9 BASE The Tensions On The Role of Management

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/341707715
Back to basics or ready for take-off? The tensions on the role of management
controllers in the digital age
Article in Comptabilite Controle Audit · January 2020

DOI: 10.3917/cca.262.0089
CITATIONS READS
2 747
3 authors, including:
Florence Cavelius Adrian Pablo Zicari

ESSEC - Ecole Supérieur des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales ESSEC - Ecole Supérieur des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales
9 PUBLICATIONS 15 CITATIONS 42 PUBLICATIONS 183 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Value-Added Statements in Latin America View project
Priqss View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Florence Cavelius on 21 October 2020.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

BACK TO BASICS OR READY FOR TAKE-OFF? THE TENSIONS ON THE
ROLE OF MANAGEMENT CONTROLLERS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Florence Cavélius, Christoph Endenich, Adrian Zicari
Association Francophone de Comptabilité | « Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit »
2020/2 Tome 26 | pages 89 à 123

ISSN 1262-2788
© Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4)
ISBN 9791093449197
Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.cairn.info/revue-comptabilite-controle-audit-2020-2-page-89.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Association Francophone de Comptabilité.

© Association Francophone de Comptabilité. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les
limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la
licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie,
sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de
l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage
dans une base de données est également interdit.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

89
Back to basics or ready for take-off?

The tensions on the role of management
controllers in the digital age
Retour aux fondements ou prêt au décollage ?
Les tensions sur le rôle du contrôleur de gestion
à l' ère du digital
Florence CAVÉLIUS
ESSEC Business School – 3 avenue Bernard Hirsch – 95021 Cergy-Pontoise
[email protected]
Christoph ENDENICH
Adrian ZICARI
Acknowledgements:
The authors thank Jérémy Morales (Associate Editor) and three anonymous reviewers for
their helpful comments on previous versions of the paper. Furthermore, we thank Claire
Ciampi, Benedicte Grall and participants of the 2018 AFC Congress for their input and
PMP Conseil for support in finding our interviewees. Finally, we thank Florine Brière
for her excellent research assistance.
Résumé :
À l’ère du digital, les entreprises transforment leur business models mais aussi leur
fonction support, incluant la fonction contrôle de gestion. Les contrôleurs de gestion
assurent la diffusion de l’information de prise de décisions, mais aussi conseillent les
managers à tous les niveaux dans l’entreprise. À la lumière de ce contexte, nous analysons
les tensions qui surviennent à l’ère du digital, sur le travail et le rôle des contrôleurs de
gestion. Basée sur une étude empirique dans le contexte français, notre étude met en
évidence qu’en présence du phénomène de Big Data, les contrôleurs de gestion doivent
massivement investir dans la collecte de données et dans des missions de contrôle, de
fiabilité et pertinence des données, ce qui leur laisse moins de temps pour conseiller et
challenger les managers opérationnels. Néanmoins, si les contrôleurs de gestion évitent
de rester enfermés dans ces tâches plus techniques, et lorsqu’ils maîtrisent le Big Data
et les nouveaux outils, ils sont activement impliqués dans la transformation digitale de
Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

90
leurs entreprises. Ainsi, ils ajoutent de la valeur à ces données de masse qui arrivent dans
l’organisation, en donnant du sens aux données, mettant en évidence des opportunités
de business et challengeant les opérationnels grâce à leur connaissance d’expert.
Mots clés : rôle du contrôleur de gestion, ère du digital, big data,
business partner, digitalisation, 5 V
Abstract:
In the digital age, companies transform their overall business models but also all their corpo-
rate functions – including the management control function. Management controllers ensure
the dissemination of information for managerial decision-making but also advice managers
at all corporate levels. Against this background, we analyze the tensions that arise in the
digital age for the work and role of management controllers. Based on French field-study
evidence, our study highlights that when faced with the Big Data phenomenon, management
controllers need to heavily invest in data-collection and -reliability missions, leaving less time
for advising managers and challenging operational business units. Nevertheless, if manage-
ment controllers avoid getting locked into these more technical tasks and once they master Big
Data and new tools, they can become actively involved in the digital transformation of their
companies. Thus, they add value to the emerging mass of data by making sense of that data,
reflecting on business opportunities and challenging operational units and top-management
with their expert knowledge.
K eywords: role of management controllers, management accountant, digital
age, Big Data, business partner, digitization, 5 V
Introduction
Given that the digital age brings with it major challenges for businesses
around the world, this paper analyzes the tasks and role of management con-
trollers in the digital age.1 Management controllers run the corporate financial
and non-financial information systems and provide information that facili-
tates and influences managerial decision-making (Sprinkle, 2003). Against this
background, our article focuses in particular on the Big Data phenomenon and
argues that management controllers hold a key position in managing and lever-
aging the increasing volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value of data (Five
1. Given that our empirical study took place in France, we use the term management
controller as literal translation of the term contrôleur de gestion which is used in most
French companies. For our study we consider this term interchangeably with the term
management accountant.

91
V’s, IBM 2016).2 Although there is a significant body of research on the role
of management controllers (Fornerino and Godener, 2006; Bollecker, 2007;
Lambert and Morales, 2009; Lambert and Sponem, 2009, 2012; Morales, 2013;
Morales and Lambert, 2013; Goretzki et al., 2013; Endenich, 2014) and despite
the prominent position that management controllers hold in managing data,
empirical research on management controllers in the context of the digital age
is still scarce. Warren et al. (2015) argue that Big Data allows management con-
trol systems to more comprehensively monitor behaviour, track productivity and
motivate employees. Nevertheless, these claims are not backed by empirical evi-
dence. Quattrone (2016) argues that the digital age will not achieve the dream of
perfect information and highlights the importance of proper judgements in the
context of an ever-increasing amount of data.
In the existing literature, the influence of technology on the role of man-
agement controllers has been studied through the implementation of enterprise
resource planning (ERP) systems, and most researchers argue that such tools help
management controllers to improve their influence on managerial decision-mak-
ing and to move towards a business partner role (for a review, see Grabski et al.,
2011). However, the current phenomenon of the digital age goes a step further, as
changes occur not only in the accounting sphere, but also in the business models
themselves. Even if Quattrone (2016) warns against a potential loss of manage-
ment controllers in favour of informatics, the implications of the digital age for
management controllers have not yet been analyzed sufficiently.
Against this background, the objective of our paper is to analyze the ten-
sions arising in the digital age on the role of management controllers. In order
to achieve this objective, we conducted a cross-sectional field-study (Lillis and
Mundy, 2005) consisting of interviews with management controllers and finan-
cial directors of 20 major French companies. Theoretically, we substantiate our
field-study by combining insights from both information technology and man-
agement control research. Our results indicate that although the digital age
carries enormous potential in the context of data-availability and -analysis, the
danger arises that management controllers get locked into technical tasks such as
2. Note that the IBM originally presented a Four V’s-concept (IBM, 2012) and added
the fifth V (Value) later on (IBM, 2016). Moreover, we acknowledge that the Big
Data phenomenon is only a part of the changes evolving in the digital age. In our
paper, we consider the term digital age an umbrella-term that includes, amongst
others, elements such as Big Data, artificial intelligence, cloud-computing, Internet
of Things and Block Chain. Nevertheless, we consider the Big Data phenomenon a
prime example of these changes for the case of management controllers given their
role in running the corporate financial and non-financial information systems.

92
data-collecting and -processing instead of becoming more involved in manage-

rial decision-making processes. Nevertheless, we observe that management con-
trollers, once they have mastered Big Data and new tools, can become actively
involved in the digital transformation of their companies and can add value to
the emerging mass of data by making sense of that data, reflecting on business
opportunities and challenging operational units and managers with their expert
knowledge.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. First, we present a brief
review of the literature on digitization processes in the corporate world more
broadly and on research on the role of management controllers more specifically,
including the influence of technology on the role of management controllers.
Next, we explain the methods used and present our results. We close by dis-
cussing our results, disclosing the limitations of our field-study and identifying
avenues for future research endeavours.
1. Literature review
1.1 Digitization vs. Digital transformation
In the digital age, companies change both their (internal) organization and
processes and their (external) approach towards the market and the customer.
The latter phenomenon – i.e., the changing way of companies in approaching
markets and customers – can be labelled digital transformation. More specifi-
cally, this digital transformation can be defined as offering innovative and cus-
tomer-centric products and services through the use of emerging technologies
such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, cloud-computing, social-networking
and the Internet of Things (IoT) (Ross et al., 2017), and it has become a key
issue for companies across countries, sizes and industries. More specifically, a
successful digital transformation allows companies to identify and respond faster
to customer needs and preferences and to develop more innovative products and
services than competitors (Ross et al., 2017). Nevertheless, in order to scale
up and monetize new innovative products and services, companies need to be
backed by digitized business processes: companies have to adjust internally to the
digital age. In this context, data reliability, operational efficiency, process disci-
pline, cost efficiency and security of transactions (Ross et al., 2017) become key
to succeed in highly competitive and volatile markets. Accordingly, the (internal)
digitization becomes the backbone of the (external) digital transformation of
companies and both components can be considered to be mutually reinforcing
(Ross et al., 2017).

