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For decades, direct employment relationships have been increasingly displaced by indirect employment relationships through networks of firms and layers of managerial control. The firm strategies driving these changes are organizational, geographic, and technological in nature and are facilitated by state policies. The resulting weakening of traditional forms of collective bargaining and worker power have led workers to counter by organizing broader alliances and complementing structural and associational power with symbolic power and state-oriented strategies through what the authors term “network bargaining.” These dynamics point to the limitations of dominant theories and frameworks for understanding employment relations and suggest a new approach that focuses on a range of direct and indirect work relationships, evolving forms of worker power, and networked patterns of worker–employer interactions.

In this study, we develop a multi‐level theoretical framework linking antecedents and outcomes of peer control, defined as team members at the same hierarchical level noticing and responding to their peers’ behaviour or performance. Analysing multi‐level data from 356 volunteers and 58 regional teams in a non‐profit organization, we examine top‐down managerial controls as antecedents of lateral peer control, both directly (i.e., monitoring and responding directly to peers) and indirectly (i.e., gossiping about and avoiding underperforming peers), and peer control’s effects on individual‐ and team‐level outcomes. In line with our predictions, we find formal managerial control and clan control to be antecedents of peer control, albeit with differential effects on direct and indirect peer control. We also find a significant association between peer control and both individual‐level job satisfaction and team‐level performance, but again, with crucial differences between the two types of peer controls and the two outcomes. Our study contributes to the development of a better theoretical understanding of peer control, sheds light on inconsistent findings across prior studies, provides novel insights into how team leaders can influence team members’ individual satisfaction and team‐level performance via peer control, and reveals important trade‐offs with regards to peer control’s influence on individual‐ and team‐level outcomes.

While the post-colonial African economy remains the poorest performing economy globally, the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic has further gravely aggravated its precarious position in the world. This study reflects on the multiple impacts of Covid-19 on African economy and suggests a pathway for its revitalization in the post Covid-19 environment. Undoubtedly, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the world to a temporary halt, with its attendant bruises mostly notable on the economies of almost all African countries. This paper empirically analyse the incapacitation of African states in providing some strategic responses to the economic wreckages caused by the pandemic. Using technological-determinism as a theoretical framework, this study suggests the technological-innovation pathway as a bridge between the pandemic-induced economic circumstances and prosperity for Africa. Sequentially, the five junctions on the pathway splits as pulling, recovery, innovations, growth, and sustainability (PRIGS), but, however, the kernel of the discussion revolves around the commodification of innovation (technology) for Africa’s economic growth and development. This study concludes, the five junctions on the PRIGS’ highway absorbs the current developmental challenges of African states and hence, recommends an alternative roadmap for Africa, in its long-term quest and vision for development.

For service professionals, work is a central life interest, raising questions about the effectiveness of managerial controls. We examine reactions of professionals (676 physicians) to imposed manag...

Community legislation in the field of internal managerial control (IMC) is largely made up of general principles of good practice, which are accepted also internationally. The manner in which these principles are transposed in the internal control systems is specific to each country, being determined mainly by the legislative, administrative, cultural conditions etc. It is necessary to deepen these aspects of IMC from the development perspective of the managerial decision making point of view. In the public domain, according to the requirements of the specific normative acts in Romania, as well as the European Commission, the rigorous, efficient, effective and transparent use of public funds is essential. For monitoring the managerial decisions in order to meet these requirements, the IMC system in public entities is established at both national and international level. The implementation of the IMC system is a necessary measure, in the context in which the public institutions are managing, both public funds that are allocated to them, and the public patrimony that is under their management. From this perspective, it is obvious that, in the absence of an IMC system, it is not possible to reasonably ensure the efficiency, the effectiveness and the economy of the operations carried out by the public entities. In this context, the current study is proposing a holistic analysis on the correlation between expectation and achievements regarding the application of the IMC system in Romanian public entities. Thus, starting with the latest report published in august 2019 by the Internal Managerial Control and Interinstitutional Relations Department from the Romanian Government’s General Secretariat (DCIMRI, 2019) regarding the IMC implementation in Romania, the aim of the paper is to point out the issues identified in the implementation practice of IMC standards and to judge the results in terms of expectations.

