The influence of institutional pressures on the implementation of a performance measurement system in an Egyptian social enterprise

Loai Ali Zeenalabden Ali Alsaid and Charles Anyeng Ambilichu

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 2020, vol. 18, issue 1, 53-83

Abstract: Purpose - This study aims to explore the influence of field-level funding pressure and resource dependency on conflicting institutional logics in implementing a new performance measurement system (PMS) within a privatised social enterprise (SE) in a developing country. It answers the research question: how accounting-based key performance indicators (KPIs) were chosen within a privatised SE to maintain co-existence between two different institutional logics, the social and commercial logics, to gain legitimacy in the government funding scheme. Design/methodology/approach - This study expands the application and contribution of theBesharov and Smith’s (2014)logics multiplicity framework to previous management accounting literature on PMS and institutional logics. It adds a new dimension to previous literature to theorise the cognitive dynamics of institutional logics at three distinct but interrelated institutional levels, namely, field, organisational and individual. Data come from an interpretive case study of an Egyptian SE, involved in implementing a social project (drinking water refining) in rural communities. Findings - PMS acts as a political tool through which the privatised case company has gained societal acceptance and legitimacy in the government funding scheme. Its non-political KPIs have turned into political tools to meet the institutional demands of the funding scheme. This government involvement represents field-level institutional logics, which influenced the organisational-level interplay of commercial and social logics and then the individual-level choice of internal KPIs. This contributes to the fact that institutional logics and their interplay between these three levels are “in a state of flux” within SEs’ internal PMS. Originality/value - This study deals with a real-life practical case that proves the prevalence of one institutional logic over another at both the organisational and individual levels may be occasioned by organisational field pressures and opportunities rather than by other intra-organisational conflicts as discussed in most previous literature on PMS and institutional logics.

Keywords: Key performance indicators; Egypt; Social enterprises; Performance measurement system; Institutional logics; Government involvement; M41; P27; P31; Q01; Q25; O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:qrampp:qram-03-2020-0027

DOI: 10.1108/QRAM-03-2020-0027

Access Statistics for this article

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management is currently edited by Lukas Goretzki and Thomas Ahrens

More articles in Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().