93
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have driven digitization since

the 1990s and they represent a central pillar of digitized business processes (Ross
et al., 2017). Nevertheless, ERP systems have traditionally focused on propri-
etary, structured and standardized corporate data, particularly accounting data.
However, in recent years the ability to make sense of masses of unstructured
data from a variety of internal and external sources has gained momentum
(Vasarhelyi et al., 2015). While the influence of ERP systems on management
controllers might be more straightforward given the accounting data inherent in
ERP systems, the link between the Big Data phenomenon and management con-
trollers is more ambiguous given that most information arising from Big Data
is non-accounting information.3 Big Data is regularly characterized by the Five
V’s-concept: Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity and Value (IBM, 2016). More
specifically, the data volume inherent in Big Data is often beyond the storing
and processing capabilities of traditional information systems (Vasarhelyi et al.,
2015; Warren et al., 2015). Accordingly, the definition of Big Data is relative and
varies between companies (e.g., small or medium-sized vs. large-scale companies)
and depends also on the storage and processing capabilities of their information
systems (Vasarhelyi et al., 2015). The velocity of data collection and analysis has
increased significantly in recent years allowing real-time analysis (Zhang et al.,
2015).
Big Data comprises a huge variety of data such as video, image, audio, tex-
tual, sensor, GPS, cell-phone and web-site traffic data that can be analyzed
using various computation techniques to generate meaningful information for
decision-making (Warren et al., 2015; Appelbaum et al., 2017). Data veracity
becomes of paramount importance given that – as compared to traditional infor-
mation systems – the majority of information in Big Data is non-proprietary data
originating from multiple sources outside the company representing different
levels of quality and trustworthiness (Zhang et al., 2015). Finally, against the
background of the significant investments necessary to dive into Big Data, the
fifth V – value – reminds companies that Big Data needs to add value to the
company instead of being an end in itself. Companies that reach the “5th V”
may be in a position to transform their business toward more customer-centric
and innovative approaches. In other words, they successfully achieve their digital
transformation. Reciprocally, this digital transformation will enable the com-
pany to access new data with further value-increasing potential.
Given that the digital transformation represents a process, Comuzzi and
Patel (2016) develop a comprehensive Big Data Maturity Model (BDMM).
The BDMM characterizes the maturity level of a given company’s capacity at
3. We thank an anonymous referee for raising this point.

94
leveraging Big Data. The six levels of maturity proposed can be distinguished
analysing different domains, including strategy, processes, data analytics and
management, people and culture in the organisation, governance and informa-
tion management and infrastructure. Companies at the lowest level of maturity
(level 0) do not consider Big Data as being of any importance in running their
business. In contrast, companies at the highest level (level 5) regard Big Data
as a strategic imperative, which concerns all the domains and finally allows the
company to create value for its customers.
Although Big Data is only one phenomenon arising in the digital age, we
focus on this phenomenon given the outlined role of management controllers in
running the corporate financial and non-financial informational systems more
broadly and the data arising from the Big Data phenomenon more specifically.
1.2 Management control in the digital age
THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT CONTROLLERS

There is a consensus in the existing literature stream that the digital age should
come along with significant changes for accounting in general and for man-
agement control more specifically (e.g., Appelbaum et al., 2017; Brands, 2014;
Warren et al., 2015; Vasarhelyi et al., 2015; Quattrone, 2016). Management con-
trollers are involved in the functional design of management control systems
and have traditionally been regularly described as holding rather passive roles
with a relatively low influence on managerial decision-making (Byrne and Pierce,
2007; Lambert and Sponem, 2009, 2012). This traditional role is also strongly
connected with the management controller’s responsibility for the reliability and
relevance of the information circulating within the firm (Fiol and Jouault, 1991).
In order to ensure data reliability, management controllers are often compelled
to do what Lambert and Morales (2009) and Morales and Lambert (2013) call
“dirty work”: checking data consistency and eliminating errors from raw data.
This dirty work can represent a significant share of the work time of manage-
ment controllers, detaching them from business operations and managerial
decision-making and eventually contributing to the rather negative image of
management controllers as bean counters.
Nevertheless, management controllers have been for long encouraged to
play a more active role by providing ad-hoc studies, advising operational or
top-managers and participating in corporate decision-making circles (Fornerino
and Godener, 2006; Lambert and Sponem, 2009, 2012; Lambert and Morales
(2009); Morales and Lambert (2013); Morales, 2013; Goretzki et al., 2013;
Endenich, 2014). Morales (2013) shows that heterogeneous activities – such as
producing new analyses, calculating new indicators, or realizing new scorecards,

95
– are included in the “ad-hoc studies” category. These ad-hoc studies allow man-
agement controllers to work more closely with managers instead of being a mere
information producer. According to Sathe (1983), these two roles are not mutu-
ally exclusive and may be performed by different individuals. Indeed, in decen-
tralized firms, some management controllers may be put alongside operational
teams while others may be positioned at headquarters level. Thus, within a single
company, management control positions can arise with two distinct missions. At
a local level, management controllers act as business partners for local managers,
while safeguarding strategy implementation and monitoring local operational
managers. At a central level, management controllers organize the overall man-
agement control tools and processes, monitor the overall firm activities and play
a business partner role for headquarters.
Against this background, Lambert and Sponem (2009, 2012) distinguish
four different types of management control functions, according to the client
of management controllers (operational managers versus headquarters) and the
influence on the decision-making processes (strong authority versus low author-
ity): discrete (low authority and local client), safeguard (low authority and cen-
tral client), partner (strong authority and local client), and omnipotent (strong
authority and central client). The management controller, whatever his role, is
at the heart of the information exchange (Bollecker and Niglis, 2009). He also
focuses on putting the different actors under tension to guarantee vertical con-
sistency with the expectations of headquarters (Bollecker, 2004a, 2004b, 2007;
Oriot, 2004; Lambert and Sponem, 2009). Information reliability is also ensured
by the intensity of the relationships with the operational teams (Bollecker and
Niglis, 2009; Godener and Fornerino, 2017). Indeed, information becomes even
more relevant and reliable because local actors internalize it, use it for their own
decision-making and reciprocally return relevant information to headquarters
(Bessire, 1995; Oriot, 2004).
THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY CHANGES ON THE ROLE OF

MANAGEMENT CONTROLLERS
The literature has still to clarify the ambiguity inherent in the interplay of the
different roles of management controllers. This is even more the case as informa-
tion system technology continues to evolve. To this day, the role of management
controllers has been largely studied in the literature against the background of
the implementation of ERP systems (e.g., Caglio, 2003; Scapens and Jazayeri,
2003; Järvenpää, 2007). According to these studies, the implementation of ERP
systems had a positive impact on the work of management controllers, including
the elimination (or more effective handling) of routine tasks and the possibility
to manage large amounts of data faster. Consequently, management controllers
can better analyze information and play an advisory role (Russel et al., 1999;

96
Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003; Granlund and Malmi, 2002; Järvenpää, 2007). In
this context, Järvenpää (2007) presents a case in which the implementation of
a centralized ERP-system as part of a broader portfolio of interventions – such
as managerial role modelling, training activities and new recruitment policies –
contributed to the business partner role of management controllers.
Nevertheless, some scholars raise concerns that the implementation of ERP
systems might also transfer some tasks formerly conducted by management
controllers to operational teams (Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003; Caglio, 2003;
Bollecker, 2007). Hence, management controllers might even lose tasks and
influence in corporate processes. Other studies underline that in the context
of ERP-system implementation, management control methods are only slowly
changing (Granlund and Malmi, 2002; Hyvönen, 2003; Meyssonnier and
Pourtier, 2006) and that a lot of time is still required to implement tools but also
to enter data and to make it reliable (Meyssonnier and Pourtier, 2006; Boitier,
2008). Accordingly, these studies call for both a more balanced view on the
impact of these tools on management control and for further research.
As discussed previously, ERP systems have historically focused on standard-
ized, proprietary accounting information. Nonetheless, the digital age comes
along with a mass of unstructured and heterogeneous data from various sources
and of different qualities which needs to be handled by management controllers.
Thus, we assume that the digital age creates tensions on the tasks and role of
management controllers. Moreover, new opportunities may arise from emerging
technologies such as Big Data, e.g., for measuring customer satisfaction (e.g.,
by measuring the tone of customer calls or customer body language), employee
commitment (e.g., by monitoring web use and click streams) and managerial
performance (Warren et al., 2015). These metrics can subsequently be included
in management control systems resulting in more comprehensive control systems
that better align employee behaviour with corporate objectives and enable better
managerial decisions (Warren et al., 2015).
1.3 Synthesis of the literature review

Against the background presented in the previous sections, our empirical
study links the digital age and the role that management controllers assume in
their companies via the data aspect. On the one hand, management controllers
hold a crucial role in the context of collecting, distributing and making sense
of data relevant for managerial decision-making. On the other hand, compa-
nies are faced with rising masses of – often unstructured, non-proprietary and
non-accounting – data from multiple sources that we conceptualize by the Five
V’s concept. In order to achieve their digital transformation, companies need
to generate value from data to compete successfully with existing and emerging

97
competitors by offering innovative and customer-centric products or services.

