Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain
Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain
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DOI：
10.1506/vjr6-rp75-7gux-xh0x
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发表时间：
2004-06-01
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Chapman, CS
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ahrens, T;Chapman, CS
虽然一些实地研究表明，可以同时使用管理控制系统，以使组织更有效率和更灵活，但应急文献发现，由于缺乏明确和全面的类型来分析管理控制系统的更多程序性使用，因此很难解决这一问题。本文区分了管理控制系统的授权使用和强制使用(Adler和Borys 1996)。强制使用指的是强调集中和预先规划的刻板的自上而下的控制方法。相比之下，启用Use寻求使员工能够直接处理工作中不可避免的意外情况。支持使用管理控制系统的设计原则是修复、内部透明、全局透明和灵活性。通过对为期两年的单案例实地研究的详细分析，我们说明了管理层如何通过以有利的方式使用管理控制系统来追求效率和灵活性的目标。我们认为，使能使用的四个设计原则可以促进管理控制系统的实地研究，但它们也可以用来定义一种使能类型，供应急研究人员分析组织通过其管理控制系统同时追求效率和灵活性的方式。
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.