PurposeDespite the efforts of project managers and the widespread use of project management methodologies, most of the projects remain unfulfilling in terms of delivering targeted performance. This for most part can be attributed to the inability of an organization to implement control mechanisms and ineffective management of complexity risk. Keeping in view the aforementioned problem, the objective of this study is to investigate the association between control modes and project performance. Moreover, this study also examines the moderating role of complexity risk on the association among various control modes and project performance.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from 171 construction projects through a postal questionnaire survey. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was utilized for testing the hypothesized relationships of the research model.FindingsThis study found significant positive relation between formal and informal control mechanisms and project performance. It is found that complexity risk significantly moderates the relationship between control modes and project performance. The results indicate that complexity risk positively moderates the relationship between outcome control and clan control with project performance. Furthermore, complexity risks negatively moderates the relationship between behavior control and project performance. However, the association between self-control and project performance is found insignificant in the presence of complexity risk.Originality/valueThis study is the first attempt to study the relationship of control mechanisms, complexity risk and project performance in the construction industry.

Control, az a managerial function cannot be considered as one of the most frequently preferred examinational topics, and it is also valid for the matter of civic organization. Nevertheless, we must not forget about the increasing number and intensive non-profit sphere after the change of the regime, where the civic sphere inside has become determinant. In 2017, 15,2% of the 61 151 nonprofit organizations had a sport profile, and this ratio is higher, 16,2% regarding the 53 613 classic civic organizations (including only associations and foundations). The specialty of these organizations is the strong relationship with subsidies, and it seems that it has turned into subsidy dependence by now (2/3 of the incomes are subsidies), as a conclusion from the data of the Hungarian Statistical Office. This topic may also become sensible in a way, when an organization cannot account the received subsidies or cannot meet expectations of the judicial expectations, which all raises managerial control related concerns. It also highlights the relationship between civic organizations and control. In this study, we aim to cover some relevant specifications of the topic through the control, as a managerial function, and based on the results we may conclude that a higher ratio of organizations cannot really perform by the expectations.

Industrial relations (IR) authors tend not to draw on critical management studies (CMS) literature. IR’s radical wing believe it overstates the possibility of managerial control and IR’s pluralist ...

The negotiation costs for project participants to resolve conflicts significantly undermine the project performance, but how to reduce these costs remains largely unexplored. This study proposes that risk allocation in the contract between the client and contractor will impact the conflict negotiation costs and managerial controls of the client will moderate this relationship. Hypotheses were tested with a sample of 226 projects collected from Chinese construction firms. The results show that conflict negotiation costs will increase with more risks allocated to the contractor. Moreover, behavior control of the client strengthens this positive relationship but outcome control weakens it. These findings offer a nuanced understanding of how conflict negotiation costs occur and contribute to the project governance literature by exploring how ex-post governance (managerial control) aligns with ex-ante governance (risk allocation). Practitioners can benefit from this study by understanding how to formulate risk allocation strategies and exercise different managerial controls.

Classical managerial control theories mostly focus on performance indicators, like the number of pieces produced. More recent theories focus on behavior control. All theories are specialized in controlling a specific unit of the firm, i.e., the employee, the team, or a subsystem. Therefore, agency theory-based control and system-based control have their limits. In this chapter, we advocate for a more holistic approach that takes into account the culture of the firm but also of the geographic region studied. Indigenous research is presented as a possible way to improve managerial control and harmonize western and eastern countries’ views on managerial control (we take several examples from North America, Europe, and China). We also propose a general guideline for conducting indigenous research on managerial control. Finally, we raise some concerns about the risk of using control to spread specific ideologies in firms that can be harmful in the long run. Open image in new window The concept map of the chapter

This chapter explores professionalisation in a context of Danish kindergartens encountering New Public Management (NPM) with its bureaucratic measurement and evidence-based ‘toolbox’ programmes. How do basic economic, social, and organisational structures limit and shape both the possibilities of professionalisation of Danish ‘social pedagogues’ and the care work in childcare services in ‘early years’? Considering the voices of seven newly graduated pedagogues that work in kindergartens, the chapter argues that they experience major difficulties maintaining their professional identity attained at university colleges. They feel overwhelmed and helpless as they encounter the double pressure from cuts (underfunding) and a reorientation of their daily work towards that which can be monitored and valued. This form of professionalisation becomes a double-edged sword that feeds into a Nordic care crisis by rationalising and reorganising public care.

