
MetalCo was initially slow in responding to this develop-
ment. Whilst most of its private sector competitors tem-
porarily suspended production, the branches continued
to operate at full capacity which contributed to ‘‘spectacu-
lar’’
21
?nancial losses and relegated the company to the bot-
tomof the SASAC’s league table for SOEs. Consistent with the
work unit frame, the CEO ascribed these problems to the
lack of ‘‘correct thinking’’ underpinning people’s attitudes:
‘‘The market condition for [MetalCo’s main product] has
fundamentally changed. . .but in practice, some of our
branches displayed extremely undesirable behaviour—
not only being very slow in responding to the market
downturn but also being reluctant even refusing to
reduce production. The reasons include a misunder-
standing of the headquarters’ instruction, lack of correct
thinking and lack of willingness to keep up with
headquarters’’
[Excerpt from CEO speech, emergency video conference,
November 2008]
Similarly, the Chairman proclaimed:
‘‘The issue of people lies at the heart of all our manage-
rial issues. The problem of people is the root of all our
performance problems. How to lead [the masses] is
the core of our managerial work.’’
[Excerpt from the internal annual performance review
by the Chairman of MetalCo, 2008]
This diagnostic framing emphasising the attitudes of
the workforce, rather than the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ itself, as
the root cause of performance problems laid the founda-
tion for a rather radical revision of the prognostic framing
21
Excerpt from internal training seminar, 2011.
14 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
of MetalCo’s control practices. Without of?cially abandon-
ing the model the management board outlined a new path
where the previous alignment with shareholder interests
was replaced by calls for solidarity with higher, political
authorities and enhanced ‘‘determination’’ or willpower.
Already in early 2008, the Chairman mobilised such ves-
tiges of the work unit frame as a solution to the emerging
performance problems:
‘‘The basis of our success is the correct leadership of the
Party and the SASAC and MetalCo following the require-
ments of a scienti?c approach to management . . . In an
increasingly turbulent business environment, we need
to adapt our internal management structure to suit
changes in the market. In the meantime, we need to
advance with full con?dence which will enable us to
prevail against all odds and dif?culties. We have unique
organisational and political advantages. We must exer-
cise these advantages to the full. . . .Our [?nancial] situ-
ation in 2008 is getting increasingly dif?cult and there
is a real possibility of ?nancial loss. This is partially
due to our slow reaction to the call of the centre [ie.
the CCP]. . . However we SOE people are both resource-
ful and determined. There are no dif?culties that we
cannot overcome. Everything is possible, as long as we
have full con?dence and stay optimistic.’’
[Excerpt from Chairman’s report, January, 2008]
The need for compliance with political authorities to
secure MetalCo’s survival continued to permeate head-
quarters’ communication with the branches over the fol-
lowing year and the corporate mission was rede?ned as
that of ‘‘battling for the life or death of MetalCo’’.
References to shareholder-focused performance metrics
such as EVA were largely absent from corporate manage-
ment’s communication with the branches. Instead, control
practices came to be dominated by the distinctly Maoist
notion of ‘‘red-line targets’’
22
which were imposed on the
branches in a highly coercive fashion. In contrast to the par-
ticipatory target-setting practices evolving within the
‘‘MetalCo Model’’, the ‘‘red-line targets’’ denoted extremely
challenging goals established without any consultation with
the branches. The basis for such targets was the total costs of
MetalCo disaggregated into branch-speci?c demands for
cost reduction and break-even levels. Even though this
was combined with ‘‘measured delegation’’ of some corpo-
rate functions, such as sales, ?nance and purchasing, it
implied a return to more aggregate performance metrics
including many uncontrollable items. Consistent with the
emphasis on employee willpower, however, the Chairman
explicitly rejected the distinction between controllable and
uncontrollable costs by asserting that all costs were control-
lable as long as managers exercised such willpower and
remained committed to ‘‘correct thinking’’. For the manag-
ing directors of the branches, failure to demonstrate compli-
ance with such mandates became tantamount to being
threatened with removal and jeopardising the future of the
branch.
Despite the forceful return to the work unit frame as a
means of diagnostic and prognostic framing corporate
management carefully avoided attributing any blame to
the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ but rather emphasised the need to
adjust control practices to changes in the external
environment:
‘‘We need to recognise that there are serious problems
in the way our business is managed. Compared to our
competitors, our management is far from adequate . . .
the existing managerial structure no longer suits the
new circumstances. This is not to suggest that cen-
tralised management is wrong. It was correct for its
time and proved useful. But time has moved on and
so should our management. The pressing issue is to turn
MetalCo into a real market-orientated entity and
unleash the initiatives of branches and grassroots.’’
