Performance measurement roles in managing multiple dyadic relationships

Over the recent decades, contributions in Management Accounting have investigated the link between management control tools and cooperation. In particular, performance measurement studies have mainly investigated the implementation process of accounting technologies in interorganizational contexts, outlining the role of accounting methodologies in supporting buyer selection and management. This research focuses on the role of performance measurement (PM) in multiple dyadic relationships (buyer and suppliers), which share the same buyer, in order to look into whether the PM could play different roles in these relationships, considering them singularly. The different roles played by PM could clarify how the partners and all actors involved in multiple dyadic relationships align their interests pursuing different goals and needs. According to Miller and Power (2013) we pay attention to the mutually constitutive nature of accounting, viewing it as much more than an instrumental and purely technical activity, but as an “actant” which can play a pivotal role in organizing and economizing. In doing so, we carry out a longitudinal case-study at a manufacturing firm located in the south of Italy, where we examine the role of performance measures in three different supplier relationships from 2012 up to 2016.In particular, in each relationships we identified how dissimilar interests of actors involved there were differently mobilised by the performance measures, through such specific roles: territorializing, mediating and adjudicating. Therefore, this study differs from the extant inter-organisational accounting literature as it highlights both how performance measures act as inscriptions, that with an active role can differently contribute to the management of such inter-firm relationships and help to solve controversies among all involved actors.