Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Action Controls

• In Event: Covid and Management Control

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how management control systems that are based on action controls are affected by an exogenous shock that introduces high uncertainty about how tasks should be executed. Specifically, we analyze how the interrelations between accountability and job autonomy as well as between accountability and rules for nurses are affected by the first COVID-19 wave. We analyze our research question by collecting two-wave survey data among nurses from public Swiss hospitals. We predict and find that the exogenous COVID-19 shock weakens the substitutive interrelation between accountability and job autonomy when the increase in uncertainty about appropriate task execution is large and that this effect is attenuated when the increase in uncertainty is small. We also predict and find that the complementary interrelation between accountability and rules becomes weaker when the increase in uncertainty about task execution is small, but this effect is attenuated when the increase in uncertainty is large. The underlying theoretical reasoning in both cases is that when uncertainty about task execution increases, the enforcement purpose of accountability loses relevance, but an (additional) learning purpose of accountability gains importance. Our study contributes to the understanding of how action controls are used in settings in which results controls at the individual employee level are irrelevant. We also add to the complementarity literature, by providing evidence that time can moderate interrelations between control practices.

Authors

• Markus C. Arnold, University of Bern

• Arthur Posch, University of Bern