[Excerpt from Chairman’s speech in a corporate-wide
meeting reviewing MetalCo’s performance, June, 2009]
The management board also showed a united front and
did not attribute blame to any speci?c individual. Despite
his close af?liation with the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ and reduced
visibility after the appointment of a newChairman in 2009,
the CFO was never singled out as a scapegoat but contin-
ued to enjoy the support of the management board until
he left MetalCo in 2010 due to health reasons. The lack of
overt contestation of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ should also be
understood against the backdrop of the increasingly prag-
matic spirit permeating the framing of SOE reforms since
the 1990s. For the management board of MetalCo the shift
back to the work unit frame seems to have been a matter of
quickly ?nding an alternative solution and restoring the
company’s competitiveness rather than challenging the
ideology underpinning the model. This spirit of pragma-
tism was re?ected by the CEO’s appeal to branch managers
to not only embrace the work unit frame but also learn
from private sector competitors:
‘‘Look around, ?nd out what your neighbouring
rivals are doing. Find out how they survive the
downturn. Learn from them. ..Do what you can and
improvise.’’
[Excerpt of transcript from internal conference, 2009]
Judging from our informants in HN, explicit attempts to
discredit the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ on ideological grounds were
also super?uous since most of them expressed a nearly
instantaneous recognition of the discourse mobilised by
corporate management. The use of familiar terms and
phrases, including repeated references to ‘‘attitudes’’ and
‘‘determination’’ as key success factors, signalled a need
to take forceful action and was reinforced by a series of
cost-cutting campaigns which ‘‘looked just like the
Cultural Revolution’’
23
to motivate staff to address the esca-
lating performance problems. Taking personal charge of
such campaigns, the new Chairman mobilised discourses
22
The notion of ‘‘red-line targets’’ was common in the Maoist era and
tended to denote political objectives that had to be pursued at all costs to
resolve economic problems. As such, it epitomised the pursuit of economic
progress through reliance on Maoist ideology (Lieberthal, 2004).
23
Interview with the Deputy Head of the Of?ce of HN, 2009, referring to
the period of forceful Maoist reforms between 1966 and 1976.
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 15
that resonated strongly with the work unit frame. Internal
memoranda produced after 2008 made liberal use of
military-style slogans such as ‘‘the battle of breaking even’’
and ‘‘the battle of achieving full cost targets’’ as a means of
mass mobilisation. Forceful interventions by corporate
management to energise ‘‘the willpower of the masses
against all material odds’’
24
were accompanied by appeals
to the workforce to make all kinds of self-sacri?ces whilst
the pay-for-performance system was abolished. Employees
failing to comply with such appeals were chastised for
displaying unacceptable attitudes such as pessimism and
hesitation to reinforce their sense of shame and
dishonour.
The return to the work unit frame seems to have consti-
tuted a relatively powerful source of frame alignment and
contributed to galvanise managers in HN into forceful
action. In particular, the growing emphasis on people’s
passive attitude to work as the root cause of performance
problems resonated with the experience of branch man-
agers. In an interview just before the performance crisis,
the Head of Accounting and Finance expressed deep con-
cerns that headquarters was unable to come to terms with
such ‘‘real issues’’:
‘‘The present system [ie. the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’] made
people, including myself, too comfortable and too lazy.
A lot of us just hide behind the cost targets and do noth-
ing. This really isn’t how business works in a market
economy.’’
[Interview, Head of Accounting and Finance, HN, 2008]
Such sentiments grew as headquarters rolled out the
?rst cost-saving campaign in 2009. Some managers saw
the return to such traditional means of motivational fram-
ing as an indication that headquarters had ?nally ‘‘sobered
up’’ and ‘‘was willing to confront reality’’.
