Arcticle’s by Berend van der Kolk

From prior research, we know that management control can impact employee motivation and behavior. In our new study, recently published in Public Administration Review, we find that sustainability-related management controls can stimulate pro-environmental behavior of employees. Below, we highlight our main findings. Pro-environmental behavior and management control While CO2 levels are reaching record high levels, the scientific consensus is that it is “unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land” (IPCC 2023). We are interested in studying how the impact of human beings and organizations on climate can be prevented or mitigated, which is why we examine…

Although many may think of accounting as something abstract that happens only in spreadsheets, our new study shows that budgeting can impact employee wellbeing. Specifically, based on a large survey in a well-known multinational, we find that participative budgeting practices can enhance job satisfaction and diminish presenteeism of middle managers. Stress at work First, let’s consider for a moment the typical middle manager. Sandwiched between top-management and the employees, they often find themselves in stressful situations. A 2025 report by Deloitte[i] found that 40% of the managers experienced a decline in their mental health after taking on a managerial or…

How to stimulate interpersonal trust in organizations? How can performance management contribute to trust? And, can other types of management control also enhance interpersonal trust? These questions are addressed in our recent study amongst healthcare managers, as published in The British Accounting Review (open access). In this blog, we highlight our three key findings. Introduction Performance measurement received much attention from accounting and management scholars in the past decades. It can help address typical agency problems and has the potential to enhance, for instance, role clarity and motivation. At the same time, performance measurement may lead to stress, gaming, indicatorism…

What drives the use of performance measurement (PM) systems in the public sector? And what are the effects of PM use? In a recent study in Financial Accountability & Management (Van der Kolk, 2022, open access), I address these questions. I do so by reviewing survey papers on public sector PM published in all major accounting outlets, i.e., 3, 4, and 4* journals from the ABS journal list (2018). In this blog, I highlight seven observations from the review.  Observation 1: Public sector PM seems here to stay Fuelled by the new public management movement in the end of the…

Do work experience and gender impact ethical decisions of auditors? In a recent publication in Managerial Auditing Journal, we study this question. In this blog, we present some of the paper's main ideas, findings and conclusions. Background Financial scandals such as the Wirecard fraud continue to put ethical decisions of auditors in the public spotlight, while organizations such as the International Federation of Accountants stress the importance of ethical conduct and integrity. In this research project, we are interested in factors that impact auditors’ ethical decisions, and we make use of a novel theory to hypothesize relations between experience, gender and moral awareness.…