In some studies, only financial aspects are emphasized, but we also see cases of assessing the financial health of municipalities through socio-economic indicators. Public organizations worldwide have had to increase their financial performance by adopting management practices. Nonetheless, financial performance might be mostly predicted by contingencies that are not within direct managerial control. The purpose of this paper is to identify clusters of municipalities on the basis of agglomerate cluster analysis, the results of which will point to the financial situation of the municipalities in the selected region. The main aim of this contribution is to identify the location of the municipalities of the chosen self-governing region of Slovakia using the clustering method by selected financial indicators. Individual clusters have similar properties and they differ from the characteristics of businesses in other clusters. The results show that organizational and environmental contingencies affect financial performance, but a significant amount of variation in financial performance is unexplained—indicating that management creates better financial health in the municipality and creates a clearer budget for the management, employees, and residents of the municipality.

This article examines managerial control practices in a public bureaucracy at the moment of introducing remote work as part with a new ways of working (NWW) project. The qualitative study builds on 38 interviews with supervisors and subordinates conducted before the advent of COVID-19. By interpreting interviewees’ conversations about current and anticipated future work practices in the changing work setting, we reveal tacit and hidden practices of managerial control that are currently prevalent in many organizations introducing remote working. Three constitutive moments of the organization’s transformation to NWW are analytically distinguished: (i) how implicit becomes explicit, (ii) how collective becomes self, and (iii) how personal becomes impersonal. Our findings emphasize that the transition to NWW must take into account prevailing institutional logics and must reconnect to a fundamental and often neglected question: What does doing work mean within the particular organization? Negotiating this fundamental question might help to overcome supervisors’ uncertainties about managerial control and provide clarity to subordinates about what is expected from them while working remotely. Finally, we discuss how the transition to NWW may serve as both an opportunity and a potential threat to established organizational practices while highlighting the challenge supervisors face when the institutional logics conflict with remote working.

У статті акцентовано увагу на проблемах з якими система бухгалтерського обліку зіткнулася з настанням світової фінансової кризи, що стали основними причинами необхідності переходу на нову парадигму бухгалтерського обліку. Проаналізовано теоретичні підходи вчених щодо облікових концепцій та місця і ролі в них інтегрованої звітності в умовах сталого розвитку. Проведено аналіз і порівняльну характеристику методологічних засад облікових концепцій ретроспективного і перспективного парадигмального змісту. Наголошено на концепції сталого розвитку, яка сформувалась в результаті об’єднання трьох основних складових: економічної, соціальної та екологічної. Визначено значення кожної із складових в процесі сталого розвитку. Наголошено, що під економічною складовою сталого розвитку розуміють скорочення витрат, збільшення розміру прибутку, збільшення рівня конкурентоспроможності підприємства та інше; під екологічною – скорочення кількості використаних ресурсів і відходів та інше; соціальна складова – із покращення якості створеного продукту, умов якості життя населення та інше. Акцентовано увагу на фінансовій та нефінансовій звітності в системі інтегрованого обліку. Наведено визначення інтегрованої звітності як суттєвої інформації про те, як стратегія, управління, діяльність і перспективи організації відображають соціальний, екологічний та економічний контексти створення нею цінності у теперішній час і у майбутньому, що сформовано Міжнародною радою з інтегрованої звітності. Наведено динаміку кількості суб’єктів господарювання України, які подають звітність відповідно до GRI. Здійснено порівняння американської та німецької ключової концепції обліку. Узагальнено, що аналіз підходів, концепцій, парадигм сформований вченими, є питанням стратегічного характеру при здійсненні планування та контролю витрат, аналізу та прогнозування, яке необхідно вирішувати в системі управлінського обліку. Наголошено, що зміна рівня нестабільності викликає переорієнтацію управлінських систем з простих на складні та наведено чотири етапи в їх розвитку, зокрема: - управління на основі контролю за виконанням (фіксація минулих подій); - управління на основі екстраполяції (темпи змін наростають, але майбутнє можна передбачити методом екстраполяції минулого); - управління на основі передбачення змін (виникнення неочікуваних явищ та прискорення темпів змін але не настільки, щоб вчасно не можна їх передбачити і визначити реакцію на них); - управління на основі гнучких екстрених рішень (виникнення нових завдань настільки швидше, що їх неможливо вчасно передбачити). Визначено місце менеджерського контролю на всіх рівнях управління та його концептуальне значення. Запропоновано концепції та парадигми обліку та інтегрованої звітності в умовах сталого розвитку.

