This paper investigates how management accounting and control systems (operationalized by using Simons’ (1995a) levers of control framework) can be used as devices to support public value creation and as such it contributes to the literature on public value accounting. Using a mixed methods case study approach, including documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, we found diverging uses of control systems in the Dutch university of applied sciences we investigated. While belief and interactive control systems are used intensively for strategy change and implementation, diagnostic controls were used mainly at the decentral level and seen as devices to make sure that operational and financial boundaries were not crossed. Therefore, belief and interactive control systems lay the foundation for the implementation of a new strategy, in which concepts of public value play a large role, using diagnostic controls to constrain actions at the operational level. We also found that whereas the institution wanted to have interaction with the external stakeholders, in daily practice this takes place only at the phase of strategy formulation, but not in the phase of intermediate strategy evaluation.
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We are currently in a transition moving from a linear economy grounded on economic value maximization based on material transformation to a circular economy. Core of this transition is organising value preservation from various yet interlinked perspectives. The underlying fundamental shift is to move away from mere financial value maximization towards multiple value creation (WCED, 1987; Jonker, 2014; Raworth, 2017). This implies moving from mere economic value creation, to simultaneously and in a balanced way creating ecological and social value. A parallel development supporting this transition can be observed in accounting & control. Elkington (1994) introduced the triple bottom line (TBL) concept, referring to the economic, ecological and social impact of companies. The TBL should be seen more as a conceptual way of thinking, rather than a practical innovative accounting tool to monitor and control sustainable value (Rambaud & Richard, 2015). However, it has inspired accounting & control practitioners to develop accounting tools that not only aim at economic value (‘single capital’ accounting) but also at multiple forms of capital (‘multi capital’ accounting or integrated reporting). This has led to a variety of integrated reporting platforms such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRC), Dow Jones Sustainable Indexes (DJSI), True Costing, Reporting 3.0, etc. These integrated reporting platforms and corresponding accounting concepts, can be seen as a fundament for management control systems focussing on multiple value creation. This leads to the following research question: How are management control systems designed in practice to drive multiple value creation?
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The purpose of this study is to explore why and how Management Accounting and Control Systems (MACS) enact and are enacted upon in the Dutch branch of nursing homes, homes for the elderly and home care. In search for answers, this study chooses an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective combined with case study research as research frames. Central theme in ANT is the theory of translation. This theory offers opportunities for a close empirical inspection of how and why MACS enact and are enacted upon by other actants in a complex set of sociotechnical relations. The theory of translation is applied in a case study research at The Relief Group (TRG), a healthcare organization which comprises a total of 10 nursing homes and homes for elderly. This case study shows how the application of MACS expands both in numbers of employees involved and in amount of information. Due to an increase in perceived environmental uncertainty and reorganization to a more decentralized model of management all TRG management levels asked, to varying degree, for broad application of MACS information in general and for non-financial information in particular. This initiated a process in which MACS did not diffuse unchanged but was manipulated and aligned with different interests of various stakeholders. At first sight, the TRG case study reveals MACS as a boundary object. In second instance however, this study questions whether this epistemological point of view, denoting the differences between the various TRG stakeholders as differences in interpretation and perception, obscuring an optimal application of MACS, offers sufficient in-depth understanding. Therefore this study draws on post ANT studies and chooses an ontological point of view, delineating MACS as different objects, enacted in different sets of relations and contexts.
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Little is known about the role of organizational culture regarding management control systems (MCS) that focus on corporate sustainability. To enhance our understanding of this phenomenon, this study of MCS shows how social and technical forms of control can be used to embedded sustainability in the corporate culture. When companies are founded with a sustainable purpose, then sustainability at the core of their endeavors. In these cases, social controls have the main focus and have a substitutive role to technical controls. In contrast, social and technical controls are complementary to effectively embed sustainability in the culture for companies transitioning to sustainability. We empirically inform our study with a multiple exploratory case-study design, using interviews, desk research, and observations, investigating a variety of twenty companies in The Netherlands that aim to corporate sustainability. In this paper, we respond to the need in a literature for further empirical research regarding the design of MCS aimed at sustainability, and the role of culture in particular. We also contribute to the discussion in the literature about complementarity versus substitution of controls. Besides contributing to the academic literature, we believe this paper can also help practitioners design MCS to create sustainable value for their organization.
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Het onderzoek in het artikel is geïnspireerd door de casus 'platooning' uit de Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge. Er is een PreScan®/Sumulink® model opgesteld met daarin twee auto's. De voorste auto volgt een vastgesteld snelheidsprofiel, de tweede auto volgt de eerste auto waarbij de tweede auto de snelheid van de eerste meet met behulp van een AIR-sensor. De besturing van het gaspedaal in beide auto's vindt plaats met Fuzzy Logic Control in plaats van met een klassieke regelaar. Concluderend mag worden gesteld dat in dit verkennend onderzoek gebleken is dat de Fuzzy Logic Control techniek in principe werkt.
