Accounting for Flexibility and Efficiency: A Field Study of Management Control Systems in a Restaurant Chain*

Abstract

While some field studies have suggested that management control systems can be used simultaneously to make organizations more efficient and more flexible, the contingency literature has found it difficult to address this issue in the absence of a clear and comprehensive typology for analyzing more processual uses of management control systems. This paper distinguishes between enabling and coercive (Adler and Borys 1996) uses of management control systems. Coercive use refers to the stereotypical top‐down control approach that emphasizes centralization and preplanning. In contrast, enabling use seeks to put employees in a position to deal directly with the inevitable contingencies in their work. The design principles that underlie the enabling use of management control systems are repair, internal transparency, global transparency, and flexibility. Through a detailed analysis of a single‐case field study carried out over a two‐year period, we illustrate how management pursued the objectives of efficiency and flexibility by using management control systems in enabling ways. We suggest that the four design principles of enabling use can facilitate field studies of management control systems, but that they can also be used to define an enabling typology for contingency researchers to analyze the ways in which organizations simultaneously pursue efficiency and flexibility through their management control systems.

Trust, control and knowledge transfer in small business networks

“…While according to this definition management control systems comprise social and formal controls, in this study we focus on the formal controls only. Management controls systems are not only used to supervise but also to coordinate (Ahrens and Chapman 2004). Thereby, management controls systems provide a platform for trust and cooperation not only on intra-firm level but also on inter-organizational relationships (Vélez et al 2008).…”

As Múltiplas Funções do Orçamento Empresarial

“…O orçamento é um elemento de destaque no Sistema de Controle Gerencial (SCG) e por isso está presente em diversos modelos que discutem o desenho e uso dos SCG na literatura (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004;Malmi & Brown, 2008;Simons, 1995). Para Malmi e Brown (2008), o orçamento se caracteriza com foco dentro dos controles cibernéticos e no conceito de controle.…”

“…Desse modo, o planejamento está correlacionado mais fortemente ao uso do orçamento para gerenciar a unidade/área e obter um bom desempenho no trabalho. Já as funções de diálogo estão correlacionadas à transparência, obtenção de informações táticas e estratégicas para a tomada de decisões, o que pode estar relacionado ao modelo de uso facilitador (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004;Chapman & Kihn, 2009). …”

Management control in the transfer pricing tax compliant multinational enterprise

“…When repair processes are integrated with routine operations, managers participate in the development of organisational rules and standards by signalling and discussing problems in their practical implementation. Allowing managers to flexibly deal with emerging contingencies in ways that fit both local and central agendas is a necessary condition for an enabling use of the MCS to be possible (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004). …”