Integrating Justice and Trust in Management Control Systems: How to Generate Goal Congruence and Long Term Fairness Coherent with the Firm's Mission

Abstract

Based on the model and the concepts presented in Cugueró-Escofet and Rosanas (2013), that links justice in the MCS design and use to several states of goal congruence, we also incorporate the role of trust in managers as a crucial aspect of the informal organization. We are going to show that trust in manager is a consequence of the informal justice of MCS with implications for fairness perceptions in the long run. We specifically expect to be able show three consequences. First, that trust is a consequence of informal justice of the informal MCS; second, that trust and justice together generate effects in terms of goal congruence and long term fairness. We think that with this model fills the gap of existing research that looks at trust as a consequence of justice but also as a generator of justice, because trust is shown to have both roles: trust is as a consequence of ex-ante informal justice and at the same time, trust helps to enhance the virtuous circle of ex-ante justice and goal congruence to generate ex-post justice perceptions.

Keywords: Trust, Management Control Systems, Justice, Goal Congruence

JEL Classification: I31, M14, M15