Outsourcing av ekonomifunktionen: En fallstudie av tre redovisningsföretag

Sammanfattning: The aim of this paper has been to investigate how accounting firms govern their organizations with regards to the complexity in the service that they offer. The service includes the general accounting tasks which through standardization can be cost efficient, the advisory services that entail flexibility, and the relationship with the customer which needs to be taken into consideration when delivering the financial reports. These three components are important but require different approaches when it comes to governing the organization. The conducted case study has shown that the accounting firms govern their organizations bureaucratically and mainly through behaviour and accounting controls. The advisory services demanded by customers are standardized, not analytical, and therefore do not require the firms to take flexibility into consideration. Trust plays an important role when building a relationship with the customers and the firms are flexible when it comes to delivering the reports. The firms are therefore governed in a way which reflects the customers’ demands for efficiency in the accounting tasks and to build trust in the relationship. The organizations are however not governed in a way which enables the organizations to offer advisory services to their customers.