25
Once the cam-
paign was set in motion, headquarters offered few speci?c
guidelines for how to cut costs. Nevertheless, a ?urry of ini-
tiatives to this end followed. In a grand gesture of
self-sacri?ce, Party members volunteered in taking unpaid
leave, managers took drastic pay-cuts and employees imple-
mented 256 cost saving initiatives within one month. At the
height of the campaign administrative staff were sent to the
operational frontline to impress a sense of urgency on the
workforce and a special TV channel was set up to boost staff
morale. Such demonstrations of willpower and determina-
tion were commended by headquarters. But as a means of
sustained cost control their ef?cacy proved insuf?cient and
by the autumn of 2009 HN was still a long way off its
‘‘red-line target’’. Pressured to meet such targets branch
managers once again resorted to various forms of ‘‘irregular
behaviour’’. Some senior accounting of?cers boasted how
they made HN ‘‘break even’’ by manipulating inventory
?gures and purchasing invoices whilst others blamed
headquarters’ relentless pursuit of ‘‘red-line targets’’ for
such behaviours:
‘‘We budgeted for a loss of 700 million for this year
but this was turned down [by headquarters], then
reduced to 500 million, which was turned down again,
it went down further to 350 million, which was still
unacceptable. It was ?nally agreed that this year our
loss would be 60 million. How could this be possible?
This left people with no alternative than to cook the
books.’’
[Interview, Head of Budgeting Of?ce of HN, 2010]
Throughout 2009 and 2010 corporate losses continued
to accumulate and HN was persistently the worst per-
former in the branch league table. In response to these con-
tinuous problems, the Chairman launched a second
cost-cutting campaign ordering all functional areas to
reduce their head count by 30 per cent and cut the salaries
of remaining staff by a further 30 per cent. This time, HN
was hesitant to comply for fear of social unrest and its
Managing Director proved slow in taking expected mea-
sures. This demonstration of ‘‘incorrect attitude’’ rendered
HN a negative role model and its Managing Director was
replaced by the head of the best-performing branch. But
these radical measures failed to address other operational
problems such as those pertaining to supply-chain man-
agement. The delegation of purchasing decisions did not
enhance the ef?ciency and transparency of purchasing
practices and corruption and collusion between
supply-chain managers and suppliers ?ourished as the for-
mer sought to rebuild local supplier relationships.
Headquarters was so alarmed by such behaviours that it
decided to re-centralise all purchasing decisions except
for the acquisition of metal ore in early 2011. Over the
following years, additional efforts were made to mobilise
the work unit frame and two major cost-cutting campaigns
were rolled out along lines similar to those
described above. In HN, this implied a reduction of the
of?cial head count by about 70 per cent through a
government-sponsored redundancy scheme devised to
avoid social unrest. However, our follow-up visit in 2014
indicated that the problems of establishing a viable supply
chain persisted. MetalCo had also fallen from grace as a
‘‘?agship’’ of reform and remained at the bottom of the
SASAC’s league tables.
Concluding discussion
This paper set out to explore how the ideological shift
towards enhanced shareholder orientation observed in
many parts of the world in?uenced the development of
management control practices in a Chinese SOE. To address
this question we found it helpful to mobilise the concepts
of framing and frame alignment originating in the social
movement literature. In particular, this analytical frame-
work enabled us to decompose the framing process into
a number of distinct framing tasks and delineate how each
task was in?uenced by the interplay between emerging
and extant frames over time. This provides a detailed
understanding of how the ideology underpinning the
movement towards enhanced shareholder orientation
gained and lost traction. Key discursive elements of this
ideology, such as calls for greater accountability to share-
holders buttressed by explicit references to agency theory,
formed integral parts of the initial diagnostic and
24
Excerpt from memorandum issued by the Chairman of MetalCo, 2009.
25
Interview with the Deputy Head of the Of?ce of HN, 2009.
16 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
prognostic framing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’. However, the
concomitant motivational framing combined such dis-
courses with elements of the work unit frame such as
appeals to ‘‘correct thinking’’ reinforced by campaigns of
moral persuasion and coercive personnel control. Such
instances of frame blending (Werner & Cornelissen, 2014)
grew increasingly salient over time as the ‘‘MetalCo
Model’’ was re-framed to address emerging problems of
frame alignment. This prevented a more radical shift in
favour of enhanced shareholder orientation from
permeating control practices. The shareholder-focused
frame was ?nally superseded by a forceful shift back to
the work unit frame in the wake of the escalating
performance crisis. This shift fostered nearly instant align-
ment with the frames enacted by branch managers
although repeated framing efforts were required to foster
sustained collective action aimed at resolving emerging
performance problems.
