Horizontal Monitoring in Austria

Author(s)

Janina Enachescu, Maximilian Zieser, Eva Hofmann, Erico Kirchler

Abstract

The implementation of Horizontal Monitoring (HM) in Austria represents a shift in the prevailing command-and-control paradigm towards enhanced cooperation between taxpayers and tax authorities. In the present paper, we assess how HM is perceived by different stakeholder groups when it was introduced as a pilot project embedded in the “Fair Play Initiative” launched by the Austrian Ministry of Finance. We collected quantitative and qualitative data from tax auditors and staff of tax offices responsible for large-scale enterprises who were either directly involved or not involved in the HM pilot project, from employees of participating enterprises as well as from employees of enterprises which did not participate in the project. Results show that representations of HM were most positive among employees from HM companies and tax officials directly involved, whereas participants from the tax administration who did not take part in the project were skeptical at the beginning and remained skeptical over time. As shown in organizational change studies, the acceptance or resistance regarding the paradigm change represented by HM may originate from uncertainty and misperceptions of its goals and strategies and from speculations, particularly by poorly informed members.

Organisation(s)

Department of Occupational, Economic and Social Psychology

External organisation(s)

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU), Coventry University

Journal

Business Research

Volume

12

Pages

75-94

No. of pages

20

ISSN

1866-8658

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-018-0067-1

Publication date

2018

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

501029 Economic psychology

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous)

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/77c2297b-57b8-4a89-8ac4-885b28664bf5