A process-oriented contingency approach to responsibility in professional services

States that theoretical constructs of organizational technology in pervasive use in contingency research in management accounting and control can be criticized for failing to capture the open systems character of service processes. Attempts to reassess the conceptualization of service technology and applies an approach to responsibility accounting in professional services. Explores implications for two core elements of responsibility accounting: its character as a hierarchical control arrangement and the degree of controllability of performance measures, at a conceptual level and in the context of a public sector dental practice. Based on this empirical confrontation and previous research, develops a contingency framework linking responsibility accounting to modified service technology constructs through a number of research propositions.