This article investigates the concept of literacy sponsorship through the introduction of textile factories and mill villages in New England during the American Industrial Revolution. Specifically, the article focuses on Samuel Slater’s mill villages and his disciplining and socialization of workers via the ‘family’ approach to factory production, and, in particular, his support of the Sunday school. As an institution key to managerial control and new to rural New England, the Sunday school captures the complicated networks of moral and literacy sponsorship in the transition to factory production.

This article analyzes the trajectory and causes of the explosion of American corporate CEOs’ compensation relative to that of average workers between 1958 and 2017. The historical data are presented and analyzed in more detail for 2016 and 2017. Important biases in alternative data sets are explored. Alternative hypotheses for the dramatic changes over time are proposed but not resolved. Among other things, the paper investigates the role of tax and other government policy changes and regulation-induced innovations in the organization of executive pay determination.

textabstractPerformance Budgeting has been introduced to gain greater managerial control over the outcomes and efficiency of policies and their budgets. Strikingly, a growing body of literature has explained that politicians hardly use performance information or only to emotionally judge government performance. We, however, propose understanding the emotional use of performance information as catharsis. Catharsis is the ritual of emotional and moral judging to understand and initiate improvement. Catharsis has been named as an important function of accountability, but has not been researched in the field of Public Administration. We discuss the concept of catharsis in relation to accountability and show that, by using evidence from its role in Dutch parliament, the use of ‘cathartic emotions’ are omnipresent in financial debates, especially when parliamentary enquiries and annual budgets are debated. Based on these findings catharsis should be understood as a much more serious function of accountability by both academics and public officials. Keywords: catharsis, accountability, emotions, debates, positive public administration

The relevance of this research is associated with the difficulty of substantiating and selecting a certain managerial control model for a particular organization which would ensure the greatest efficiency of the entire system of its tools. When tailoring their control systems, organizations select from a number of various control tools. Meanwhile, not every one of the possible tool combinations will be efficient. The paper is aimed at giving grounds for a model that allows identifying the optimum managerial control system for a particular organization proceeding from parameters based on the theory of transaction costs. The leading method for researching this problem is mathematical modeling under partial uncertainty that allows getting an integrated view of the relationship of the basic control type and the criteria determining it. As a result of the research conducted, the authors have proven the use of result-oriented machine control type and action-oriented machine control type with the appropriate toolkit is justified for a number of aircraft engineering corporation divisions. The materials of the paper are of practical value for both the top management and various level managers of enterprises and organizations not only in aircraft engineering but in other industries too.

US banks experiencing losses during the 2008-2009 financial crises quickly returned to profitability. What does managerial control contribute to re-establishing performance? Return on equity (ROE) for 1200 banks that survived the crisis is evaluated by degree of control and leverage from 2001 through 2011. We estimate a performance equation and find that both control, measured as the coefficient of variation of ROE, and leverage have significant effects on ROE: control negative, leverage positive. Control affects the patterns of ROE across time; leverage does not. The ability of the estimate to account for and predict ROE holds up well through the crisis but only for banks with tight managerial control. As control loosens, the performance of the estimate deteriorates. During the financial crisis, tightening control improved profitability. The persistent influence of managerial control on ROE is discriminating. Prior performance predicts future performance but only for tightly controlled banks.

