Research method

5.2.1 The approach to the company

The first contact was taken to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation back in spring 2001. Since then and until the start-up of the case study in June 2005, regular meetings were held with the manager of the accounting department. In this way an introductory knowledge of management accounting and its development in the DBC was gained.

Although the access to the company was negotiated with the financial manager, confidence was quickly gained with the CFO, the business development manager as well as other managers and employees.

5.2.2 Unit of analysis

It is important to define the unit of analysis before entering the field (Yin, 1994, p. 21). Otherwise, the data collection will be flawed and the analysis likewise. Management accounting is a dispersed activity involving a number of different roles. But as one cannot ask the company itself, the individuals of the company are going to be the data sources (Luft and Shields, 2003). Different persons have different attitudes and perspectives on the researched objects and subjects. Therefore, source triangulation (i.e. selection of several informants with different perspectives) will be applied in order to ensure the validity.

This case study has the organisation and especially the resources directorate of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation as its unit of analysis. Two departments within the organisation are chosen for investigation as discussed next.

5.2.3 What is studied?

Through ongoing contact with the manager of the accounting department within the resources directorate, it became apparent that the balanced scorecard implementation could serve the purpose of the case study of research question 2. At the time of the case study, the balanced scorecard was only implemented in one of the

directorates. Thus, this case study only deals with BSC in one of five directorates of the DBC. As depicted in Figure IX several departments exist within the resources directorate. In order to gain depth in the study, only two of these departments are selected for the study of BSC and analysis-oriented information systems. These departments are the accounting department and the department of service and administration. While the entire accounting department is subject to investigation, only the purchase and secretariat team is subject to investigation within the department of service and administration. The accounting department and the purchase and secretariat team are comparable entities in that their sizes are relatively identical. Furthermore, both entities have balanced scorecards themselves but they do not have balanced scorecards of entities below them. That is, the teams within the accounting department do not have their own balanced scorecards.

The fact that BSC is to be implemented throughout the organisation on January 1, 2007, is outside the scope of this research project to investigate.

5.2.4 The case study process

Data collection and analysis were carried out interchangeably (Silverman, 2005, pp. 152-153). A first round of interviews was carried out in June and July 2005. After the first round of interviews data collection was temporarily put on hold in order to spend time understanding and analysing the first set of data. A second round of interviews together with participation in meetings took place in October, November and December 2005. The case study was written in December 2005 and January 2006.

5.2.5 Data collection method and presentation of data collected

Data from several different sources and of different kinds were collected. Especially three data collection techniques (Yin, 1994, p.

80) were made use of. These are interviewing, observation and gathering documents.

In total 21 interviews were conducted. The interviewees represent different stakeholders in relation to the balanced scorecard. These are facilitators, administrators, users at different levels and IS personnel. Some interviewees belong to several groups. This is especially the case with the BSC administrator of the accounting department who also holds the positions of overall BSC administrator, BSC administrator of the accounting department, IS person and user. Therefore, the figures of Table XVI are to be used with caution.

The interviews lasted between 0.5 and 2 hours with 1 hour being the average. The interviews were semi-structured and a list of topics (an interview guide) rather than an exhaustive questionnaire prior to each interview was prepared. The interview guide was sent to the interviewee prior to the interview. Most interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. No respondents declined to be recorded, although they were given the opportunity. The interviews not tape recorded were the initial ones with the manager of finance.

Number and duration of interviews are summarised in Table XVI.

Table XVI. Interviews

Function of interviewee

Number of interviews Duration of interviews (total number of hours)

BSC facilitator 4 4.5

BSC administrators 3 4

CFO 1 1

Managers 6 6

Team leaders 3 1.5

Employees 4 5

IS personnel 2 2

Total 23 24

The DBC facilitated the research in that the researcher was given access card, keys and a work station close to key informants. Thus, in addition to formal interviewing, several talks with different

employees at all levels of the hierarchy were conducted throughout the case study period.

In addition to observing the daily life of the accounting department, the researcher was invited to attend a number of meetings focusing on the balanced scorecard. These range from quarterly BSC meetings to a training session on Corporater BSC. A total of 11 meetings were attended lasting in total 32.5 hours. Meetings attended are listed in appendix 6.

Finally, internal as well as external documents were reviewed. These range from annual reports and public service statements to strategy maps, PowerPoint presentations about BSC and assessment reports of BSC software. A list of sample documents is provided in appendix 7.

5.2.6 Validity and reliability

Exploration validity (see section 3.3.1 for a definition) was enhanced by for example conducting semi-structured interviews rather than highly structured interviews. Semi-structured interviewing is advantageous in this regard in that the interviewee is allowed and even encouraged to elaborate on issues in ways not thought of by the researcher (Fontana and Frey, 2000). A construct like that of red and green strategies (see below) was uncovered in this way.

Collecting data from different data sources enhances construct validity in that consensus on the terms used was gained when the terms were presented to different people. Furthermore, what is especially fruitful about the interview as a data collection technique is that the interviewee has the opportunity to provide feedback on the terms used. In this way constructs are clarified and their validity enhanced.

The ongoing contact with the organisation studied also enhances internal validity. When investigating the support of an IIS to management accounting, it is important to gain valid knowledge of the causes and effects within the researched area. Observation of for example the quarterly BSC meetings provided evidence on whether the BSC software was triggering discussions about certain topics or whether topics were brought to the table without the assistance of the BSC software.

At the end of the case study period, the researcher gave a presentation of preliminary findings. These were discussed with the managers of the directorate studied. This session helped further enhance construct and internal validity.

While the case study method is particularly good at ensuring construct and internal validity, it is not particularly good at ensuring external validity (Birnberg et al., 1990). Conclusions drawn from the study of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation are highly context dependent. In order to make these conclusions valuable to other organisations than the one studied, emphasis is put on description of the context (Abernethy et al., 1999). In this way the reader may be able to transfer some of the knowledge gained from the study of the DBC to other settings.

In order to ensure reliability, data triangulation was made use of.

Furthermore, the fact that the researcher spent a considerable amount of time at the site helped building up comfort (McKinnon, 1988). But still more time could have been spent at the site and for example biases introduced by the interviewees must be kept in mind.

This is especially the case with the informants that were not interviewed several times and that the researcher did not engage much with.