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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 2 READS 747 3 authors, including: 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 Florence Cavelius ESSEC - Ecole Supérieur des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales 9 PUBLICATIONS 15 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Adrian Pablo Zicari ESSEC - Ecole Supérieur des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales 42 PUBLICATIONS 183 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE 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 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) © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020 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 florence.cavelius@essec.edu Christoph ENDENICH ESSEC Business School – 3 avenue Bernard Hirsch – 95021 Cergy-Pontoise Adrian ZICARI ESSEC Business School – 3 avenue Bernard Hirsch – 95021 Cergy-Pontoise 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 © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) 90 Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020 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. Keywords: 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. © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) © Association Francophone de Comptabilité | Téléchargé le 21/10/2020 sur www.cairn.info via ESSEC (IP: 194.254.137.4) 91 Comptabilité – Contrôle – Audit / Tome 26 – Volume 2 – mai 2020 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 uploads/Management/9-base-the-tensions-on-the-role-of-management.pdf