Thinking differently about a newly implemented PMS: a single-case study of a Swedish elite football club

Abstract: In an attempt to explore an underexplored linkage in previous literature on accounting and sport, this thesis investigates how differences in thought worlds in a Swedish elite football club may lead to differences in effects on organisational routines of an implemented performance measurement system (PMS). This is done by performing a qualitative single-case study on a Swedish elite football club, and developing a theoretical framework based on the concepts of thought worlds and organisational routines from Dougherty (1992) integrated with Weick's (1995) sensemaking and his discussion of the pulsating interrelation between intersubjectivity and generic subjectivity. Through this, it is found that: (1) thought worlds and organisational routines differ between the business and sports parts of a football club; (2) the implementation of a PMS may give rise to uncertainty in its interruptive entrance; and, (3) the PMS is better (worse) received if the contents of it are compatible (incompatible) with the sensemaking processes of the thought worlds.