Editorial

[...]the main function of formalizing work is to coerce employees to behave as prescribed because work is a disutility which fosters dissatisfaction and demotivates employees (Adler and Borys, 1996; Arches, 1991) that will therefore be avoided by employees (Adler and Borys, 1996). [...]coercive formalization does not allow employees to (simply) repair controls. [...]in a coercive formalization, actors’ possibilities to adapt the formalization are minimized; in an enabling formalization, however, employees would be offered some room for individual maneuver. [...]these authors argue that to contribute to knowledge, subsequent papers need to move beyond the fit test by using the method theory to contribute to a domain theory phenomenon, by contributing to the enhancement of the method theory, or both. Since Ahrens and Chapmans’ (2004) seminal paper, we have seen both types of contribution in the accounting literature.