طراحی سیستم های کنترل مدیریت در چارچوب سازمانی آن : یافته های تحقیق مبتنی بر احتمال و دستورالعمل هایی برای آینده

Contingency-based research has a long tradition in the study of management control systems (MCS). Researchers have attempted to explain the effectiveness of MCS by examining designs that best suit the nature of the environment, technology, size, structure, strategy and national culture. In recent years, contingency-based research has maintained its popularity with studies including these variables but redefining them in contemporary terms. This paper provides a critical review of findings from contingency-based studies over the past 20 years, deriving a series of propositions relating MCS to organizational context. The paper examines issues related to the purpose of MCS, the elements of MCS, the meaning and measurement of contextual variables, and issues concerning theory development. A final section considers the possibility that contingency-based ideas could encompass insights from a variety of theories to help understand MCS within its organizational context.

The three purposes of this paper are to provide a review of empirical, contingency-based research as it has developed since the early 1980s, to critically evaluate this work, and consider a variety of theoretical foundations that may assist in developing future research. The review is based, in the main, on research employing survey-based methods that has been published in a broad selection of accounting and management journals.1 The review is selective and illustrative of issues pertinent to the development of a contingency-based framework for the design of MCS, and does not attempt a comprehensive coverage of relevant research The paper is structured as follows. The next section introduces the area of contingency-based MCS research and provides an overview of findings over the past 20 years. The following nine sections review articles in terms of their contribution to understanding topics considered within contingency-based research. These are: the meaning of MCS, outcomes of MCS, and the contextual variables of external environment, technology (traditional and contemporary), organizational structure, size, strategy and national culture. Each section comprises two parts: first, findings from the extant literature are presented and a series of propositions summarizing these findings are offered; and second, critical issues concerning each variable are examined with a view to identifying areas that provide challenges for improvement and opportunities for future research. Following these sections, issues concerning theory development are examined. Finally, the potential role of a variety of theories in progressing understanding of contingency-based research in MCS is considered.

Contingency-based research has approached the study of MCS assuming that managers act with an intent to adapt their organizations to changes in contingencies in order to attain fit and enhanced performance. There is a considerable body of literature, which while not without imperfections in method, has provided a basis for generalized propositions between elements of MCS and context. The basic framework and potential strength of the method provide a basis to persist with contingency-based research to uncover generalizable findings that can enhance desired organizational outcomes. To maintain the relevance of MCS contingency-based research, scholars will need to focus their attention on contemporary dimensions of MCS, context and organizational and social outcomes. Notwithstanding the need to study issues of contemporary relevance much can be gained by reflecting on the work of original organizational theorists and more recent thinking in areas such as strategy, organizational and cultural change, manufacturing, information technology and human resource management. Other approaches based in economics and psychology can readily be included within contingency-based frameworks. While founded in non-functionalist approaches to studying MCS, insights drawn from ‘alternate’ theories, also, can assist in elaborating the traditional contingency-based model. Moreover, contingency-based research can provide an ordered way to integrate thinking about the sociological processes effecting MCS in action, perhaps combining these insights with conventional elements of contingency-based models. Such a research agenda involves many issues concerning theory development and model construction that provide challenges for researchers.