This path towards a digitally transformed company can be analyzed based on the
BDMM developed by Comuzzi and Patel (2016).
Our study builds on the assumption that management controllers hold
a crucial position in this digital transformation because of the role that they
play in the context of corporate data collection, exchange and analysis. In other
words, we assume that management controllers are crucial actors in the context
of managing and leveraging the data arising from the digital age. Nevertheless,
such developments can bring additional tensions to the still unsolved struggle
between being a technician and a business partner. Thus, our study considers the
tensions arising out of the interplay of the different roles that management con-
trollers can assume in their companies against the changes arising in the digital
age conceptualized by the Five V’s and the BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016).
2. Method
To reach our research objective, we conducted a cross-sectional field-study
(Lillis and Mundy, 2005). This field-study focuses on companies with at least 250
employees to ensure that the companies under study have positions exclusively
dedicated to management control – which is not necessarily the case in smaller
companies due to resource restrictions. Moreover, we have built a broad sam-
ple comprising various industries such as car manufacturing, food processing,
construction materials, pharmaceutical, advertising, energy-supply, insurance,
technology consulting, laboratory services for food companies and telecom-
munications to draw an overarching picture (Appendix A). In order to build
our sample, we relied on personal ties with companies and the network of our
institution. Overall, our sample comprises semi-structured interviews with 20
management controllers and financial directors with significant work experience.
The interviews were supported by an interview guideline that includes two
major sections: the first one includes questions about the digital transformation
in the company visited and the second one focuses on the work, role and posi-
tion of management controllers (Appendix B). The interviews lasted around one
hour, were tape-recorded and transcribed in full. Data analysis began by multiple
readings of the transcripts, in order to build a first understanding of the material.
Subsequently, we conducted an abductive data-analysis that iteratively combines
an inductive data-analysis with theoretical insights. By intensively going back
and forth between empirical material and theoretical background, an abduc-
tive data-analysis strengthens the links between theory and data and can result
in more meaningful results (Järvenpää, 2007). Data-analysis was supported by

98
matrix-forms developed in a standard spreadsheet software application to man-

age, display and structure the empirical material.
In a first stage of data analysis, we evaluate the digital maturity of the com-
panies of our sample. More precisely, we used the Five V’s concept as a proxy
and the BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016) to further substantiate our analy-
sis. Although the BDMM considers multiple dimensions, we focus on the data
analytics, data management and processes domains because these domains are
particularly linked to the tasks and roles of management controllers. The data
analytics domain refers to the scope of using data analytics applications, and their
user-friendliness. The data management domain is concerned with the maturity
in identifying data types and sources, and setting standards and policies for data
usage, quality and security. Finally, the process domain considers to which extent
Big Data has entered operational and decision-making processes at the different
company levels (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016). Using the Five V’s, we searched our
transcripts for evidence of the presence of the different V’s; we then focused on
data analytics and data management to appreciate the level of maturity in terms
of mastering Big Data. Finally, we analyzed how Big Data transforms the opera-
tional and decision-making processes. Accordingly, we analyze the ability of the
companies participating in our field-study to manage the Big Data phenomenon
and to generate value from this data by transforming their business models.
In a second stage, we focused on the tensions arising in the digital age for tasks
and role of management controllers. Thus, we intended to reach our research
objective outlined above. In order to distinguish between the two roles of man-
agement controllers, we follow Fornerino and Godener (2006) and Morales
(2013) and analyze the management controller’s role through his activities. More
specifically, we consider five categories of activities: (1) definition and adaptation
of management control systems, (2) data construction and data handling, (3)
recurrent tasks (budgeting and reporting), (4) data analysis and ad hoc stud-
ies, and (5) advisory role to operational teams and general management. Using
Fornerino and Godener (2006) and Morales (2013), we consider that when the
management controllers handle the three first activities, they are technicians. If
in addition to these first three activities, management controllers hold responsi-
ble for data analysis, ad-hoc studies and advice, they may be considered business
partners. Following Morales (2013), and despite the heterogeneous character of
these activities, we include ad hoc studies as business partnering activities and
not in the technician role, even if data crunching may be needed to build these
analyses.
The different authors carefully scrutinized the matrix forms and ambiguities
in the coding were solved in discussions between the authors. These intensive
discussions between the different authors accompanied the overall process of

99
data-analysis to increase reliability, avoid over-interpretations and increase the

overall richness of data-analysis.
In the following section we present the results from our data-analysis accom-
panied by selected quotes from our interviewees. Firstly, we explore how the par-
ticipating companies have implemented digitization processes and how they are
transforming themselves into digital companies. Secondly, we turn our attention
to the tasks and role of our interviewees and focus the tensions arising on the role
of management controllers in the digital age. In accordance with the typology of
Lambert and Sponem (2009, 2012), we particularly explore the tensions on the
centrality and the authority of the function (i.e., the influence on decision-mak-
ing processes).
3 Results
3.1 Different maturity degrees in digitization and digital
transformation
This section analyzes how the companies that participated in our field-study
engage in their digitization and digital transformation. Our data analysis shows
that in the companies of our field-study, the digitization and digital transforma-
tion are at very different stages. More precisely, according to the level of mas-
tering Big Data and their usage in processes, we found that three important
levels of maturity can be distinguished. Accordingly, we consider three groups
of companies: (1) Companies still working in a very traditional way with a (very)
limited or even none engagement in digital issues. (2) Companies having started
to engage in their digitization while not having yet leveraged this digitization
into the transformation of their business models and the generation of new rev-
enue streams. (3) Companies that became digital players and transformed their
business models backed up by digitized internal processes. In the following, we
focus on these three groups because the different levels of maturity represent
important steps towards digital transformation and differently impact the role
of management controllers. We summarize the main characteristics of the three
groups in Table 1 and explain them in the following sections.

100
Table 1 – Different maturity degrees in digitization and digital

transformation
Companies
Traditional Digitized compa-
undergoing their
companies nies
digitization
Presence of Big Data
Maturity in Presence of Big Data
phenomenon
phenomenon
handling the Big Facing 3 V (volume,
Limited or no presence Mastering 4 V
Data phenomenon velocity, variety)
of Big Data pheno- (volume, velocity,
(data analytics and Struggling with the
menon variety, veracity) or 5 V
data management veracity of data (4th V)
(able to give value to
domains) Not able to give value
the data)
to data (5th V)
No transformation or
Transformation in
first attempts to trans-
business models No transformation Transformation
form business models
(processes domain)
and processes
Predominance of
industrial sectors
Digitized products Digitized products
Main characteris- Project-driven com-
Standardized products Standardized products
tics of the firms panies
or services or services
Complex products
Regulated industries
E7, E10, E13, E15, E16, E3, E4, E5, E6, E8, E9,
Case Examples E1, E2, E12
E17, E18, E19, E20 E11, E14
3.1.1 TRADITIONAL AND NON DIGITIZED FIRMS

In the companies that our analysis allocated to the first group, we could not
identify a significant engagement in digitization and digital transformation.
These companies – mostly from the manufacturing sector – either consider that
they are not concerned, or view the digital age as an important challenge to be
addressed in the (near) future. The interviewees underline that even though an
increasing data volume affects some corporate functions such as marketing and
sales, other core areas of the business, the management control function and the
overall business model are still widely working in more traditional ways.
“Today, the digitization process will above all become an issue for market-
ing teams, sales teams, business, etc. So, of course we have a few resources
working on it in our teams, but most of the time we keep using Excel and
our data bases. […] Honestly, I don’t really perceive the transformation
process.” (E13)
“Today I have other priorities and I didn’t think much about that [digiti-
zation and digital transformation].” (E15)

101
Accordingly, these companies are still at the very beginning of the process
of digitization and have not implemented Big Data tools nor modified their
business processes. A few companies explain that they are not interested in Big
Data because their business models – for instance some specific project-focused
activities – are perceived to not need huge amounts of data. In some other cases,
for example in the pharmaceutical industry, it was explained during interviews
that regulatory constraints prevent the company from accessing massive external
data.
“We don’t have market data, we are close to a project management mode
[…] Consequently, I won’t have much need of data for some time.” (E15)
“Digital did not yet deeply transform the business model for [company
name] and the pharmaceutical sector. This sector is not really at the fore-
front. The margins are comfortable. And the sector is regulated which pre-
vents some digital evolutions, such as in advertising. Nevertheless, there
are two domains where digital could transform the way of doing business:
research and development and sales relations with the medical sales rep-
resentatives.” (E17)
Overall, the companies of the first group can be considered to be at level 0
or 1 of the BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016): they either lack awareness of Big
Data tools or leave these tools to the initiative of local single individuals. Data
remains managed in silos and a general corporate Big Data policy has not been
established. Finally, there are no processes in place using Big Data or only some
restricted local initiatives are taken to use isolated Big Data tools.
3.1.2 COMPANIES UNDERGOING THEIR DIGITIZATION

