Management Control and Their Limitations
Management controls, their limitations, and the nature of social constraint: the implications for corporate governance practice
Draft (M.Phil/Ph.D) research proposal
by
Peter Carroll
University of Greenwich, Business School
Paper presented at the Management Control Association workshop at The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, Friday 27th February 2009
Draft research proposal (approval by University’s research committee to be obtained)
Please do not quote without permission.
Comments welcome to the author at cp89@gre.ac.uk
Abstract
A series of corporate collapses over the last two decades has generated consider-able debate and a strengthening of corporate governance requirements. But throughout the belief has been maintained that reliance can be place on the effectiveness of systems of internal(/management) control. The proposed research seeks to critically review the foundations of this doctrine through a theoretical and empirical review of management controls, their limitations, and the nature of social constraint. A critical realist methodology is adopted within which current debates in social theory about the relationship between human agency and social structure within the process of structuration will be examined, including issues concerning the nature of social constraint and emergence within social phenomena, and areas of possible empirical disagreement highlighted. An extensive research design combined with primarily a qualitative approach is proposed and multiple case studies of recent corporate collapses, together with a major corporate accident, will be undertaken using histographic methods. The empirical work seeks analytic rather statistical generalizations and proposed methods are outlined for safeguarding the validity and reliability of the findings. The on-going, iterative and uncertain nature of research is recognized and a high-level management, baseline plan incorporating both elements of both fixed and
Draft (M.Phil/Ph.D) research proposal
by
Peter Carroll
University of Greenwich, Business School
Paper presented at the Management Control Association workshop at The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, Friday 27th February 2009
Draft research proposal (approval by University’s research committee to be obtained)
Please do not quote without permission.
Comments welcome to the author at cp89@gre.ac.uk
Abstract
A series of corporate collapses over the last two decades has generated consider-able debate and a strengthening of corporate governance requirements. But throughout the belief has been maintained that reliance can be place on the effectiveness of systems of internal(/management) control. The proposed research seeks to critically review the foundations of this doctrine through a theoretical and empirical review of management controls, their limitations, and the nature of social constraint. A critical realist methodology is adopted within which current debates in social theory about the relationship between human agency and social structure within the process of structuration will be examined, including issues concerning the nature of social constraint and emergence within social phenomena, and areas of possible empirical disagreement highlighted. An extensive research design combined with primarily a qualitative approach is proposed and multiple case studies of recent corporate collapses, together with a major corporate accident, will be undertaken using histographic methods. The empirical work seeks analytic rather statistical generalizations and proposed methods are outlined for safeguarding the validity and reliability of the findings. The on-going, iterative and uncertain nature of research is recognized and a high-level management, baseline plan incorporating both elements of both fixed and