These ?ndings illustrate how extant frames with a
long-standing in?uence on management control practices
may not only constrain the impetus of emerging,
shareholder-focused frames (cf. Fiss & Zajac, 2006; Meyer
& Höllerer, 2010) but also enable remedial action where
such frames prove wanting. As such, the development in
MetalCo represents an interesting contrast to the growing
emphasis on shareholder orientation as a basis for the gov-
ernance of Chinese SOEs over the time period under exam-
ination (see Chiwamit et al., 2014). This illustrates how
individual organisations do not necessarily become iso-
morphic with social movements (Zald, Morrill, & Rao,
2005) and calls for further research into how they resist
shareholder-focused governance and control practices.
Although prior accounting research has made some head-
way in this regard (e.g., Ezzamel & Burns, 2005) our ?nd-
ings suggest a need to re-think how resistance is brought
about. What we ?nd particularly striking about the fram-
ing of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ is the lack of overt attempts
to contest the model despite the rather severe problems
emerging at an early stage of its life and plaguing its con-
tinued development. Even though these problems became
increasingly evident to branch managers who did not hesi-
tate to express their grievances to us as researchers, they
never went as far as articulating such grievances into alter-
native frames that openly challenged the model. Similarly,
as some of the problems associated with the ‘‘MetalCo
Model’’ were gradually recognised by corporate manage-
ment the advancement of solutions took the form of rela-
tively modest re-framing, stressing the need for
continuity and re?nement of the model, rather than radical
attempts at discrediting it. Not even when the
shareholder-focused frame underpinning the model was
?nally replaced by more one-sided reliance on the work
unit frame did any open criticisms feature in corporate
communication or other data sources available to us.
Our ?ndings suggest a number of explanations for this
lack of overt contestation. Insofar as branch managers’ lack
of open criticism is concerned it is vital to bear in mind the
coercive measures accompanying the motivational framing
of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ and the risk of negative career
implications associated with overt demonstrations of a
lack of commitment to politically sanctioned reform initia-
tives. Such vestiges of the work unit frame seem to have
deterred branch managers from openly criticising the
model despite their limited alignment with the
shareholder-focused frame. Similarly, the striving to main-
tain a united front within the management board of
MetalCo and quickly ?nding a solution to the escalating
performance crisis precipitated a shift in dominant frames
that lacked the ideological fervour often associated with
contested framing processes. Such avoidance of heated
ideological debates is an increasingly salient feature of
accounting and governance reforms in the PRC and
resonates with the spirit of pragmatism surrounding the
‘‘socialist market economy’’ (Ezzamel et al., 2007; Sigley,
2006). However, the lack of overt contestation across
various managerial levels does not mean that the evolution
of the ‘‘MetalCo Model’’ was free from more subtle forms
of resistance and politically motivated actions
counteracting the efforts to enhance ?nancial accountabil-
ity and probity. Indeed, we found ample evidence of this in
the form of branch managers’ efforts to de?ect ?nancial
performance pressures to avoid social and political unrest
as well as the growing recognition of the need to do so
by corporate management towards the later stages of its
life.
These ?ndings suggest a need for a more subtle appre-
ciation of how the political dynamics associated with the
framing of management control practices unfold within
individual organisations than that offered by the social
movement literature. Following its predominant focus
on movements as broader, societal phenomena (see
Cornelissen & Werner, 2014; McAdam & Scott, 2005)
and tendency to conceive of framing processes as overtly
contested and underpinned by relatively monolithic
frames (Benford, 1997; Cornelissen & Werner, 2014;
Snow et al., 2014) it has largely ignored the complex
interplay between emerging and extant frames within
organisations (see Kaplan, 2008). Greater attention to this
interplay is especially pertinent in contexts such as
Chinese SOEs where heated ideological debates over the
meanings and ef?cacy of various control practices have
largely subsided and elements of frame blending, such
as those manifest in MetalCo, are perhaps more prevalent
(Werner & Cornelissen, 2014). This requires researchers to
delve into the intricate processes through which frames
originating in emerging ideologies and extant meaning
systems come to challenge as well as complement each
other. The eventual shift back to the work unit frame in
MetalCo also underlines the need to be sensitive to the
relatively neglected issue of how extant frames may be
‘‘revitalised’’ (Snow, Tan, & Owens, 2013) and used to
mobilise collective action where emerging ideologies fail
to produce stronger frame alignment. This points to a
need to extend the conception of extant frames originat-
ing in broader cultural systems as primarily ?lling a sta-
bilising or constraining role to pay closer attention to
when and how they enable intentional or strategic agency
(cf. Zald, 1996).
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 17
The approach to framing outlined above complements
extant accounting research drawing on a performative per-
spective or social psychology to explore this phenomenon.