In the second group, companies have moved a step forward, but have not yet
leveraged the full potential of the digitization. More precisely, these companies
began to implement digitized tools, started to collect huge volumes of data and
access quickly to this data. Accordingly, we observe that the companies of this
group face a huge amount of data (volume):
“So, for two years I’ve been collecting more data and information than
ever […].” (E3)
“Big Data is the source of a quantity of information that matters the most
to our analysis.” (E5)
Various strategies emerge for addressing the challenge of this increasing data
volume such as working with specialized data companies or using the evolving
new opportunities step-by-step. The increasing data volume clearly represents a

102
challenge for the existing information technology structure of the companies

visited.
“Also the issue of managing the data becomes more and more important.
Look, I have 150,000 clients and if I want to do a profitability analysis of
my clients, you cannot do it with Excel saying ‘Guys, go ahead!’ This does
not work!” (E3)
The increase of the data volume has been accompanied by a very fast avail-
ability of information (velocity). Thus, response times are no longer an issue for
the companies of the second group. These companies benefit from new techno-
logical infrastructures that offer real time access to very detailed information and
allow accessing ad-hoc information through “hyper-reactive” (E9) interfaces.
“It took just one second, maybe a second and a half, to get the results by
sector […] And if I want more details, I just double click. That’s it. This
responds super-fast.” (E9)
Linked to this huge amount of new data is the fact that this data comes from
the outside and in a huge variety that has to be handled (variety):
“With the BI, we may do a lot of things, we also have data coming from
the restaurants and affiliated shops, tomorrow, we will have data on the
card holders. Today we have access to external data we did not have in the
past” (E4).
Thus, the companies of this group already address the first three Vs of Big
Data: volume, velocity and variety. However, one of the most important chal-
lenges arising from Big Data is the aspect of data-veracity. This element becomes
paramount for our interviewees since raw data may be hazardous for the overall
reliability of the corporate informational systems. Accordingly, the management
controllers interviewed underline that there are important steps to consider to
ensure high data quality. More specifically, it becomes necessary to integrate the
data into a homogenized database, to correct errors, to centralize data storage
and to limit access to raw data.
“We know that we are synchronized. We have won the data fight. On the
intranet, on the laptops, on the smartphones: it is always the same base.”
(E9)
“We have to harmonize the information sources, etc. Even if people have
various specializations and tasks, everyone will take the information from
a homogenized and harmonized data base.” (E8)
In this context, important issues arise in terms of the governance of informa-
tion systems because responsibilities and access rights need to be defined in order
to guarantee data-consistency.

103
“I didn’t have the same figures from salespeople and from controllers [...]
there was a 2% gap. That was huge! Consequently, I denied access to those
people.” (E3)
Nevertheless, even if the companies of this second group have made import-
ant steps in terms of their digitization, they are still in the process of making
data reliable and they consequently struggle to leverage this data to transform
their business models. Accordingly, they have not yet fully reached the fourth V
(veracity) and do not yet generate value from new data (the fifth V: value) and
they consider that doing so is a significant challenge ahead.
“Actually, there are new jobs today, these people work on how to use the
data, how to explore the data and what to get from all this information,
how we make this work. And making this work is really hard.” (E3)
“The question is what we may do with the data, in line with the business.”
(E4)
“We try to digitize more and more our daily operations, but we are still in
progress. For now, we are not able to give value to all these data we collect
now.” (E5)
Overall, the companies of the third group can be considered to be at level 2
or 3 of the BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016): companies in this category have
already made some investments in analytics, began to build a central repository
and define central data policies. Indeed, they collect huge volumes of structured
and unstructured data, and begin to think of homogenizing Big Data usage
across the firms’ processes. But these firms still struggle to reach data veracity
and value and are not yet in a position to support the decision-making process
through Big Data.
3.1.3 DIGITIZED FIRMS

Finally, the companies of the third group of our sample use a huge and wide
variety of data implying the availability of a significant amount of non-structured
information with different formats. All these data are easily accessible through
the use of digitized tools. Accordingly, like the companies of the second group,
these companies face the first 3 V, Volume, Velocity and Variety.
“We are well ahead concerning modelling, understanding of external
data, shoppers in the streets or in the shops.” (E2)
“We have created this and [Name of the tool] gives us plenty of data: this
comes from supermarkets cashiers, statistical data about shopping time,
time spent in each store.” (E12)

104
As compared to the previous group, these companies have fully organized the
data collection and structuration and managed the reliability of data.
“We have to track and allocate the data to the right cost center, and we
have a service dealing with this task. Indeed, sales or technical tools give
us a huge volume of data coming from outside, this is real Big Data, it has
to be double-checked to have a clear vision.”(E1)
“We do not want or buy external data twice, and we want to be sure that
the purchased information is relevant and reliable. For example [in the
past], we bought panels in some countries, we checked and we realized we
had the wrong information.” (E12)
To collect, manage and analyze this data, they have implemented new digi-
tal tools with advanced functionalities for making sense of data: this increasing
digitization allows a more holistic view of the company, enables to focus on
explaining data instead of simply reporting data and helps controllers to work
more efficiently.
“For instance, if I have a look on the results of January and I didn’t reach
the target. Well, thanks to [name of a software tool], in two clicks I can
see the reason: Why didn’t I reach the target?” (E12)
“Thanks to the [name of a software tool], we anticipate ad hoc questions
and above all we avoid that we leave the monthly business review sessions
with a list of questions because the reports were made in such a way that
they already address the most frequently asked questions.” (E12)
Turning from digitization to digital transformation, the companies of the
third group have started to implement customer-centric business models. Some
companies have even completely dematerialized their main products such as
lunch vouchers, gift boxes and digital advertising products or changed their
way of addressing their customers thanks to more accessible and focused data.
Moreover, our data show that digitization allows new products and new business
models to emerge. The increasing volume, velocity, variety and veracity of data
allows the companies of the third group to attract new customers, to change the
supply chain processes, to design tailored marketing campaigns and to adjust
their products and services to the needs of their customers. Finally, the over-
all business processes of the firms of the third group are deeply transformed.
Accordingly, interviewees highlight an increased use of digital technology to
improve the ways of doing business or even directly increasing revenues.
“We are fully in a dematerialization mode, we now sell clicks.” (E1)
“For example, we are able, with some digital games, to create crowds and
increase attractiveness in the shops.”(E2)

105
“Since we are able to work with geolocation and to know where our cus-
tomers are, well, we managed to reinforce our sales in the areas where our
customers are located. We want them to find our product easily and we
don’t want any stock issues. Thanks to that our turnover has increased by
25%.” (E12)
“I will tell you, in Spain we teamed-up with [name of a telecommuni-
cation provider] to know where our customers go during their summer
holidays. Thus, thanks to their mobile phones, we tracked that 60% of
our customers from Barcelona are at the coast between Valencia and
Barcelona.” (E12)
“Here we are, we changed all that part [the supply chain] thanks to the
digital transformation.” (E12)
Overall, the companies of the third group can be considered to be at level 4
or 5 of the BDMM. Indeed, they collect and master huge volumes of structured
and unstructured data, use data analytics tools, are able to track permanently
data veracity and are in a position to support their decisions making process
through Big Data evidence. By doing so, they are able to better anticipate cus-
tomer needs or behaviours, make their business processes more reactive and even
increase their revenues significantly. Moreover, these companies have developed
corporate data management policies, which are regularly evaluated and updated.
But more important is the fact that Big Data is used to support decision mak-
ing process and thus increase the value for the business. In other words, they
successfully reached the Fifth V of Big Data. In the next section, we turn to the
tensions that arise out of the developments described for the work and role of
management controllers.
3.2 Tensions arising for the role of management controllers in

the digital age
In this section, we analyze the tensions that arise in the digital age for the
work and role of management controllers. To structure our work, we build on
the three groups of companies that we have distinguished in the last section.
In these groups, we shed light on the activities handled by management con-
trollers, building on the five categories proposed and adapted from Fornerino
and Godener (2006; see methods section). As explained in section 2, when the
management controllers handle the three first activities, they are technicians.
When, in addition to these first three activities, they have other missions of
data analysis, ad-hoc studies and advice, they may be considered as a business
partner. Additionally, we refer to the typology of Lambert and Sponem (2009),
paying a particular attention to the influence of management controllers on

106
decision-making processes (weak versus strong authority), and to the centrality

of the function (local or central clients). By doing so, we analyze the tensions
arising from the digitization on the role of management controllers. Table 2 sum-
marizes our results which we present in the following sections.
Table 2 – The Role of Management Controllers in the Digital Age
Companies with
Traditional Digitized compa-
ongoing digitiza-
companies nies
tion
Strong focus on Less tasks towards
building new tools information construc-
Strong presence of
and new information tion and data organi-
recurrent tasks (bud-
systems zation
geting and reporting)
Strong focus on data Recurrent tasks such
Main tasks of Ad-hoc analysis and
collection, organiza- as budgeting and
the management advice for decision
tion and reliability reporting are increa-
control function making
Importance of recur- singly standardized
Low importance of
rent tasks (budgeting and automatized
defining new informa-
and reporting) Strong advisory role
tion systems
Low time resources for building on new tools
advice to management and massive data
Main clients of
Headquarters and/ Headquarters and/
the management
or local operational Headquarters or local operational
control function:
managers managers
central or local
Authority of the
management
Weak or strong
control function Weak authority Strong authority
authority
(influence on
decision-making)
Tensions on the Danger of getting loc-
Try to diminish the ked into the technician
role and main
technician role to role
challenges for Give value to the data
come to the business Struggling with data
the management
partner role veracity and control-
control function ling data
Predominant
role of the mana-
gement control Technician or Safe- Augmented Business
Omnipotent or Partner
function (Lambert guard Partner
and Sponem 2009,
2012)
3.2.1 TENSIONS FOR THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT

