PhD Defence: The Accountable Animal - Naturalising the Management Control Problem
Social relations make up an important part of the way organisations are controlled and are therefore a central topic in management accounting research. In his dissertation ‘The Accountable Animal: Naturalising the Management Control Problem’ ERIM’s Philip Eskenazi examines two themes around this topic which makes use of developments in neuroscience and eye-tracking research by importing theories and methods to supplement the traditional psychological and economic perspective on management accounting.
Our first set of findings suggests that process accountability impairs affective judgement making and insight problem solving. That is to say that when you ask people to justify how they make a judgement or solve a problem, you change their approach. Secondly, neuroscience has recently made important advances on emotion recognition. We use this theoretical perspective to explain controller behaviour.
In sum, this dissertation marks an attempt to incorporate into management accounting research some developments in quickly developing naturalistic fields like neuroscience and eye-tracking. By using novel methods of measurement and revisiting or replacing traditional theoretical constructs, we contribute to the emergence of naturalistic accounting
Philip defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Thursday, 2 July 2015 at 13:30. His supervisor was Professor Frank Hartmann. Other members of the Doctoral Committee included Professor Erik Peek (ERIM), Professor Roland Speklé (Nyenrode Business Universiteit), and Professor Ivan Toni (Radboud Universiteit).
About Philip Eskenazi
Philip Eskenazi was born in Amersfoort (1985). He acquired a Bachelor’s degree in International Business from Tilburg University, a CEMS Master’s in International Management from RSM and HEC, a measure of professional experience as controller, and a Master’s degree in Philosophy from King’s College London.
Philip started the ERIM PhD trajectory in 2011. His empirical research focuses on social relations of accountability in organisations. Using a mixture of traditional and novel methods including behavioural, neuroscientific, and eye-tracking experiments, Philip seeks to contribute to a new approach to accounting research. His research has been presented at international conferences including the annual meetings of Academy of Management and American Accounting Association, the mid-year meeting of the latter’s Management Accounting Section, and the NeuroPsychoEconomics Conference. A first paper is under review at Accounting, Organizations & Society, and further publications in academic journals are planned.
Thesis Abstract
In this dissertation we investigate two themes around the topic of social relations in management control structures. We use developments in neuroscience and eye-tracking to supplement the traditional psychological and economic perspective on management accounting.
First, process accountability changes processes of judgement and problem solving. Some mental processes are more difficult to access introspectively than others, and this opacity makes it troublesome to account for them, even if they are useful for making judgements and solving problems. Process accountability drives people away from affective judgements and insight solutions, leading to impoverished performance on various tasks. This goes against the received wisdom that process accountability improves judgements and decisions. We supply unique evidence on this shift through EEG and eye-tracking measures.
Second, neuroscience has recently made important advances on emotion recognition. We use this theoretical perspective to explain controller behaviour. It is important to know what determines a controller’s propensity to compromise on integrity under social pressure from business unit management. We look at the suppression of EEG mu waves in the sensorimotor cortex while observing emotional facial expressions, and find it explains a substantial part of variation in controllers’ responses to professional dilemmas.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
