3.3. Estructura del plan de marketing
3.3.8. Presupuesto para el desarrollo de la propuesta de marketing
human Agency in the Mesh of Accounting and GMP Practices
In the manufacturing division, the senior manager of finance and his team played a
significant role as the agents to diffuse the use of accounting in the division. Based on his
experience in working for Japanese companies, he brought with him some elements of
Japanese practices into this company. Sharing the financial performance report,
displaying the key performance target, ROI coaching and educating the engineers to look
for best value equipment were among the efforts made to foster cost-consciousness
behaviour. Initially, it was a manifestation of managerial intentionality (Ahrens and
Chapman, 2007); accounting was pushed into the organisational order through the agency
of the finance team. Later on, the interaction between accounting practices and other
manufacturing practices occurred as people started to think, talk and do their work
according to their understanding of accounting. The contribution of cognition in the
changing organisational phenomena is hard to ignore (Schatzki, 2002): the reordering of
work practices to incorporate the understanding of accounting practices, as illustrated in
the case of buying the machine in the exhibition, might not have occurred had people not
Despite the concern with performance, compliance with GMP guidelines was one
particular aspect of practices that could not be ignored by organisational members in the
manufacturing division. It was the most important non-accounting form of control in the
division as GMP procedures were incorporated in every aspect of the production process,
including the type of equipment as well as the type of roofing and flooring of the factory
building. In fact, the GMP practices were viewed by the organisational members as a
kind of branding which distinguished them from their peers within the company:
“We have a target to achieve and GMP practices to comply with. Both are tough but these make us different from others in the group.”
Senior Executive 3
Although GMP practices were the basis of their continuous existence, obtaining
compliance from organisational members was not an easy task. Ensuring all doors were
closed at all times was one such instance of compliance in order to safeguard a
temperature inside the production room within the acceptable range. To make certain that
every work in process item was properly stored in the appropriate place was another
instance. At meetings about the status of production, the performance target and GMP
were seen to compete for their fair space - conducted every morning and usually chaired
by the production manager, all department heads or their representatives would exchange
information about what had occurred with the production process and schedules.
Previously the meeting had been conducted weekly, but they had since changed the
practice to taking place each day in response to the values promoted by TOPIC, i.e. to
encourage teamwork and open communication.
discourse. The understanding that GMP was being incorporated within the standard
operating procedures was apparent from their interaction in the meeting. As long as the
organisational members followed the procedures, no question about GMP should arise.
The discussion about GMP only become prevalent when there was an incident of
contamination or out of range product quality testing. Then GMP practices would become
a matter of concern because the Quality Assurance department would not release the
product and this would affect the sales target.
There was one such incident when a strange material was noted inside a tablet from a
particular batch of production. The QA manager was reluctant to release the whole batch,
as well as the production of other batches, until the production team completed the
requirement in CAPA10. To complete CAPA usually requires a team to investigate the
reason underlying the incident and to provide the necessary supporting documents of
corrective action taken, as well as to prepare for preventive actions. This matter affected
the production schedule for weeks and GMP discourse shaped most of the interactions
among organisational members during this period. In this instance, the understanding of
accounting directed the attention of the organisational members towards modifying the
production schedule by producing other types of products. For example, instead of
producing product A, which was pending investigation, they decided to produce product
B of the same sales value, and urged cooperation from the logistic and marketing
departments to sell the products. Since the logistic division had limited ability to persuade
the government hospital to order products beyond their budget, the responsibility to find a
department. In a subsequent meeting, a senior manager from sales and marketing
expressed concern that his department had to find a market for products that were not in
demand. However, because he shared the KPIs for the sales target, the marketing
department had to find ways to sell the products. This usually required creative input
from the marketing department, such as increasing the sales incentive to the sales
personnel or selling the product at a relatively lower price than that of their competitor.
Accordingly, their response to the demand from the production department was
consistent with the TOPIC principles of teamwork and passion of excellence.