CONTROLLERS IN TRADITIONAL COMPANIES
As a first important finding, our data analysis shows that “dirty work”
(Lambert and Morales 2009) remains very important task of management

107
controllers in the traditional companies of our sample, i.e. in those companies in

which the digitization is not yet visible. Interestingly, management controllers do
not mention their participation in the development or creation of management
control systems because these systems are already in place. Nevertheless, these
companies are still struggling to cope with data, and still looking for a way to
deliver reliable information in a timely manner:
“We criticize controlling as it takes too much time to produce informa-
tion while it does not spend enough time in analysing that information,
but this is also a consequence of working conditions. They have to dou-
ble-check information and this takes time. […] Yes, controllers do a lot of
number crunching.” (E7)
“I think that data verification is the base of controlling. This is our first
priority […] otherwise you will come up with decisions made on wrong
figures: quick-and-dirty analysis.” (E13)
In some companies of the first group of our sample it has been highlighted
that the companies started to engage in the digital age at the company level,
but that these efforts have not yet trickled through the company hierarchy.
Accordingly, digital issues are discussed at top management level but do not yet
affect the day-to-day work of management controllers:
“The group decided to hire a Mr. Digital, but this is all new.” (E15)
In these firms, recurrent tasks such as budgeting and reporting are still very
traditionally managed:
“In terms of planning, we have a one-year budget. We have a long term
plan for 5 years and we also do a mid-year forecast to see where we will be
at the end of the year.” (E16)
“When the budget is approved by the CEO, it is made official and we will
keep it all the year long. We have forecasts from one month to the other in
a more realistic way.” (E19)
Besides “dirty work” (Lambert and Morales, 2009) and recurrent tasks, man-
agement controllers of these companies carry out ad-hoc analyses to help their
managers to take decisions. Nevertheless, in some firms, these ad-hoc analyses
are considered more of a secondary task once data reliability has been ensured
and time resources remain available:
“Ad-hoc studies and analysis, yes, we have to do some, and this is the
interesting part of the job. You cannot launch a new project tomorrow
without doing studies or analysis.” (E13)
“At some moment, it is interesting to make sense of all that data.” (E13)

108
”If we are not able to understand the figures, to analyze them, to give some
guidance, we should stop it, it wouldn’t make any sense.” (E15)
The role of advising managers either locally or at headquarters level, is under-
lined in this group of companies:
“Well, the role is to make sense of the situation, to follow the project,
to see where we are and to challenge the team. For instance, today I am
going to ‘bother’ a bit the salespeople by giving them some advice on their
operations here and there.” (E13)
“So I give some organisational or strategic recommendations, I look at the
human resources aspects, I suggest how to modify, how to pilot, how to
analyze the variances and how to react consequently.” (E15)
“Our role is to be more and more a business partner and this is the real
value of the management control today. […] I have a very close relation
with my boss, we have a lot of exchanges. I see some people that he does
not see, this allows me to find solutions he would not have thought of.”
(E16)
“The Financial Direction became a real lever of performance, before it was
seen as a cost center. Now other centers ask for information, for service.
This is no longer the great Satan that controls, it is a business partner.”
(E18)
Interestingly, in the view of the traditional companies of our sample, assum-
ing the role of the business partner comes along with the perceived need to do so.
In other words, our interviewees underline that management controllers would
become obsolete in the digital age if they would not assume an active role and
make sense of the data they deliver.
“The Big Data phenomenon, well, I think it is a tidal wave, obviously. So,
there are two possibilities: we can decide to let the business teams manage
it and we will only be a kind of repository. Reports and figures will show
up automatically. But in that case, management control won’t exist in 10
years. So the second solution is to be able to be as close to the ground as
possible, and if we are not able to demonstrate that we are able to make
numbers meaningful, well, it’s simple: we won’t give any added-value to
the function.” (E15)
“It is amazing, but it is also a bit worrisome. I see efficiency, the intelli-
gence in the processes, even if it will impact on me, I will adapt myself….
This closeness with managers will help me to advise them, as things will

109
go faster for them as well. The advisory role will increase; we will be more
business partners than gap analysts.” (E19)
Finally and unsurprisingly, we find in this group the tensions between the
technician and the business partner role described in the existing literature.
Management controllers play an active role as business partner, their clients are
mainly local, but sometimes, they still struggle with data collection and verifi-
cation.

CONTROLLERS IN COMPANIES UNDERGOING THEIR
DIGITIZATION
Our data show that in the companies that begin their digitization, import-
ant tensions arise on the work of management controllers as they face a huge
quantity of data to cope with. In these firms, interviewees are strongly engaged
in the development or co-development of new information systems and in data
reliability missions in order to create ready-to-use information for managerial
decision-making. In this context, the high increase in data-volume and the exis-
tence of various data collection systems – which may be external – represent
major challenges for our interviewees.
“I would say that for one year we have been deeply transforming the
reporting and invoicing activities. […] For all the projects there is a man-
agement controller […] and together with the IT experts, we define and
shape the data model.” (E5)
“We are launching a large master data management project. The objective
is to completely review the indicators and all the company data to harmo-
nize data sources.” (E8)
“The management control function took the lead on the BI/Data ware-
house project, they put in place a tool named [name of the software].”
(E14)
For some of our interviewees, these processes imply the danger of becoming
obsolete in the future.
“Some people panicked when I showed it [the new automated software].
We went to the regions and when we were presenting the tool, one of the
management controllers raised his hand and asked ‘what I am going to do
now?’” (E9)
However, our data analysis shows that there is still a significant amount of
recurrent tasks linked to budgeting or reporting processes – which have tradi-
tionally represented the core tasks of management controllers.

110
“Well, we should not kid ourselves; we have an enormous workload, espe-

cially for the reporting activity. […] The management team, they always
want more, so when we eliminate one report, we create another one.” (E11)
“We have launched a project in order to better exploit the mass of data
we already have, with dedicated people who develop data plugs that will
allow us to make further analysis and improve our way of controlling.”
(E5)
“And the support services will provide data to managers whenever they
ask for anything that goes beyond the usual reports.” (E9)
In these firms, the business partner role seems difficult to play, because of
the time spent on other time-consuming responsibilities in the context of data
reliability and recurrent tasks such as budgeting and reporting:
“We have the usual problem, we don’t standardize enough. We try to
answer questions by doing a lot of manual work, we don’t have time to
standardize, to formalize – at least to write some guidelines, I don’t know,
to make something more formal, we don’t have time, that’s sure, we don’t
have time.” (E14)
“We would like the management controller to be a business partner. That’s
the big word. But frankly, we are not there. In a Business Unit, the man-
agement controller may also validate some purchase orders, some tasks
which could be done by accounting or super assistant people. Thus, the
management controller could work on the transformation plans of the
BU. The objective is to ask them to do that. But the operational reality
raises a question – both in terms of time and in terms of position: Does
he stay in the back-office to do his reporting, or can he be the source of
proposals? The evolution of the management control systems should allow
being more a business partner.” (E11)
Some elements arising from the Big Data phenomenon such as the multi-
plication of available data and the velocity of data provision raise fears about a
significant increase of data expert tasks for management controllers. This finding
carries the question of the composition of the management control teams and the
profiles of the team members:
“These new recruits are more engineers and, well, we are training them on
specific tools which are not the ones we traditionally use in the manage-
ment control teams. These are tools for business intelligence; we want to
get to the root of the problem.” (E8)

111
“This is the reason why we more and more need data scientists, to identify
and extract the right information.”(E5)
“If we speak Big Data, we need statistical and data analytic skills, which
have nothing to do with the classical skills of the management control-
lers.” (E14)
Moreover, our data shows that the digital age creates tensions for the position
that management controllers assume within their organization. Some companies
have decided to (re)centralize the management control function, notably because
of the mass of data and for efficiency reasons. Indeed, it is necessary to collect
the data, then to carry on with data-processing and analysis. In this context, our
interviewees underline that such a centralization does not only ensure data-con-
sistency but also ensures efficiency because tasks are not multiplied throughout
the company.
“I can’t put one data scientist in each business unit.” (E3)
“In [company name], we have decided to keep the controllers at a differ-
ent level and not to integrate them in the business units. Why? In order
to keep consistency. In order to always keep this control and verification
role. I am personally convinced that our preferred model is centralized
control.” (E5)
“We have centralized management control […] It is now shared and reor-
ganized in a quite traditional way.” (E8)
Overall, our analysis shows that in the companies currently undergoing their
digitization, the design and maintenance of informational systems and the reli-
ability of data become of paramount importance. Besides, the time-consuming
nature of tasks related to ensuring data-reliability creates tensions on the role of
management controllers as less time remains available for business partnering –
even if the latter role is clearly preferred by our interviewees.

