accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A Field Study of Management Control Systems in a Restaurant Chain
State the title and source (including date) of the article:
Accounting for Flexibility and Efficiency:
A Field Study of Management Control Systems in a Restaurant Chain
- By Thomas Ahrens (London School of Economics), and Christopher Chapman (University of Oxford), from The Contemporary Accounting Research Vol. 21 No. 2 (Summer 2004) pp. 271–301.
State the major points made in the article:
Introduction to Adler and Bory’s (1996) conceptual framework of the enabling approach to management control systems.
- Ahrens and Chapman go on to introduce their article by giving a background knowledge of modern perceptions of management control systems through their mention of related literature. Some key points discuss pertain to the author’s mentioning a predominant view of management control systems being defined through the cybernetic model (p.6) which is usually categorized with delivering efficiency through management by exception forcing resulting correction widely used in mechanistic organizations.
- Next the authors highlight control relations to organic organizations, stressing their difference in being more fluid, and less reactive to standardized procedures and stringent rules, ultimately outlining their characteristic of free-flowing communication requiring flexibility as their critical success factor. (p.6)
- At first the narrative in the introduction makes it seem as the general efficiency provided by mechanistic organization’s and the general flexibility provided by organic organizations, act as a trade off between the two mentioned traits. However through further relation to modern literature and studies (Brown and Eisenhardt) Ahrens and Chapman outline a significant correlation between the two and how used unanimously provided through appropriate management, flexibility and efficiency complement each other.
- From the relation mentioned above, the article begins to formulate it’s argument derived from how the efficiency achieved by mechanistic
Accounting for Flexibility and Efficiency:
A Field Study of Management Control Systems in a Restaurant Chain
- By Thomas Ahrens (London School of Economics), and Christopher Chapman (University of Oxford), from The Contemporary Accounting Research Vol. 21 No. 2 (Summer 2004) pp. 271–301.
State the major points made in the article:
Introduction to Adler and Bory’s (1996) conceptual framework of the enabling approach to management control systems.
- Ahrens and Chapman go on to introduce their article by giving a background knowledge of modern perceptions of management control systems through their mention of related literature. Some key points discuss pertain to the author’s mentioning a predominant view of management control systems being defined through the cybernetic model (p.6) which is usually categorized with delivering efficiency through management by exception forcing resulting correction widely used in mechanistic organizations.
- Next the authors highlight control relations to organic organizations, stressing their difference in being more fluid, and less reactive to standardized procedures and stringent rules, ultimately outlining their characteristic of free-flowing communication requiring flexibility as their critical success factor. (p.6)
- At first the narrative in the introduction makes it seem as the general efficiency provided by mechanistic organization’s and the general flexibility provided by organic organizations, act as a trade off between the two mentioned traits. However through further relation to modern literature and studies (Brown and Eisenhardt) Ahrens and Chapman outline a significant correlation between the two and how used unanimously provided through appropriate management, flexibility and efficiency complement each other.
- From the relation mentioned above, the article begins to formulate it’s argument derived from how the efficiency achieved by mechanistic