Framing shared services: Accounting, control and overflows

• There has been an increase in the use of horizontal organizational relationships (HORs).
• The aim in this study is to explore control problems of HORs.
• This study adds to the literature by conceptualizing how accounting and control functioned as framing devices.
• It is also observed how accounting and control caused overflows, causing destabilization.
• Overflow was caused both through reconnecting and through cutting off relations.

During the last decade there has been an increase in the use of horizontal organizational relationships (HORs) such as strategic alliances, shared services, and outsourcing. Studies accentuate the unstable, fragile nature of HORs and the importance of directing attention to how these arrangements are formed and how and why they change. The aim in this study is to explore control problems of HORs and to discuss how different problems are related to accounting and control initiatives. A theoretical framework with the core concepts of framing and overflow is used as a theoretical point of departure. The empirical study is a longitudinal case study of the organization of a shared service center. In this study, we observe the problems of risk and coordination often discussed in the literature. However, guided by our theoretical framework, we also observe how many problems were formative and related to the forming of actors, relations and products. This study adds to the literature by conceptualizing how accounting and control not only functioned as framing devices, but also became sources of overflows, causing destabilization. Following the conceptual framework, we observe how overflow was caused both through reconnecting what had previously been separated and through cutting off relations in the process of disentangling the HOR.