CONTROLLERS IN DIGITIZED COMPANIES
In the companies with advanced digital processes, successful data-reliabil-
ity projects are already in place. Faced with huge amounts of data, our respon-
dents emphasize the need for a high responsiveness and flexibility, which creates
another form of tensions on the role of the management controller:
“We have to be very flexible, as this needs to go fast [the change in the
management control systems]. You see that each 2 or 3 months, something
happens, we need the data, this has to be flexible, it has to be fast.” (E1)

112
As they need to invest less time in data-reliability missions, management con-

trollers put forward new procedures such as streamlining or fully abandoning
budgeting processes. Consequently, these companies have opted for rolling fore-
casts which are perceived to be much more responsive to an increasingly volatile
business environment.
“We have a strategic plan which is the heart of our strategic planning over
3 years, and to this strategic plan, we connect the principle of a 12 months
rolling forecast.” (E2)
“We prefer to be accurate on the overall picture than to getting lost in the
details of a two month budgeting process. It goes so fast that a budgeting
process that takes 2 months has no value at all.” (E12)
Our data analysis suggests that these new methods are pushed forward thanks
to a better data-availability arising from the digital age.
“In this reporting, I have the necessary information to manage through
BI tools.” (E2)
“This is 24 months of rolling forecast and a monthly revision of the inno-
vation pipeline, change in our categories, changes in our clients, and pro-
duction capacities in relation with our clients’ demands. And then Finance
takes all that to prepare a P&L. And every month the board reviews this
rolling P&L.” (E12)
Overall, business partnering is strongly present in the third group of compa-
nies, either through ad-hoc studies or directly through the usage of the data that
allows being business oriented. Obviously, such a positioning is enabled by the
fact that the management controllers in the companies of the third group need to
spend less of their time for data-collection and -reliability missions.
“Downstairs they collect data, […] this goes up to [name of the head of
strategic planning] who has a superb vision, a key vision, who takes the
decision and who is attentive to almost all issues and this at the higher
level… Because forecasting is key, we have to meet the numbers, other-
wise…” (E1)
This analytical capacity is an essential prerequisite to be able to work more
closely with operational units, discuss with managers, but also to challenge them
or even to be a proactive force and propose business solutions:
“We try to have management control teams who don’t spend more than
2 months preparing the budget and one month doing forecasts, this way
they can be closer to everyday activities with marketing or with salespeo-
ple, to work on innovations, how to improve the mix, if I lost money in the
negotiation how can I compensate with the sales mix?” (E12)

113
“This is the possibility to drive the business with geolocalisation. […] For
example, if I look at the [product name] profit and loss, I notice the main
sales are in Paris, as compared to the rest of France. Regarding the adver-
tising campaign for [product name], is it worth carrying on my national
marketing campaign broadcasted on national TV channels? Or maybe,
considering that the majority of my customers and my growth opportuni-
ties are in Paris, I should focus my campaign on something local such as
bus stops in the capital city?” (E12)
In these digitized firms, management control remains organized two-fold:
central management control and business partners at each business unit level.
“These two people report to me, one of them is at the corporate level, he
helps me to manage all the communication with the international level,
whereas the other is responsible for business planning and is working more
with the operational people.” (E12)
To conclude, our data analysis underlines that the digital age creates signifi-
cant tensions on the role of management controllers that primarily results from
the need to spend more or less time on data-collection and -reliability missions.
We discuss these tensions in the next section.
4. Discussion
This paper analyzes the tensions arising in the digital age on the work and
role of management controllers. From an empirical perspective, we conducted a
cross-sectional field-study (Lillis and Mundy, 2005) comprising interviews with
management controllers and financial directors of 20 major French companies.
Although we build on the literature analysing management control issues against
the background of the implementation of ERP-systems (e.g., Caglio, 2003;
Scapens and Jazayeri, 2003; Järvenpää, 2007), we argue that the developments
of the digital age go a step further. The digital age does not represent a mere
transformation of corporate information systems but carries the potential for
fundamental changes in the overall business models. In this digital transforma-
tion, management controllers have an important role to play.
Our analyses show that the companies visited are at very different stages of
their digitization and digital transformation and highlights three groups of com-
panies. In this context, it is important to acknowledge that the three groups of
companies are not homogenous groups and even within the three groups, the
digitization and digitalization of the companies shows a certain degree of varia-
tion. The companies of the first group of our sample are at the very beginning of
their digital transformation or even deliberately decided not to pursue a digital

114
transformation. We characterize them as being at the level 0 or 1 of the BDMM

(Comuzzi and Patel, 2016). In these companies, some management controllers
devote a significant share of their overall work time to routine tasks – budgeting
and reporting – and to do what Lambert and Morales (2009) call “dirty work”:
checking data consistency and eliminating errors from raw data. At the same
time, these management controllers strive to act as business partners of man-
agers, even if time resources to do so remain limited given the strong involve-
ment in routine tasks and dirty work. This tension between the technician and
business partner role has already been discussed in the literature (Fornerino and
Godener, 2006). Coming back to the typology of Lambert and Sponem (2009,
2012), interestingly, only one firm (E7) of the first group seems to have a dis-
crete management control function, as the authority is weak. Rather, we find a
majority of management controllers that exert influence on managerial decision
making, and play their role either near business unit managers or at headquarters
level. We characterize these management controllers as business partners, some
of them being even omnipotent.
The companies of the second group have made first significant steps towards
their digitization and digital transformation and are at the level 2 or 3 of the
BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016). Here, management controllers are even
more concerned with tasks aiming to ensure data reliability and consistency. In
these companies, management controllers struggle with managing the masses of
data arising out of the digital age and with designing and harmonizing the cor-
porate informational systems. Overall, the time resources of management con-
trollers are strongly absorbed by tasks related to ensuring data-reliability, leaving
less time for business partnering. Moreover, management controllers in this
group are mainly centralized and their influence on managerial decision-making
processes remains low. The management control function of these firms can be
characterized as a safeguard function (Lambert and Sponem 2009, 2012): the
dominant mission of these management controllers is ‘safeguarding’ the data in
the corporate informational systems.
Third, we identify a group of companies that deeply transformed their busi-
ness models and leverage the opportunities of the digital transformation to
challenge competitors, develop new products and increase their revenues. These
companies are at the level 4 or 5 of the BDMM (Comuzzi and Patel, 2016).
Accordingly, we contribute to a small but growing literature stream on man-
agement control issues in technology firms and digital business settings (e.g.,
Bisbe and Sivabalan, 2017; Kornberger, Pflueger and Mouritsen, 2017; Pfister
and Lukka, 2019). Empowered by digital tools, management controllers of these
companies manage the data arising out of the digital age with ease and repre-
sent reference points for reliable information for managerial decision-making.
At the same time, digitization helps them to streamline routine tasks such as

115
budgeting, enabling them to spend more time on interacting with operational

business units. At the time of the interviews, it is only the companies of this
third group that generate value – the fifth V – from Big Data. Interestingly, ten-
sions between the classical two roles (technician and business partner) seem to
be weaker. Instead, accessing a wide variety of data in a timely manner, enables
management controllers to provide tailored advisory services to managers in vari-
ous situations, e.g., through detailed real-time information provided ‘on the spot’
in business review meetings that previously needed to be collected, analyzed and
distributed after the according meetings in which requests have been brought
forward. Against this background, we argue that in the digital age, a fifth cat-
egory of management controllers might be added to the typology of Lambert
and Sponem (2009, 2012): the ‘Augmented Business Partner’. Against the back-
ground of the cross-sectional nature of our data, we acknowledge that we were
not able to observe such developments ‘live’. Accordingly, besides the digital age,
other factors can be expected to contribute to our findings as well. For example,
it seems reasonable to expect that management controllers that nowadays act as
‘Augmented Business Partners’ have already played an important role in their
companies before the digital age. Nevertheless, our interviewees underline that
the digitalization has been one important driver of these developments.
Although most research on the role of management controllers in the context
of the implementation of ERP-systems shows an increasing influence of man-
agement controllers on corporate decision making processes (for a review see
Grabski et al., 2011), our field-study results in more ambiguous findings for the
case of management controllers facing the digital age. On the one hand, our
interviewees share the opinion that the digital age brings new opportunities for
management controllers in the form of better data-availability, new indicators
from multiple sources such as geolocalisation and increased collaboration with
multiple corporate actors. When a company transforms its products thanks to
digital tools, it brings massive and various data, which can be used to improve
forecasts or key performance indicators. Using data collected directly from the
customers through digital tools allows having a customer centric approach.
On the other hand, our data analysis shows that the digital age carries the
danger that management controllers need to increasingly engage in tasks that are
more that of a technician than that of a business partner. More precisely, when
faced with the Big Data phenomenon which implies masses of unstructured
data from multiple sources, management controllers need to invest intensively in
ensuring the reliability of data that can only subsequently be distributed in the
company and used for managerial decision-making. Obviously, this burden is
particularly high in the early stages of the digital transformation (second group
of companies in our sample) because new tools need to be implemented, new
roles need to be defined and new routines need to be developed. In this context,