The organisational structure which placed the sales and marketing department within the
manufacturing division gave more advantage to the production department to influence
sales and marketing activities. Using accounting discourse such as profit margin, ROI,
break even point or product profitability analysis, sales and marketing activities were
gradually transformed in response to the change of actions from the production
department. Eventually, accounting discourses meshed with the work practices of the
sales personnel. During their sales visits to the customers, they brought with them the
statements of customer accounts, and would explain to the customers the details of the
statements and collect payment from them. It was a common practice for sales
representatives to encourage customers not to settle their account in full in order to give a
reason for their next visit. This was consistent with the sales practices which linked the
This ad-hoc production, however, was only a temporary measure, as other possible
actions were again offered by accounting. Figures showed, for instance, how much loss
had been suffered in terms of sales of a particular item, machine productivity and changes
in the time cycle and general overhead costs. This then prompted the management to
think of the necessary action to ensure the problem was properly corrected and prevented.
A more demanding supervisory role was expected and reviewing the standard operating
procedures was suggested as part of the action to ensure the whole chain of the
production process was truly GMP compliant.
The case of the manufacturing division depicts the role of human and non-human
agencies in bringing about the mesh between accounting and other manufacturing
practices, thus inducing change and stability in the division. The embedding of
accounting into manufacturing practices was achieved through the agency of both
humans and non-humans. The bodily doings and sayings in the manufacturing division
were organised around quantitative measures and compliance with GMP guidelines and
made visible to everyone in the organisation through various forms of documentation
such as standard operating procedures, the BMR document and log books. The work in
the production plant, for instance, not only involved following the procedures of turning
raw materials into medicine, but also, within this process, mobilised various forms of
measurement relating to the achievement of the production target. Activities such as
updating the log book to measure every step taken in the process, weighing, displaying
what activities were taking place in the production room, and listing the operators and the
and the relationships between the practices and the arrangements in the manufacturing
division. When accounting practices were introduced into the GMP practices, therefore,
they were familiar to the organisational members in the manufacturing division. The
existing bodily doings and sayings in the division prefigured the unproblematic
embedding of accounting into manufacturing practices.
Production meetings and production planning reports were the arrangements through
which accounting meshed with other organisational practices; they constituted non-
human agency in the manufacturing division. The production meeting was the platform
for the organisational members from various departments to connect their efforts in order
to achieve the division’s target. At the same time, it was also the context through which
GMP practices shaped accounting practices and vice-versa. How much to produce in a
month, the product mix, where to procure the materials, stockholding costs and human
resource requirements were all elements discussed during these meetings. For instance,
the achievement of the daily target was assessed, while a deviation would trigger an
immediate response from various departments, including QC, to speed up their testing;
overtime might be necessary; the engineering department would have to ensure the
machines were ready to work extra hours; the procurement department should ensure
sufficient materials; the warehouse department would have to provide suitable space to
store alternative products; and HR should observe possible violation of any rules or
The arrangements in the manufacturing division were reordered through the actions
performed by the human and non-human components of its practices-arrangements
meshes. The reordering occurred when accounting became part of the entities in the
practices-arrangements meshes of the division. The organisational members in this
division regarded their reputation as a GMP company as the source of their excellence,
without which their existence was threatened. However, to claim status as a GMP
company of excellence, it had to demonstrate excellent performance, and this was
collectively agreed by the organisational members as the achievement of a higher
production target. With this as the specific aim of the production practice, the most
sensible way to approach the work was to subscribe to the accounting practices through
which the various activities that would lead to the attainment of this end became visible
and quantifiable. This altered the way things were carried out in the manufacturing
division. The consideration of ROI before purchasing equipment and buying exhibition
equipment to achieve value for money both exemplified how the mesh between
accounting and engineering practices induced change in manufacturing practices. The
alteration of some components of manufacturing practices due to the embedment of
accounting with other activities on the manufacturing floor was followed by a chain of
actions that resulted in the maintenance of GMP practices as well as providing a new
5.7 Discussion