Business as Usual? An Institutional View of the Relationship between Management Control Systems and Strategy
Financial Accountability & Management, Forthcoming
Posted: 20 May 2013
Date Written: May 19, 2013
Abstract
The relationship between management control systems (MCS) and strategy has received considerable attention in the management control literature. Contingency-based approaches, however, have traditionally dominated this research, with limited attention devoted specifically to how MCS and strategy may combine in organizations operating within highly institutionalized environments. Adopting an institutional perspective, the current study is based on interviews with CEOs and senior executives in 32 Australian Not-for-Profit organizations. Our findings indicate a tendency for these organisations to decouple informal control from MCS, producing a "business as usual" mentality via the pervasive informal approach to control, supplanting contingency-based predictions relating to MCS-strategy relations.
Keywords: management control, strategic typologies, Not-for-Profit
JEL Classification: M4
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation