This emphasis by Kyocera on the role of core values and a responsibility accounting system is the theoretical rationale for choosing the company as the main case site. Using the concepts of the LOC framework, the data were first analyzed to find various types of perceived dynamic tension and their effects on the lower management level. After this, relationships between these dimensions of the MCS and the core values were scrutinized.
For example, most senior consulting practitioners at Kyocera have experience working in the company's management planning office. This emphasis on AMS practicality was repeatedly noted at both Kyocera and KCCS. The differences between them have resulted in variations in the design of the AMS and how it is used in practice.
The core values
The aforementioned episode about the speech made in front of practitioners shows that our critical approach was quite successful with regard to the authentic aspects of the research's validity (Lukka & Modell, 2010). The core of the Kyocera philosophy arose from an industrial dispute that occurred in the earliest days of the company3. 3 The historical description of the origin of the core values is mainly based on Inamori (2006) but is supported by documents such as the company history book (Kyocera, 1999).
To the managers of the company, which was still struggling to maintain operating cash flow, the demands of the new workers initially sounded incomprehensible. With such a promise, the founder made it clear that he was committed to the safety of the employees' jobs (Inamori, 2006, pp. 24-26). It is well documented in internal documents, such as the company history book written to celebrate Kyocera's fortieth anniversary, that these were the original core values.
Furthermore, 'The firm is modeled on the traditional style of the "family", where grandparents, parents and their children live together and work hard for the whole family. You must understand the importance of the business and have a clear goal for the business. The corporate rationale and the 12 principles of management are the foundation of the core values of Kyocera.
Since its inception, the company has emphasized that core values should be embraced by all members of the organization, from senior managers to shop floor workers. At Kyocera, it is a routine practice for all employees to remember the main elements of Kyocera's philosophy, and it is an established norm that they must refer to in the performance of their activities.
The responsibility accounting system
In this way, the basis of the targets is anchored to the so-called annual master plan of the company. Due to the functional division of responsibility centers, their performances are highly interdependent (Kazusa & Sawabe, 2006). The financial performance of the previous month is reported at monthly performance reporting meetings at each responsibility center, the smallest of which is amoebas.
The amoeba managers report their results and compare them to the monthly targets and the annual targets. The participants in the meetings therefore vary from the lowest amoeba managers of the factory/branch meetings to the presidents of group companies attending the group meetings. The responsibility accounting system at Kyocera is used diagnostically to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of overall operations.
The responsibility accounting system measures the results of the smallest unit of the responsibility centers, that is, the amoebas, and compares the actual performance with the predetermined objectives, which they themselves have set together with their immediate superiors, as will be explained in detail later. and corrects deviations from the predetermined plan. Within this context of the diagnostic use of the responsibility accounting system, daily morning meetings play an important role in communication between and within amoebae. At each meeting, the daily performance objectives are reconfirmed and the results of the previous day are reported.
For example, at a department meeting we attended, a production amoeba leader was warned by his superior about a shipping delay and criticized for not paying enough attention to the schedule and quantity of the order (observation, February 8, 2008) . At amoeba meetings, a member of the amoeba reads passages from the Kyocera philosophy pocketbook (observation, September 21, 2004, February 8, 2008).
Core values in the design and use of a responsibility accounting system
The design of the performance measures that each amoeba's responsibility is taken into account reflects core values. The requirements from capital providers are not allocated from the profit, but are treated as costs in the calculation structure of the profit targets. Family kinship, or 'familism' as we call it here, is a key feature of Kyocera's core values.
However, the authenticity of the fundamental competing values in the core values is confirmed in the feedback meetings with interviewees. One of the conditions for being convinced as a supervisor is that the plan has a high flexibility objective. The aspect of core values that generates forces that push organizational members to challenge the status quo is referred to here as 'romance'.
Apparently, this realism at the planning stage of the responsibility accounting system appears to operate as a boundary system. An aspect of the core values that we call 'marketism' is present in the amoeba interactions. My role (as amoeba leader) is to make sure that all members of the amoeba.
It is clear from this comment that the gamification of the factory floor reflects marketism in the company's core values. The game-like situation that resembles market competition is communicated and understood at Kyocera in the language of core values.