Our analysis has some af?nity to performative research
inspired by actor-network theory in that it underlines the
need to study the framing of control practices as an ongo-
ing and, to a degree, unpredictable process infused with
complex political dynamics (see e.g., Skærbæk, 2009;
Skærbæk & Tryggestad, 2010; Vinnari & Skærbæk, 2014).
But in contrast to actor-network theory we do not see such
processes as in?nitely ?uid and detached from deeply
embedded meaning systems (or other forms of social
structure) with more long-standing, stabilising effects on
collective action. Our ?ndings show how such meaning
systems played a powerful constraining role that pre-
vented the shareholder-focused ideology from having any
stronger, self-ful?lling effects on control practices (cf.
Ferraro et al., 2005). Yet this should not be read as a return
to some form of structural determinism emphasising the
routine reproduction of social practices. As evidenced by
the revitalisation of the work unit frame in MetalCo, this
was not a matter of social actors routinely rehearsing
extant meanings to resist change but intentionally
harnessing it in a forceful attempt to resolve emerging
problems. It does, however, point to a need for more
careful attention to the interplay between extant and
emerging frames and how this interplay constrains and
enables social action. Accounting scholars drawing on
actor-network theory have recently started to move in this
direction by examining how accounting is implicated in
connecting multiple frames and how such multiplicity
in?uences its role as a performative technology (Vinnari
& Skærbæk, 2014).
Following the tenets of the social movement literature,
however, we call for an approach to performativity that
takes social structure seriously and is sensitive to how
more durable meaning systems condition the propensity
of accounting to become more or less self-ful?lling. We
see some af?nity between such an approach and that of
Ezzamel, Robson, and Stapleton (2012) who found the per-
formativity of accounting to be buttressed by the institu-
tional logic
26
underpinning a political reform programme
whilst also being conditioned by more long-standing logics
in the ?eld under examination. It would seem especially
important to adopt such an approach where reform pro-
grammes bring powerful ideologies to bear on accounting
practices that are ?rmly embedded in historically contingent
meaning systems. Such research may offer a way of critically
examining when and how ideologies become performative
and the boundary conditions preventing this from material-
ising (cf. Felin & Foss, 2009; Ferraro, Pfeffer, & Sutton, 2009).
It may also contribute to the broader and more
long-standing literature on the constitutive roles of
accounting in organisations and society which is by no
means con?ned to actor-network theory (see Miller &
Power, 2013).
A pronounced socio-political perspective on framing
such as that informing the social movement literature
may also complement accounting research drawing on
social psychology. Whilst the latter body of research
provides valuable insights into how socio-cognitive
framing processes in?uence the prevalence of
self-interested behaviour, or agency problems (Christ
et al., 2012; Rowe, 2004; Rowe et al., 2008), it may be
enriched by inquiries into the political processes that
de?ne such problems and how to resolve them. As indi-
cated by the framing process unfolding in MetalCo, the
delineation of control problems and meaningful solu-
tions may encounter subtle yet robust forms of political
resistance and is not reducible to a matter of manipulat-
ing managers’ cognitive conceptions of how to address
some prede?ned agency problems. However, there may
be situations where agency theory gains political sup-
port and exercises stronger, and perhaps even performa-
tive, in?uence on the framing of control practices. This
suggests a need for further, comparative research into
how differences in political dynamics contribute to
frame control problems and how such differences inter-
act with managers’ cognitive conceptions of what consti-
tutes key problems and how to resolve them. Such
research may not only advance our understanding of
the roles of accounting but would also seem warranted
in the light of more general calls for connecting
socio-cognitive framing processes to their wider,
socio-political context in the organisation and manage-
ment literature (Cornelissen & Werner, 2014; Kaplan,
2008). Some recent progress has been made in this
regard by Rowe, Birnberg, and Shields (2012) who
extended social psychology explanations of how
accounting becomes persuasive with a discussion of
the political ‘‘games’’ that various actors play to this
end.
The above discussion provides some clues
concerning the distinct contributions of a social
movement perspective on the framing of accounting
and control practices. We hope our ?ndings will inspire
further research into how such framing processes
unfold in various contexts and emphasise that this is a
socially embedded phenomenon that should not be
studied in isolation from the deeper structures
conditioning it.
Acknowledgements
The research informing this paper was partly funded by
the Swedish Research Council. Earlier versions were pre-
sented at a number of workshops and conferences includ-
ing the Global Management Accounting Research
Symposium (Copenhagen, 2012) and the Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Accounting Conference (Cardiff, 2012).
