This Is the End'? An Ethnographic Study of Management Control and a New Management Initiative

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2374528
AutoresDarren Mccabe (0000-0001-9938-2085, Lancaster University), Sylwia Ciuk (0000-0003-1614-2727, Oxford Brookes University, autor de correspondencia), Margaret Gilbert (0000-0001-9392-3012, Independent Researcher, UK)
Año2022
Volumen36
Número3
Páginas503-521
Fecha de publicación2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaWork Employment and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/09500170211022272
OpenAlexW3181850727
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas63

Over recent decades, critical scholars have quite rightly warned of the control implications of new management initiatives. There is a danger, however, of treating control in a 'distal' way or as an 'end'. Through drawing on proximal theorising, we make explicit what is often implicit in such accounts, which is that control is best understood as unfinished, in process, for it is inherently contingent and unpredictable. Viewed in this way, control becomes elusive as it always has to be achieved. The article draws on ethnographic research conducted in a back office of a manufacturing organisation to illustrate this understanding of management control. It highlights tensions between staff and management and between multiple layers of management that can thwart control

Business · Control (management · Critical management studies · Economics · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Knowledge management · Management · Management control system · Political science · Process (computing · Process management · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Accounting and Organizational Management · Anthropology · Computer Science · Engineering · Management and Organizational Studies · Management Theory and Practice · Philosophy