Management Control as Temporal Structuring

Managing in Dynamic Business Environments, eds. Katarina Kaarbøe, Paul N. Gooderham and Hanne Nørreklit, published (2013) by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd

19 Pages Posted: 15 Jun 2016

See all articles by Sebastian D. Becker

Sebastian D. Becker

HEC Paris - Accounting and Management Control Department

Martin Messner

HEC Paris

Date Written: March 14, 2013

Abstract

This chapter discusses the relationship between management control and time in organizations. Based on a literature review, we suggest that management control is, to an important extent, the control of organizational time. We show how different forms of control affect the temporal structures of organizational practices and how they influence actors’ degrees of autonomy. We then apply these ideas to the case of budgeting practice. We consider the practitioner discourse on budgeting and suggest that, at its core, this discourse is motivated by concerns related to time and temporal structuring. For example, in the Beyond Budgeting debate, a key issue is how management control systems can be organized so as to meet the real-time needs of managers. We draw from this example to outline, in more general terms, what “getting the timing right” in management control might mean.

Keywords: Management control, time, Forecasting, Rolling Forecast, Beyond Budgeting, entrainment

Suggested Citation

Becker, Sebastian D. and Messner, Martin, Management Control as Temporal Structuring (March 14, 2013). Managing in Dynamic Business Environments, eds. Katarina Kaarbøe, Paul N. Gooderham and Hanne Nørreklit, published (2013) by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2795443

Sebastian D. Becker (Contact Author)

HEC Paris - Accounting and Management Control Department ( email )

Jouy-en-Josas
France

Martin Messner

HEC Paris ( email )

1 rue de la Liberation
Jouy-en-Josas Cedex, 78351
France

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