We are grateful to the Editor (David Cooper) and two
anonymous AOS reviewers for their comments on earlier
drafts. Additional comments by Mahmoud Ezzamel, Silvia
Jordan, Kari Lukka, Ted O’Leary, Paolo Quattrone, Keith
Robson, Norio Sawabe, Peter Skærbæk and Jason Xiao are
also acknowledged.
26
See Meyer et al. (2009) for a discussion of the similarities between the
notions of institutional logics and ideology.
18 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
Appendix A. Overview of interviews
Interviews at MetalCo headquarters.
Interviewee Duration
(min)
Date
2008 2009 2010 2011
Assistant to the Chairman 90 22/10/08
90 7/8/09
50 6/ 8/10
30 17/9/11
Deputy Chief, Accounting and Finance 120 23/10/08
45 7/09/09
60 16/9/11
Secretary of Of?ce 60 6/ 8/10
Staff, Accounting and Finance 120 7/ 8/10
Deputy Director, the mining function 90 7/ 8/10
Deputy Director of Sales 30 8/09/09
Head of the Investors’ Relations 45 22/10/08
Deputy Head, SAP team 60 23/10/08
60 5/09/09
Subtotal: 14 4 4 4 2
Interviews and extended conversations at HN branch and related sites.
Interviewee Duration
(min)
Date
2008 2009 2010 2011 2014
Managing Director (HN) 60 13/10/08
35 25/8/09
60 23/8/10
30 2/8/10
Party Secretary-General (HN) 45 14/10/08
30 23/8/09
45 2/8/10
30 23/8/10
30 1/10/11
Assistant to the Managing Director (HN) 30 10/9/08
30 1/11/08
60 5/08/09
60 25/8/09
30 11/09/09
120 31/7/10
30 19/7/10
30 3/9/11
60 1/10/11
Chairman, Disciplinary Committee (HN) 45 15/10/08
Head of Sales (HN) 40 17/10/08
Head of Of?ce (HN) 90 13/10/08
40 24/8/09
90 24/8/10
90 21/8/10
60 1/8/10
90 2/10/11
180 10/9/14
(continued on next page)
C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23 19
Appendix A (continued)
Interviewee Duration
(min)
Date
2008 2009 2010 2011 2014
Deputy Head of Of?ce (HN) 60 14/10/08
40 24/8/09
Head of Human Resource Department (HN) 150 17/10/08
120 27/8/09
50 23/8/10
Head of Accounting and Finance (HN) 90 15/10/08
90 17/10/08
120 26/8/09
45 24/8/10
120 5/10/11
120 11/9/14
Deputy Head of Accounting and Finance (HN) 90 15/10/08
45 26/8/09
90 3/8/10
+lunch
120 22/8/10
+dinner
Head of Purchasing (HN) 30 3/10/11
Head of XX Mine (HN) 40 3/9/11
60 6/9/11
90 4/10/11
60 6/10/11
Former Head of Accounting and Finance (HN) 30 16/10/08
90 24/8/10
120 12/9/14
Tax of?cer, Accounting and Finance (HN) 60 20/10/08
60 16/10/08
60 29/8/09
90 26/8/09
60 21/8/10
+dinner
Head of Budgeting Of?ce, Accounting and Finance
(HN)
90 16/10/08
40 4/8/10;
lunch
60 4/10/10
30 10/9/14
Chief Finance Of?cer, the Mining Function (HN) 120 3/8/10
Worker, Re?nery 2 (HN) 40 22/8/10
Head of Salary Of?ce, Human Resource (HN) 120 20/10/08
150 27/8/09
Staff, Salary Of?ce, Human Resource (HN) 45 27/8/09
Chief, Re?nery1 (HN) 120 14/10/08
60 28/8/09
Chief, Re?nery2 (HN) 60 28/8/09
Deputy Director, cement factory (HN) 60 15/10/08
Factory worker, Re?nery 2 (HN) 45 28/8/09
SAP team members, IT Department (HN) 120 20/10/08
60 31/8/09
Chief Finance Of?cer, (LZ branch) 180 21/8/10
Managing Director, private competitor A Whole
day
1/8/09
Head of Of?ce, private competitor A Whole
day
1/8/09
20 C. Yang, S. Modell / Accounting, Organizations and Society 45 (2015) 1–23
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