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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2374528
AutoresDarren Mccabe (0000-0001-9938-2085, Lancaster University), Sylwia Ciuk (0000-0003-1614-2727, Oxford Brookes University, autor correspondente), Margaret Gilbert (0000-0001-9392-3012, Independent Researcher, UK)
Ano2022
Volume36
Fascículo3
Páginas503-521
Data de publicação2022-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoWork Employment and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/09500170211022272
OpenAlexW3181850727
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências 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