What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Measuring Organizational Performance: Towards Methodological Best Practice

Quasi-experimentation - design and analysis issues for field settings - cook,td, campbell,dt

Management control systems as a package—Opportunities, challenges and research directions

The aim of this study is to examine, from a resource-based perspective, the relationships between the use of management control systems (MCS) and organizational capabilities. More specifically, the study focuses on the diagnostic and interactive uses of one important aspect of MCS, namely performance measurement systems (PMS), and four capabilities leading to strategic choices (i.e., market orientation, entrepreneurship, innovativeness, and organizational learning). Three research questions are investigated in this study: (i) to what extent do the diagnostic and interactive uses of MCS contribute specifically to the creation and maintenance of capabilities leading to strategic choices? (ii) To what extent do the diagnostic and interactive uses of MCS act in combination to produce dynamic tension which contributes to the creation and maintenance of these capabilities? (iii) To what extent does the use of MCS contribute to organizational performance? The results suggest that an interactive use of PMS fosters the four capabilities by focusing organizational attention on strategic priorities and stimulating dialogue. Also, by creating constraints to ensure compliance with orders, the diagnostic use of PMS exerts negative pressure on these capabilities. Furthermore, some evidence suggests the influence of dynamic tension resulting from the balanced use of PMS in a diagnostic and interactive fashion on capabilities and performance.

/pdf/management-control-systems-and-strategy-a-resource-based-26c9xmpmm1.pdf

Management control systems and strategy: A resource-based perspective

This paper reports evidence on the effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a strategy communication and management‐control device. This study first reviews communication and management control literatures that identify attributes of effective communication and control of strategy. Second, the study offers a model of communication and control applicable to the BSC. The study then analyzes empirical interview and archival data to model the use and assess the communication and control effectiveness of the BSC. The study includes data from multiple divisions of a large, international manufacturing company. Data are from BSC designers, administrators, and North American managers whose divisions are objects of the BSC. The study accumulates evidence regarding the challenges of designing and implementing the BSC faced by even a large, well‐funded company. These findings may be general‐izable to other companies adopting or considering adopting the BSC as a strategic and management control device. Data in...

Communicating and Controlling Strategy: An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard

This paper uses management control, resource-based systems-based and contingency-based strategy theories to describe a large U.S. manufacturing company's efforts to improve profitability by designing and using a performance measurement model (PMM). This PMM includes multiple performance measures relevant to its distribution channel for products, repair parts and maintenance services. The PMM is intended to reflect the company's understanding of performance relations among strategic resources, operational capabilities, and desired financial outcomes. The PMM also reflects its intended distribution strategy, the types of performance necessary to achieve that strategy by its distributors, and its desired financial outcomes. Furthermore, the company uses the model to evaluate its North American distributors and intends to use these evaluations as a partial basis for annual and long-term rewards. Thus, the PMM embodies the measurable portion of the firm's management control system of its distribution channel. The study addresses four research questions: (1) Are measure attributes important considerations for performance measure choice? (2) Does the importance of attributes differ according to firm strategy? (3) Does the importance of attributes for design and use differ according to firm strategy? (4) Does a company trade-off some individual attributes for others? The questions are investigated using qualitative and quantitative analyses of archival documents and interviews with top managers and distributors. Principal findings are that measure attributes are important considerations for choice and change of performance measures, design attributes are more important than use attributes, the importance of attributes does not appear to differ according to strategy, and some individual attributes are traded-off for other attributes.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID555857_code16432.pdf?abstractid=488172&rulid=103277&mirid=5

Choice and Change of Measures in Performance Measurement Models

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is first, to discuss the theoretical assumptions, qualities, problems and myopia of the dominating quantitative and qualitative approaches; second, to describe the methodological lessons that the authors learned while conducting a series of longitudinal studies on the use and usefulness of a specialized balanced scorecard; and third, to encourage researchers to actually use multiple methods and sources of data to address the very many accounting phenomena that are not fully understood.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is an opinion piece based on the authors' experience conducting a series of longitudinal mixed method studies.Findings – The authors suggest that in many studies, using a mixed method approach provides the best opportunity for addressing research questions.Originality/value – This paper provides encouragement to those who may wish to bridge the authors' ideological gaps and to those who are actively trying to do so.

Lessons learned: advantages and disadvantages of mixed method research

This paper reports evidence on the effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a management-control and strategy communication device. This study first reviews management control and communication literatures that identify attributes of effective control and communication of strategy. Second, the study offers a model of control and communication applicable to the BSC. The study then analyzes empirical interview and archival data to model the use and assess the control and communication effectiveness of the BSC. The study includes data from multiple divisions of a large, international manufacturing company. Data are from BSC designers, administrators, and North American managers whose divisions are objects of the BSC. The study accumulates evidence regarding the challenges of designing and implementing the BSC faced by even a large, well-funded company. These findings may be generalizable to other companies adopting or considering adopting the BSC as a strategic and management control device. Data indicate that this specific BSC, as designed and implemented, is an effective device for controlling corporate strategy. Results also indicate disagreement and tension between top and middle management regarding the appropriateness of specific aspects of the BSC as a communication, control and evaluation mechanism. Specific results include evidence of causal relations between effective management control, motivation, strategic alignment and beneficial effects of the BSC. These beneficial effects include changes in processes and improvements in both the BSC and customer-oriented services. In contrast, ineffective communication and management control cause poor motivation and conflict over the use of the BSC as an evaluation device.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID278939_code010808670.pdf?abstractid=278939&rulid=4149&mirid=2

Cause-and-effect relations among performance measures are alleged to be distinguishing features of performance measurement models (PMM), such as balanced scorecards. This study reports the evolution of the study of a PMM that was developed by a large U.S.-based company for its closely linked distribution channel. Motivated by the literature on PMM and causality, we report an analysis of linked performance measures for 31 quarters (1997 – 2005) and 31 business units. We find minimal statistical significance and no significant predictive ability in the model (i.e., no Granger causality), yet the company and its distributors express satisfaction with the model and with both company and distributor profitability. Reasoning that cause and effect was not the only explanation for scorecard success, we thoroughly analyze qualitative data for how managers perceived and used (a) the relations in the scorecard and (b) the climate of control intended and achieved in the organization through the scorecard. We find that the PMM’s logical and finality relations support the company’s climate of control. We also find qualitative evidence that the use of the PMM creates an effective climate of control. We tentatively conclude that effective management control does not require statistically significant cause-and-effect relations in a PMM when other factors create a strong climate of control.

Mary A. Malina

Papers

Communicating and Controlling Strategy: An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard

Choice and Change of Measures in Performance Measurement Models

Lessons learned: advantages and disadvantages of mixed method research

Communicating and Controlling Strategy: An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard

Relations among Measures, Climate of Control, and Performance Measurement Models*