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Summary Management Control Systems: Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Incentives, 3rd Edition. Prentice-Hall/Pearson

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Management Control Systems

Chapter 1: MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL Management control failures can lead to large financial losses, reputation damage, and possibly even organizational failure. However, adding more controls does not always lead to better control. Some MCSs in common use often stifle initiative, creativity, and innovation. The term “control,” as it applies to a management function, does not have a universally accepted definition. An old, narrow view of an MCS is that of a simple cybernetic system involving a single feedback loop, analogous to a thermostat. Thermostats include a single feedback loop: they measure the temperature, compare those measurements with the desired standard, and, if necessary, take a corrective action …show more content…

The management controls can be targeted to the organization’s critical success factors, such as developing new products, keeping costs down, or enhancing market share, rather than aiming more generally at improving profitability (not only important factor).

C. Management Control vs. Strategic Control * Strategic control involves managers addressing the question: Is our strategy valid? Or, more appropriately in changing environments, they ask: Is our strategy still valid, and if not, how should it be changed? * Management control involves addressing the general question: Are our employees likely to behave appropriately?
First, do our employees understand what we expect of them?
Will they work consistently hard and try to do what is expected of them; that is, will they implement the organization’s strategy as intended? Are they capable of doing a good job? Finally, if the answer to any of these questions is no, what can be done to solve the management control problems?
The tools for addressing strategic and management control issues are quite different: * Managers addressing strategic control issues -external focus (industry and the organization’s place in it). * Managers addressing management control issues- internal focus (influence employee’s behavior in desired ways).
This book focuses on management control. In most companies, focusing on improving MCSs will provide higher payoffs than will focusing on improving strategy. From a

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