یک روش کنترل مدیریت: سبک و ایجاد ارزش فرزند داری

At the end of the 1980s, Goold and Campbell (1987) helped to generate new interest in the subject of management's ability to create value. According to Goold et al. (1994) this ability is manifested in different so-called parenting styles in which the corporate strategic planning and follow-up processes play an important part. While strategic planning and follow-up are emphasized, other parts of the corporate management control system are treated in less detail. Nor do Goold et al. discuss in any detail how management needs, in regard to the systems of control, may be different at the business-unit level than at the corporate level. These divergent requirements can make co-ordinated planning and follow-up more difficult for the corporate group as a whole and thus limit the chances of establishing a distinct parenting style. To improve our knowledge and understanding of the relationships between parenting style, the design and use of management control systems, and value creation, four Swedish corporate groups have been studied. These case studies show that a successful parenting style is characterized by established principles for balancing corporate management's need for co-ordinated control systems against the needs of the business units for situation-specific control systems. The study shows that these principles vary with the type of parenting style.

One interesting finding is that corporate management considers it very important toadapt the management control systems at each organizational level to the situation atthat level. Academics have long held that such far-reaching adaptation is necessary toinfluence behaviour in the right direction and thus achieve the goals of the organization(Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Otley, 1980). However, there is only limitedknowledge on balancing corporate requirements of unified control against businessunitneeds for information relevant to operations (Bruggeman and Van der Stede,1993; Langfield-Smith, 1997). It seems likely that many corporate groups strive forfar-reaching standardization of their management control systems even though theeconomic consequences are highly negative (Tones, 1983). Thus, the corporate groupsin this study are probably unique in regard to their efforts to develop philosophies ofcontrol which allow simultaneous co-ordination and situational adaptation of themanagement control systems at both ctpart of the explanation is probably the existence of a particular leadershipculture at the firms in this study, a phenomenon also found at many other Swedishcompanies. It features relatively far-reaching decentralization in which management by objectives plays a central role (cf. Hofstede, 1983). Thus, the emphasis is less onconformity and co-ordination than on the benefits of adapting organizational structuresto local needs (cf. Jonsson, 1996). However, to determine the true importanceof the cultural context for the relationship between value creation, parenting styles,and management control systems, in-depth studies with a different focus would berequired.