Due to the numerous uncertainties in the construction industry, their companies require a decision-making that promotes greater managerial control and financial security. Risk management is the main systematic method to deal effectively with risks and opportunities. Although this method has shown to be effective in preserving resources, increasing performance, and promoting better control of cost, time and quality, there are observed few applications in small and medium-sized civil construction companies. For these, a proactive risk management process strategically geared to opportunities and threats may be required for survival, given the high competitiveness and variability of the construction market. The main normative that guides the positioning of companies in the face of risks is ISO 31.000 - Risk Management, which in 2018 has undertaken updates in its directives. These changes bring more strategic and inclusive provisions to risk management. Through a systematic review of the literature, this paper produces a SWOT matrix to identify strategic factors for SMEs in construction sector. Then it is identified contributions of risk management that maximizes forces and opportunities, and minimizes weaknesses and threats, considering the specificities of these companies.

A “gift-exchange” contract is a contract in which employers’ trust (by offering a generous wage) and employees’ reciprocity (by reacting to the wage with high effort) is a commonly studied contract in the accounting and economics literatures. In this study, we use a controlled lab experiment to examine how two important organizational features impact the effectiveness of the gift-exchange contract: A managerial control which punishes employees for shirking on effort, and a free-form communication between employers and employees. Building on motivational-crowding theory, we hypothesize that a punishment control makes employers feel trust is no longer necessary, as a result, reduces employers’ wage offers. Consequently, we predict that punishment does not foster employees’ reciprocity as employers no longer signal trust. However, when an informal communication channel is present between employers and employees, we predict that communication restores trust and reciprocity when punishment is in place. Our experimental results support our predictions that punishment controls reduce both trust and reciprocity. We also find that communication helps improving trust-reciprocity when punishment is present. Furthermore, the two-way communication (in which both parties communicate with each other) is superior to the one-way communication in increasing employers’ trust and employees’ reciprocity. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Wildlife literally means the life-forms (animals and plants) living in the wild without getting any support from the human beings. It can be defined as those plants or animals successfully living in the wild condition from birth to death, excluding humans and domesticated forms or cultivated forms of life as fish. In its most simplistic representation, “wildlife” includes only wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians as forests along with their plants mostly remain under the managerial control by human beings.

With the increase in the number of enterprises in the non-governmental sector of the economy, a characteristic feature of which is the expansion of the boundaries of financial independence and their simultaneous and full responsibility for the results of economic activity, special importance is given to the methods of managerial control in the organization. Competitiveness and financial performance of an enterprise depend on the effective managerial control. At present, when one economic crisis replaces another, questions of the correctness of managerial decisions and the formation of financial indicators of an economic entity are aggravated. To analyze the essence of managerial control along with the search for information on managerial control at service enterprises, the authors used the method of analysis of scientific and educational literature of Russian and foreign authors who consider managerial control from the point of view of systematic and process approaches, as well as methods of systematization and processing of the obtained information. The result of the study is the conclusion that the incompetence in making managerial decisions in times of crisis in various sectors of the economy leads to the difficult financial situation of the organization, especially for service enterprises, the activity of which directly depends on the state of the basic sectors of the economy, as well as incomes of the population. It is proposed to take into account the industry-specific features of the service sector for the competent and efficient management of the enterprise, aimed at achieving high financial results, given that any form of control poses risks that can be represented in three components, containing: inter-company risk, risk during control and risk of not detecting distortion. Each component of the risk has its own significance, while particular attention as part of the overall control risk should be paid to such a component as the risk of not detecting distortions

Digital technology, combined with a commitment to transparent self-assessments/corrective actions, is key to the most effective Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) that will provide assurance of Active Managerial Control in a restaurant. We have all experienced the impact of digital technology (often in the form of mobile apps on a smartphone) through the use of these technologies to manage our daily work. Restaurant employees may not normally associate digital technology applications like mobile apps on a smartphone with food safety management in a restaurant, though they frequently use mobile apps for many other similar purposes at work and home. Most restaurant businesses use paper checklists to perform daily self-assessments of quality, inventory, work schedules, etc., and only use checklist for limited monitoring of food safety controls such as for checking the temperature of foods. However, the need for digital technology to enable the necessary comprehensive management of food safety controls in a restaurant using FSMS is significant because of these