Accounting for teamwork : a critical study of group-based systems of organizational control
By: EZZAMEL, Mahmoud
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Contributor(s): WILLMOTT, Hugh.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Ithaca : Johnson Graduate School of Management, June 1998Administrative Science Quarterly 43, 2, p. 358-396Abstract: This paper examines the role of accounting calculations in the process of reorganizing the manufacturing capabilities of a verticaly integrated global retailing company. In contrast to mainstream analyses that emphasize the novelty and mutual benefits to teamwork, we show how its introduction to replace line work extended rather than supplanted traditional, hierarchical systems of management control. Management's intention was to engender a self-managing means of continuous improvement of working practices, but the self-managing demands of teamwork contravened workers' established sense of self-identity as "machinists" and "mates". Output was raised by changing to a group bonus system, but the move to teamwork had the unintended effect of fermenting hostility toward the managerial goal of making the teams fully self-managing
This paper examines the role of accounting calculations in the process of reorganizing the manufacturing capabilities of a verticaly integrated global retailing company. In contrast to mainstream analyses that emphasize the novelty and mutual benefits to teamwork, we show how its introduction to replace line work extended rather than supplanted traditional, hierarchical systems of management control. Management's intention was to engender a self-managing means of continuous improvement of working practices, but the self-managing demands of teamwork contravened workers' established sense of self-identity as "machinists" and "mates". Output was raised by changing to a group bonus system, but the move to teamwork had the unintended effect of fermenting hostility toward the managerial goal of making the teams fully self-managing
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