Organisational purpose and the boundaries of profit: A field study of cooperative and mutual enterprises
Date: Thursday 27 June 2024 | Time: 16:00 to 17:30
Location: NUBS 1.04
- Guest speakers
This seminar has been organised by the Management and Organisation research community.
About the speaker
Our guest speaker is Dr Paul Thambar of Monash University, Australia.
Dr Thamber is an Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting at Monash Business School. His research focuses on management accounting and performance measurement within non-profits, cooperatives, and mutuals. As Director of the Mutual Value Lab, he spearheaded the development and commercialisation of the Mutual Value Measurement (MVM) framework. Dr Thamber also collaborates with the non-profit The One Box on social impact measurement.
His research appears in leading journals and he has secured over A$700,000 in funding. Thamber actively shares his knowledge with industry practitioners. A passionate educator, he holds a Fellowship with the Higher Education Association (UK) and a global teaching award (CIMA, UK). His background includes senior industry roles in banking, insurance, healthcare, and strategy consulting. Thamber holds a PhD in Accounting and professional designations from CIMA (UK) and Chartered Accountants, Australia and New Zealand.
Abstract
All corporations need to generate, calculate, and report profit, but a focus on profit can create tension when corporations pursue an organizational purpose. Drawing on a qualitative, comparative study of three corporations that pursue such a purpose, we examine how they navigate and deal with profit while deeply embedding their organizational purpose.
Using boundary work theory, we identify discursive, calculative, and structural profit-related practices that support both collaborative and competitive boundary work. We demonstrate that profit is not simply a potential outcome of an organizational purpose but is a mechanism for embedding (or impeding) organizational purposes within corporations.
Our findings contribute to the accounting literature by enriching our understanding of how profit-related practices can be used to navigate the boundary between the corporation, its organizational purpose, and its broader set of stakeholders.