Lars Östman towards a general theory of financial control

Ex­ante stage, conduct and reporting  

 

During a period of conduct, various activities within an organisation are carried out and 

immediate functions are fulfilled, or are close to being fulfilled. In advance, a certain period 

is considered in planning, budgeting, stock-price setting and so on. The outcome is reported 

step by step. As a result, what has happened during a period of conduct has further effects in 

an ex-post stage.  

At the ex-ante stage, an organisation relates vertical demands to plans for horizontal 

activities. This includes decisive strategic analysis or only a superficial observation about 

what is going on. The shifts upwards in hierarchies have meant an increased emphasis on 

expressed ambitions and intentions, not least in public communication. In stock markets, ex-

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ante evaluations and re-valuations of future development attract considerable attention. Often 

predictions are mere extrapolations of past development, but sometimes they have solid 

foundations of their own. Furthermore, stock prices can be determined through rather pure 

trading elements, where volumes on certain occasions are based on predictions of values-in-

exchange in the short and long term.   

Requirements and expectations follow one another in a series before the conduct. One of 

the main functions of continuous information is to provide data enabling decision-makers to 

cope with the uncertainty that gradually diminishes as periods, initially distant in the future, 

come closer and closer to reality. Many of the most intense moments are just before the 

conduct period. Realisable plans, within financial frames, must be clarified. New products 

and development projects reach new stages just before launching. They are close enough to 

be considered in the stock market, and they are realistic enough to constitute assets according 

to accounting conventions.  

Of course, conduct is a very tangible matter for organisation and workers but, from the 

financial principals´ point of view, events could rather be regarded as a confirmation of 

expectations, and, exceptionally, as an impulse to take certain actions when expectations are 

not met. Nevertheless, formal reporting afterwards is extensive. In the majority of cases, 

relationships between efforts and costs of reporting on the one hand and utility on the other 

hand can be questioned. When an outcome is strongly unaccepted, past periods will attract 

far-reaching attention in the public forms described above. Exaggerations and imperfections 

of the individual case tend to be in focus, rather than fundamental issues and behaviour that 

are common for many cases.