A hegemonic form of transfer pricing: The case of a Chinese organisation

HF5601 Accounting

Chen, Junyuan ; Wickramasingh, Danture

University:University of Glasgow

Department:Adam Smith Business School

关键词: transfer pricing, management control, hegemony, China.;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/81265/8/2020ChenJuanyanPhDc.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

Recent decades have witnessed an understanding of management accounting as a social practice with alternative social theory explanations about its practice varieties but transfer pricing issues therein have inadvertently been neglected. Based on 7-month fieldwork in a Chinese privately-owned group enterprise, this thesis attempts at understanding transfer pricing practices differently vis-a-vis power relations in that organisation. I have focused on interrelationships between dominant and dominated social groups in this organisation to examine how transfer pricing has become a political phenomenon. The theoretical framework based on the Gramscian hegemony captures these interrelationships. The findings illustrate that the political development in China conditioned the hegemonic relationship in Chinese organisations while the ideology of Confucianism determined certain control practice. As business owners are most powerful, mundane controls are rather informal while formal controls are largely de-coupled from operation. Consequently, transfer pricing practice is determined by hegemonic interests and ideologies of the dominant leading to a situation where managers, who perform transfer pricing calculation, rely on a “common sense”. However, agreement is still possible as Confucianism provided good sense of harmony and concern-of-others. This study contributes to transfer pricing literature by highlighting the social complexity of transfer pricing, while contributes to hegemony theory by showing the dynamic nature of hegemony.