These parties are central leaders of educational institutions and leaders of educational work units. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the effect of formal authority structure, AIS characteristics, motivation and informal authority structure on cost. The philosophy of agency theory is reflected in the relationship between the head of the central institution and the managers at the work unit level.
Conceptual skills of managers in controlling decisions should be in the hands of the work unit manager and structural officers in an educational environment. Cost awareness can be used to measure the performance of the education service unit of work manager. The work area manager's outstanding performance may be used by central management as a consideration for delegating more authority to the manager's work area.
The use of AIS for decision control and decision management depends on the perception of the work unit manager of the characteristics of information generated by AIS. At this time, they are the dominant coalition in the organization that determines the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. Informal authority in the control of the work units is significantly manifested in resources, although this may not be formally possible.
In this study, the effectiveness and efficiency of the work unit manager's behavior is an indicator measured using the concept of cost consciousness developed by Shields and Young (1994).
Research Methods 1 Scope of the Study
49 The researchers determined that the location of the research is private education services in Indonesia managed by a foundation/association, with the unit of analysis as the principal and structural officers who are the managers of the education work units they lead. In order to obtain valid data that can represent the population, the distribution of the research questionnaire was carried out in March and April 2012, taking into account the normal workload of the managers' work units, in this case, the principal and structural officials in the education field. . The timing of the research was adjusted to the level of activities of the work unit managers with the hope that the respondents would have enough time to read and fill in the research instruments distributed.
The purposive sampling method is a method of selecting a sample of the population element for which the data have specific and clear criteria. The survey was distributed directly to respondents in educational work units that were accessible to the researchers. Mailings were made to educational work units that could not be reached by the researchers including a contact person in the areas where the educational work units were located.
Both methods were used so that the return rate (response rate) of the questionnaires was high. Constructs and dimensions to be studied from a theoretical model have been developed in the theoretical investigation and development of hypotheses. The model-theoretical framework that has been built was later transformed into a flowchart or path diagram to describe the causality of the model constructs.
This path diagram is a graphical representation of the effect of one variable on another variable that provides a comprehensive overview of the structure of the model. A statistical technique used to test the hypothesis in this study is a structural equation model (SEM). Simultaneous testing of the influence of formal authority structures, AIS characteristics, motivation and informal authority structure on managers' behavior (decision control and decision management) and their influence on. Sum of standard load) 2 + Sum of measurement error cost awareness is done using a structural equation model with a two-step approach.
A composite score is used for each construct in the model to reduce the difficulty in processing complex data and the relatively small sample size. A construct is a single variable indicator obtained from the multiplier score weighted by the respondents' score (value) for each indicator and then summed to produce a composite indicator score. The advantage of SEM applications in management research is the ability to confirm the dimensions of a concept or factors commonly used in management research and the ability to measure theoretically existing influence.
Data Analysis and Discussion 1 Survey Administration
In order to test the validity of the data of this study, the researchers conducted a factor analysis by eliminating indicators/items that did not fit the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) statement. CFA was carried out separately for each group of variables of formal authority structure, variables of SIA characteristics, work motivation. Further analysis uses structural equation modeling (SEM) on the entire model, after the level analysis of the unidimensionality indicators forming the latent variables has been tested by confirmatory factor analysis.
Analysis of the data processing in the stage full SEM models was done by testing the goodness-of-fit and statistical tests. The unit managers therefore have considerable formal authority in the decisions related to the management of the teaching work units they lead. These findings do not support the process of motivation according to Gibson, Ivancevich and Donnelly (2000) who argued that one of the significant factors that influence a person's behavior in an organization is motivation.
McClelland in Robbins (2003) talked about the three social motives, namely: achievement motive, affiliation motive and power motive. This indicates the inability of non-profit organizations to motivate staff to achieve optimal levels of performance for the development of the organization. The informal authority of the managers of nonprofit work units enables them to influence and change the minds of other people or groups in the performance of a desired task and not through physical or mental coercion.
The power in this study is positive because it is influenced by the good intellectual and emotional level of the survey respondents who were the implementers of education. Descriptive statistics of the study showed that the respondents' education levels equivalent to S1 and S2 are dominant with a percentage of 84.71% and 8.92%, so it can be assumed that the intellectual and management respondents' knowledge level is high enough, including the ability of respondents to understand the importance of decision control and decision management to achieve organizational goals. The cost consciousness has therefore turned out to be an important indicator in assessing the behavior of managers of an organization to control and manage the decision-making at the level of the unit's work responsibilities.
The research shows that the formal authority that resides in the management of the unit in the official delegation of organizational (formal authority) does not affect cost consciousness. This study does not support the findings of Steer (1977) who argued that formal authority in decision making affects the commitment and purpose of the system associated with cost effectiveness. In response to this trend, the performance of the unit managers is managed by the head office through accountability mechanisms for decision control and decision management between the unit manager and central manager.
Central managers evaluate the performance of the unit managers based on the budgets of the units they lead. Unit managers are responsible for budget variances that occur and report the actions taken to correct the cause of the budget variances to the central manager, so the unit manager also has cost awareness and is involved in achieving the organization's goals.
Therefore, the decision control and decision management variables may mediate the influence of formal authority structure, AIS characteristics, motivation and informal authority structure on cost consciousness. This does not support the work on the process of motivation by Gibson (2000) who argued that one of the significant factors that influence a person's behavior in an organization is motivation. This study demonstrates the inability of nonprofit organizations to motivate their human resources to achieve optimal performance levels for the development of the organization.
The dominance of the informal authority of a leader who is strongly loyal and committed to the organization will influence efforts to maximize performance to achieve organizational goals. The better the work unit manager controls decision-making, the greater cost awareness can be achieved. Thus, cost consciousness proved to be an important indicator in evaluating the behavior of managers in control and decision-making at the level of the unit of responsibility.
The efforts of unit managers to optimize the resources they have in order to survive in a competitive climate and to complement the work of the training units with supporting facilities to achieve excellence have an impact on the lack of cost awareness of the unit managers in the organization as a whole. . The central office controls the performance of unit managers through accountability mechanisms for decision management and decision management between unit managers to primary managers. Primary managers evaluate unit managers based on the budget performance of the units they lead.
Unit managers are responsible for budget deviations that occur and report the actions taken to address the causes of the deviations to central managers so that cost consciousness can be realized. Therefore, the decision control and decision management variable may mediate the influence of formal authority structure, AIS characteristics, motivation and informal authority structure on cost consciousness. It can be seen that the return rate of the questionnaires of respondents (respondent response rate) is less than required by the data, which is as much as 5-10 times the number of parameters estimated.
This study used an instrument based on the perception of the respondent's score, so it would be problematic if the respondents have a different perception of the actual conditions. The results of this study are also expected to contribute to the development of literature in behavioral accounting, especially cost consciousness in decision making. The results of this study can at least add a reference and encourage research on behavioral accounting in the future, especially regarding cost consciousness.