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Programmed control systems are ubiquitous in the present-day world. In current educational practice, however, these systems are hardly being addressed, and little is known about children’s spontaneous understandings about such systems. Therefore, we explored pupils’ understandings prior to instruction in three concrete settings: a car park, an elevator, and an autonomous robot. We analysed written responses from 49 Grade 3 (aged 7 to 10) and Grade 6 pupils (aged 10 to 13) to assess their understandings from two perspectives: the user and the system programmer perspective. Results indicate that most pupils were capable describing programmed systems from a user perspective point of view but found it hard to describe the system programmer perspective. Substantial differences were found between the contexts. The car park context evoked richer descriptions for the user perspective and the system programmer perspective in comparison to the elevator and autonomous robot contexts.
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This report is the final report for the FPGA accelerated PID controller, part of the Distributed Control Systems project. This project runs within the Lectoraat Robotics and High Tech Mechatronics of Fontys Hogeschool Engineering Eindhoven. The Lectoraat has the goal to develop applicable knowledge to support education and industry. This knowledge is acquired with projects run in conjunction with the industry. The report will go into detail for the software designed for this project, not the hardware design. This report is intended for follow up students working on the Distributed Control Systems project. Within this report the assumption is made that the reader is at least familiar with the terms EtherCAT, FPGA, Linux and PID controllers. However for each part a small basic introduction is included. For readers looking for the accomplishments in this project, the results are in chapter six. Following are short descriptions of the chapters in this report. The first chapter will give a short introduction to the project. It talks about why the project was conceived, where the project was done and what the expected end result is. The second chapter, the problem definition, talks about how the project has been defined, what is included and what is not and how the customer expects the final product to function and look like. The third chapter details the methodology used during this project. All the research preformed for this project will be described in the forth chapter. This chapter goes into the research into the Xilinx Zynq 7000 chip, Beckhoff's EtherCAT system, how the Serial Peripheral Interface works and how a PID controller functions. Following in chapter five the design is expanded upon. First the toolchain for building for the Zynq chip is explained. This is followed by and explanation of the different software parts that have been designed. Finally chapters six and seven provide the results and the conclusions and recommendations for this project.
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Credit management neemt toe in belang. Oorzaken hiervan zijn onder meer de toenemende concurrentiedruk, nieuwe regelgeving zoals Basel II en de grotere focus op werkkapitaal in het kader van sturen op aandeelhouderswaarde. Publicaties over credit management richten zich overwegend op proces- en procedurebeschrijvingen, kredietwaardigheidsbeoordeling en auditingchecklists. Deze onderwerpen zijn ontegenzeggelijk relevant voor de analyse van credit management, maar vormen geen antwoord op de vraag hoe de control van credit management moet worden ingericht. In dit artikel wordt een praktische controlaanpak geïntroduceerd die gebaseerd is op het management control framework van Merchant en de verschillende typen kredietbeleid zoals omschreven door Wallis. Het resultaat is een aanpak die eenvoudig en praktisch toepasbaar is, geschikt is voor verschillende typen kredietbeleid en rekening houdt met verschillende typen controls.
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This paper presents a multi-layer scheme to control a formation of three mobile robots. Each layer works as an independent module, dealing with a specific part of the problem of formation control, thus giving to the system more flexibility. In order to reduce formation errors, the proposed architecture includes a layer which performs an adaptive dynamic compensation, using a robust updating law, which compensates for each robot dynamics. The controller is able to guide the robots to the desired formation, including the possibility of time-varying position and/or shape. Stability analysis is performed for the closed-loop system, and the result is that the formation errors are ultimately bounded. Finally, simulation results for a group of three unicycle-like mobile robots are presented, which show that system performance is improved when the adaptive dynamic compensation layer is included in the formation control scheme. © 2009 IEEE.
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In flexible education, recommender systems that support course selection, are considered a viable means to help students in making informed course selections, especially where curricula offer greater flexibility. However, these recommender systems present both potential benefits and looming risks, such as overdependence on technology, biased recommendations, and privacy issues. User control mechanisms in recommender interfaces (or algorithmic affordances) might offer options to address those risks, but they have not been systematically studied yet. This paper presents the outcomes of a design session conducted during the INTERACT23 workshop on Algorithmic Affordances in Recommender Interfaces. This design session yielded insights in how the design of an interface, and specifically the algorithmic affordances in these interfaces, may address the ethical risks and dilemmas of using a recommender in such an impactful context by potentially vulnerable users. Through design and reflection, we discovered a host of design ideas for the interface of a flexible education interface, that can serve as conversation starters for practitioners implementing flexible education. More research is needed to explore these design directions and to gain insights on how they can help to approximate more ethically operating recommender systems.
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