The Use and Effects of Accountability and Job Autonomy when Results Controls are Irrelevant: Substitutes or Complements?

Abstract

While prior work in management accounting has mainly focused on results controls, this study investigates how accountability as an action control and the level of job autonomy are complementarily or substitutively used by supervisors in a setting in which results control are largely irrelevant. We analyze our research question by collecting survey data among nurses from Swiss public hospitals. We predict and find that when task requirements are high (i.e., intensive care units (ICUs) in our hospital setting), job autonomy and accountability are used as substitutes by the supervisor. When task requirements are low (i.e., non-ICUs in our hospital setting), job autonomy and accountability are also used as substitutes but significantly less so compared to departments with high task requirements. Additional analyses show that, consistent with supervisors’ control choices, job autonomy and accountability have substitutive effects on employees’ likelihood to stay in the department and their overtime when task requirements are high. When task requirements are low, job autonomy and accountability are complementarily related with regard to employees’ likelihood to stay in the department and substitutively with respect to overtime. Our study enhances the understanding of the use and effects of action controls in settings in which results controls are irrelevant and contributes to a better understanding of job autonomy as a control practice.