Dynamic tensions generated by the responsibility accounting system
As we have seen in previous sections, familism is reflected in the calculation structure of the performance measures, WP and HWP, while marketism is reflected in the system of accountability that creates a competitive environment in which amoebae can survive. The abstract philosophical beliefs are thus reflected and communicated in the design and use of the responsibility accounting system. One of the representative practices found at Kyocera is the temporary transfer of members between amoebae.
A subdivision leader told us that, 'it is often the case that we ask other amoebae to give or receive one or two members according to the shipping volume of the month. This process of assigning workers below the same level of amoebae is decided autonomously by negotiation between the two amoebae of the same rank without orders from senior managers.7 Performance measures thus actually activate amoeba leaders'. 8 Hiromoto (1988) describes the Japanese way of cost accounting by referring to the case of the Hitachi Corporation.
We call this emerging practice "encouraging adjacent centers of responsibility," and we call the immediate effects of dynamic tensions the "velocity spread" effect. This autonomous deployment of workers is an immediate effect of the dynamic tension perceived at the lower management level. Before the introduction of AMS, workers in different departments rarely talked to each other.
It's about what actions you take [to deal with the situation] and how you use the experience next time. With these practices, amoebic leaders expect that they will not be blamed for failure to achieve the goal, but that they will be examined ex post for the appropriateness, judged in terms of the core values, of their planning.
Discussion
The analysis of the case company reveals the way in which core values influence the design and use of the responsibility accounting system as a diagnostic control system, an interactive control system, a belief system and a boundary system. One director mentioned in a feedback meeting that 'the relationships between competing values should not be considered a trade-off. The responsibility accounting system in AMS is practiced to enable managers at the lowest level to meet managerial challenges that are rooted in inherent tensions.
The managerial efforts in our case study are concerned with how core values are implemented in the day-to-day practices of. Our case analysis illustrates that the functioning of dynamic tensions depends on the way in which inherent generic tensions are conceptually adapted to core values and reflected in the practice of the responsibility accounting system. The practice of the responsibility accounting system, while used as a diagnostic system and interactive system along with core values, is to function as a belief system and as a boundary system to generate opposing forces to create dynamic tensions.
The direction of the dynamic stresses is determined by the way in which the opposing forces generated by the MCS combine. The practice of the responsibility accounting system at Kyocera shares Ansari's (1979) notion of an 'open' system approach with 'continuous budgeting', described in Frow, Marginson & Ogden (2010, p. 449). The company also shares the approach that the effective functioning of the responsibility accounting system depends on the commitment of managers to the values and goals of the company.
It is not just their individual work, but the fate of the collectivity that is at stake under the value-driven responsibility accounting system. The disciplinary effect of the value-driven responsibility accounting system binds each member with a common destiny.
Concluding comments
When such competing values are reflected in the responsibility accounting system, various dynamic tensions arise at the lower level of management. Due to the changing internal and external environment, innovative activities appear through the experimentation of amoeba leaders, which are stimulated by the way of creating dynamic tensions. This article contributes to the existing literature on dynamic tensions, first by showing how competing elements of core values influence the design and use of an accountability system, and second by shedding light on how these competing values are enacted in MCS practice at the lower management level. , thirdly by illustrating a more nuanced understanding of dynamic tensions by showing the relative and multidirectional forces exerted by MCS, and finally by adding further inherent tensions that MCS should manage, those between efficiency and flexibility, i.e. inherent tensions between community values and concerns in the market.
Competing values in the belief system have been found to be sources of various dynamic tensions. The competing values reflected in the responsibility accounting system generate forces in different directions which create dynamic tensions at the lowest level of management. The dynamic tensions at the lowest level of management in our case analysis take the form of.
Dynamic tensions in the form of managerial dilemmas are created by the opposing forces created by the MCS. The study's findings suggest avenues for further research regarding the sources and nature of the dynamic tensions generated and managed by MCS. The study illustrates that the content of core values and their relationships influence the nature of dynamic tensions.
A different set of core values may result in the generation of variable dynamic stress that is not captured in our analyses. Further investigations could examine variations of dynamic tension and consider its effects at the lower management level.