116
the danger arises that management controllers who intensively engage in these
tasks get locked into these technical tasks – leaving the advice to managers to
other corporate actors or even to external parties such as business consultants.
This danger is reinforced by our finding that routine tasks in the areas of report-
ing and budgeting are still absorbing a significant share of the overall work time
of management controllers, thus consuming time that cannot be invested in
business partnering.
Management controllers in business practice should be aware of this danger
in order to avoid being locked into this data-processing role and instead lever-
age the opportunities arising in the wake of the digital age discussed above.
Interestingly, our data show that while all interviewees strive for business part-
nering, not all succeed in this aspiration. Accordingly, we add to the literature
stream that underlines that the business partner role of management controllers
does not come automatically along with the implementation of latest informa-
tion technology. Instead, this implementation needs to be embedded in a broader
portfolio of measures such as top-management support, corporate training ses-
sions and new recruitment policies to effectively empower management control-
lers as shown by Järvenpää (2007).
The danger of getting locked into data-processing is reinforced by an addi-
tional finding of our empirical analysis. A few of our interviewees expressed their
concerns that as data collection and processing become increasingly automa-
tized, management controllers might risk disappearing from the corporate scene.
In order to ensure continuous legitimization of the management control func-
tion, they need to show their added-value by making sense of data, reflecting
on business opportunities and challenging operational units and managers with
their expert knowledge and judgements. In other words, if management con-
trol focuses solely on collecting, correcting and distributing data, it might be
taken over by informatics or other corporate functions in the future (Quattrone,
2016). Furthermore, by leveraging the opportunities arising from the digital age,
management controllers can even increase their influence on managerial deci-
sion-making and improve their positioning in the company, becoming ‘aug-
mented business partners’ and thus playing a crucial role in the data-driven
company of the digital age. Empirically, we observed such an augmented busi-
ness partnering in the third group of companies.
Our empirical findings also allows us to connect our study to an ongoing
discussion on the area of planning and budgeting in the digital age (Warren
et al. 2015). Budgeting has been the traditional core of management accounting
and control (e.g., Libby and Lindsay, 2010) but has since several years received
significant criticism as being time consuming, detached from corporate strategy
and rigid to changing environments (e.g., Hansen et al., 2003). This criticism
has been bundled under the beyond budgeting discourse (Hope and Fraser,

117
2003). While this discourse has attracted significant interest in the academic
world, many companies seem to stick to their budgeting practices (e.g., Libby
and Lindsay, 2010). Nevertheless, our empirical study has shown that companies
make significant efforts to establish faster and more flexible approaches such as
rolling forecasts to account for an increasingly volatile business environment.
In this context, better and faster data-availability arising from the digital age
becomes a key-enabler. However, the companies of our sample have not yet
deep-dived into predictive analytics which might bring a new momentum to
the beyond budgeting debate as predictive analytics based on big data is likely
to represent a game-changer toward faster, more relevant and more user-friendly
real-time analyses (Brands, 2014). These analyses will build on a wide variety
of internal and external financial and non-financial data which represents an
additional change for management controllers who have historically focused on
financial data from internal sources (Brands, 2014). In-depth case studies on
companies experimenting in this area might significantly increase our knowl-
edge in this area.
Moreover, our empirical study also resulted in important findings regard-
ing the positioning of the management control function. The companies’ inten-
tion to centralize the management control function in the context of the digital
transformation – mainly to ensure a centralized, efficient and reliable data-hub
and to enable consistent monitoring of all business units – carries the danger
that management controllers increasingly work detached from the operational
business units. Nevertheless, in our sample several companies successfully estab-
lished a centralized management control function as a data-hub and additionally
installed powerful management control positions acting as business partners in
the local business units pursuing the mission of adding-value to and challenging
operational business units.
The availability of new digital management tools that are simultaneously
accessible for multiple corporate actors represents another facet of the digital
age observed by our interviewees. In this context, new opportunities to collabo-
rate with different corporate functions arise for management controllers. In this
collaboration, management controllers can underline their expert-knowledge to
other corporate members by providing advice but also by offering training ses-
sions on these new tools. At the same time, management controllers need to
position themselves as owners of these new tools, defining their use and setting
a clear governance to ensure both data reliability and their own influence on
corporate processes. In this context, Kornberger, Pflueger and Mouritsen (2017)
show how control has become radically distributed in platform organizations
– such as Airbnb, eBay and Uber – through customer reviews, rankings and
ratings whereas power remains centralized as the platforms collect, analyze and
monetarize the data. Similarly, Jeacle and Carter (2011) and Jeacle (2017) in

118
their analysis of online reviews for Tripadvisor and Amazon illustrate a similar
pattern of data coming from scattered sources and creating value for the firm. As
our study shows, whenever control becomes more dispersed within companies
through digital tools, management controllers need to ensure that they position
themselves proactively as owners of the arising ‘data treasure’ to strengthen their
influence within the company. Finally, our field-study underlines that the digital
age does not only create tensions on the work of management controllers and
the roles that they assume but moreover influences the profiles searched for in
recruitment processes. In this context, knowledge and skills in the field of infor-
mation systems become key for the next generation of management controllers
challenging not only the companies visited but moreover the curricula for future
management controllers at higher education institutions in France and beyond.
5. Conclusion
This study provides empirical evidence about the tensions on the role and
position of management controllers in the digital age. Our study is subject to the
limitations common to the cross-sectional field-study approach and our results
cannot be statistically generalized to other companies or countries. Our data is
composed of one interviewee per company and thus, our insights are restricted
by the experience, tasks and position of our interviewee. Although adding addi-
tional interviewees from the sampled companies could have enriched our find-
ings, choosing interviewees with significant job experience and key-positions in
management control resulted in relevant insights into the subject under study.
Moreover, although we consider that digitization and digital transformation are
very important factors in understanding the experiences of our interviewees, we
acknowledge that other factors – such as historical path dependencies, top-man-
agement style or corporate hierarchies – certainly do also play a role.
Given the scarcity of empirical studies on digital issues in management
control, we argue that our empirical analysis can represent the basis for future
research in France or in other geographical settings. In this context, both quan-
titative and qualitative follow-up studies can further increase our knowledge on
the work and role of management controllers in the digital age. Case studies
including interviews and direct observations might further deepen our under-
standing how management controllers succeed (or fail) in leveraging the oppor-
tunities arising out of the digital age and how they develop toward augmented
business partners. Large-scale quantitative analysis can increase our knowledge
on how widespread the different roles of management controllers are in the digi-
tal age and how these roles might be finally associated with achieving a corporate
digital transformation. We hope that our study stimulates such future research

119
because it can be expected that the digital age will continue to represent one of
the most important challenges for management controllers around the world in
the years to come.
Appendix A: List of Interviewees

Number of
Code Sector Interviewee’s Function
Employees
E1 Digital Advertising 2,000 Project Manager – Strategic Projects
E2 Food-Processing 100,000 Director of Financial Control
E3 B2B Services 8,000 Director General France
E4 B2B Services 700 Director of Management Control France
E5 Energy 2,100 Director of Management Control
Director of Accounting, Central-HR, Careers
E6 Automotive Supplier 106,000
management
E7 Insurance 32,000 Direction of Studies – Audit and Reviews
E8 Telecommunications 1,000 Financial Director
E9 Public Service 260,000 Director of Management Control
E10 Automotive Supplier 110,000 Director of Management Control Group
Director Career management – Former
E11 Telecommunications 152,000
Management Controller
E12 Food-Processing 263,000 Director of Management Control
Director of Management Control Subsidia-
E13 Car Manufacturer 170,000
ries
Administrative and Financial Director
E14 B2C Services 1,400
Director of Management Control
E15 Building Materials 18,300 VP Corporate Controlling
E16 Building Materials 8,000 Director of Management Control Group
E17 Pharmaceutical 5,400 Business Unit Management Controller
E18 Building Materials 250 Financial Director
Consulting and techno-
E19 200,000 Senior Controller, France
logy services
Laboratory services for
E20 6,000 Financial Director
the food sector

120
Appendix B: Interview Guideline

The digital age
Digitization
Big Data
Access to operational data
New ways of working
Digital transformation
The management controller’s role

Management controller’s customers
Hierarchical position in the organization
Influence of the function
Activities’ borders
Partnerships
Tools
Activities
Business analysis or accounting analysis
Predictive analytics
References
Appelbaum, D., Kogan, A., Vasarhelyi, M., Yan, Z. (2017). Impact of business analytics
and enterprise systems on managerial accounting. International Journal of Accounting
Information Systems 25: 29-44.
Bessire, D. (1995). Le contrôleur de gestion, acteur stratégique et vecteur de change-
ment. Revue Française de Gestion 106 (11): 38-45.
Boitier M. (2008). L’influence des systèmes de gestion intégrés sur l’intégration des sys-
tèmes de contrôle de gestion. Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit 14 (1): 33-48.
Bollecker, M. (2004a). Les contrôleurs de gestion. L’ histoire et les conditions d’exercice de la
profession. L’Harmattan.
Bollecker, M. (2004b). Les mécanismes de contrôle dans un contexte de différenciation
des systèmes d’information. Finance Contrôle Stratégie 7 (4): 59-85.
Bollecker, M. (2007). La recherche sur les contrôleurs de gestion : état de l’art et perspec-
tives Comptabilité - Contrôle – Audit 13 (1): 87-106.
Bollecker M., Niglis, P. (2009). L’adhésion des responsables opérationnels aux systèmes
de contrôle : une étude du rôle des contrôleurs de gestion. Comptabilité – Contrôle -
Audit 15 (1): 133-157.

121
Brands, K. (2014). Big Data and Business Intelligence for Management Accountants.
Strategic Finance 96 (6): 64-65.
Bisbe, J., Sivabalan, P. (2017). Management control and trust in virtual settings: A case
study of avirtual new product development team. Management Accounting Research
37: 12-29.
Byrne, S., Pierce, B. (2007). Towards a More Comprehensive Understanding of the
Roles of Management Accountants. European Accounting Review 16 (3): 469-498.
Caglio, A. (2003). Enterprise Resource Planning Systems and Accountants: Towards
Hybridisation? European Accounting Review 12 (1): 123-153.
Comuzzi, M. Patel, A. (2016). How organisations leverage Big Data: a maturity model.
Industrial Management & Data Systems 116 (8): 1468-1492.
Endenich, C. (2014). Economic Crisis as a Driver of Management Accounting Change
– Comparative Evidence from Germany and Spain. Journal of Applied Accounting
Research 15 (1): 123-149.
Fiol, M., Jouault, P. (1991). Pour un contrôle de direction. Revue Française de Gestion
82 (1): 82-90.
Fornerino, M., Godener, A. (2006). Être contrôleur de gestion en France aujourd’hui:
conseiller, adapter les outils… et surveiller. Finance Contrôle Stratégie 9 (1): 187-208.
Godener, A., Fornerino, M. (2017). Participation du manager au contrôle de gestion et
performance managériale, une nouvelle approche. Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit 23
(2): 85-110.
Goretzki, L., Strauss, E., Weber, J. (2013). An Institutional Perspective on the Changes
in Management Accountants’ Professional Role. Management Accounting Research
24 (1), 41-63.
Grabski, S.V., Leech, S.A., Schmidt, P.J. (2011). A Review of ERP Research: A Future
Agenda for Accounting Information Systems. Journal of Information Systems 25 (1):
37-78.
Granlund, M., Malmi, T. (2002). Moderate impact of ERPS on management accoun-
ting: a lag or permanent outcome? Management Accounting Research 13 (3): 299-321.
Hansen, S. C., Otley, D., Van der Stede, W. A. (2003). Practice Developments in
Budgeting: An Overview and Research Perspective. Journal of Management
Accounting Research 15 (1): 95-116.
Hope, J., Fraser, R. (2003). Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the
Annual Performance Trap. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Hyvonen, T. (2003). Management accounting and information systems: ERP versus
BoB. European Accounting Review 12 (1): 155-173.
IBM (2012): The Four V’s of Big Data, available at https://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/
infographic/four-vs-big-data [accessed on 17/04/2019].
IBM (2016): Extracting business value from the 4 V’s of big data, available at https://
www.ibmbigdatahub.com/infographic/extracting-business-value-4-vs-big-data
[accessed on 17/04/2019].
Järvenpää, M. (2007). Making Business Partners: A Case Study on how Management
Accounting Culture was Changed. European Accounting Review 16 (1): 99-142.

122
Jeacle, I. (2017). Constructing audit society in the virtual world: the case of the online
reviewer. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 30 (1), 18-37.
Jeacle, I., Carter, C. (2011). In TripAdvisor we trust: rankings, calculative regimes and
abstract systems. Accounting, Organizations and Society 36 (4-5): 293-309.
Kornberger, M., Pflueger, D., Mouritsen, J. (2017). Evaluative infrastructures:
Accounting for platform organization. Accounting, Organizations and Society 60:
79-95.
Lambert, C., Morales, J. (2009). Les pratiques occultes des contrôleurs de gestion : une
étude ethnographique du « sale boulot ». Finance Contrôle Stratégie 12 (2): 5-34.
Lambert C., Sponem S. (2009). La fonction contrôle de gestion: une proposition de
typologie. Comptabilité – Contrôle - Audit 15 (2): 113-144.
Lambert, C., Sponem, S. (2012). Roles, Authority and Involvement of the Management
Accounting Function: A Multiple Case-study Perspective. European Accounting
Review 21 (3): 565–589.
Libby, T, Lindsay, R. M. (2010). Beyond Budgeting or Budgeting Reconsidered? A Survey
of North-American Budgeting Practice. Management Accounting Research 21 (1):
56-75.
Lillis, A. M., Mundy, J. (2005). Cross‐Sectional Field Studies in Management
Accounting Research – Closing the Gaps between Surveys and Case Studies. Journal
of Management Accounting Research 17 (1): 119-141.
Meyssonnier, F., Pourtier, F. (2006). Les ERP changent-ils le contrôle de gestion ?
Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit 12 (1): 45-64.
Morales, J. (2013). Le projet professionnel des contrôleurs de gestion : analyser des don-
nées pour aider les managers à prendre des décisions rationnelles ? Comptabilité -
Contrôle - Audit 19 (2):41-70.
Morales J., Lambert C. (2013). Dirty work and the construction of identity. An ethno-
graphic study of management accounting practices. Accounting, Organizations and
Society 38 (3): 228-244.
Oriot F. (2004). L’influence des systèmes relationnels d’acteurs sur les pratiques de
contrôle de gestion. Comptabilité – Contrôle - Audit 10 (3): 237-255.
Pfister, J.A., Lukka, K. (2019). Interrelation of Controls for Autonomous Motivation:
A Field Study of Productivity Gains Through Pressure-Induced Process Innovation.
The Accounting Review 94 (3): 345-371.
Quattrone, P. (2016). Management accounting goes digital: Will the move make it
wiser? Management Accounting Research 31: 118-122.
Ross, J. W., Beath, C. M., Sebastian, I., M. (2017). Digitized ≠ Digital. MIT CISR
Research Briefings 18(10): 1-3.
Russel, K. A., Siegel, G.H., Kulesza, C.S.B. (1999). Counting More, Counting less,
Transformations in the Management Accounting Profession. Strategic Finance
September: 39-44.
Sathe, V. (1983). The controller’s role in management. Organizational Dynamics 11 (3):
31-48.

123
Scapens, R.W., Jazayeri, M. (2003). ERP Systems and Management Accounting

Change: Opportunities or Impacts? A Research Note. European Accounting Review
12 (1): 201-233.
Sprinkle, G.B. (2003). Perspectives on Experimental Research in Managerial Accounting.
Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2-3): 287-318.
Vasarhelyi, M.A., Kogan, A., Tuttle, B.M. (2015). Big Data in Accounting: An Overview.
Accounting Horizons 29 (2): 381-396.
Van der Stede, W. (2016) Management accounting in context: industry, regulation and
informatics. Management Accounting Research 31, 100-102.
Warren Jr., J.D., Moffitt, K.C., Byrnes, P. (2015). How Big Data Will Change
Accounting. Accounting Horizons 29 (2): 397-407.
Zhang, J., Yang, X., Appelbaum, D. (2015). Toward Effective Big Data Analysis in
Continuous Auditing. Accounting Horizons 29 (2): 469-476.
View publication stats

9 BASE The Tensions On The Role of Management

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

9 BASE The Tensions On The Role of Management

Transféré par

Informations du document

Titre original

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

9 BASE The Tensions On The Role of Management

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Article in Comptabilite Controle Audit · January 2020

Florence Cavelius Adrian Pablo Zicari

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Value-Added Statements in Latin America View project

Priqss View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Florence Cavélius, Christoph Endenich, Adrian Zicari

Association Francophone de Comptabilité | « Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit »

2020/2 Tome 26 | pages 89 à 123

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Association Francophone de Comptabilité.

Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Back to basics or ready for take-off?

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

data-collecting and -processing instead of becoming more involved in manage-

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have driven digitization since

3. We thank an anonymous referee for raising this point.

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT CONTROLLERS

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY CHANGES ON THE ROLE OF

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

1.3 Synthesis of the literature review

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

competitors by offering innovative and customer-centric products or services.

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

matrix-forms developed in a standard spreadsheet software application to man-

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

data-analysis to increase reliability, avoid over-interpretations and increase the

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Table 1 – Different maturity degrees in digitization and digital

3.1.1 TRADITIONAL AND NON DIGITIZED FIRMS

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

3.1.2 COMPANIES UNDERGOING THEIR DIGITIZATION

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

challenge for the existing information technology structure of the companies

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

3.1.3 DIGITIZED FIRMS

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

3.2 Tensions arising for the role of management controllers in

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

decision-making processes (weak versus strong authority), and to the centrality

Table 2 – The Role of Management Controllers in the Digital Age

3.2.1 TENSIONS FOR THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

controllers in the traditional companies of our sample, i.e. in those companies in

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

3.2.2 TENSIONS FOR THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

“Well, we should not kid ourselves; we have an enormous workload, espe-

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

3.2.3 TENSIONS FOR THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT

Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020

As they need to invest less time in data-reliability missions, management con-