Strategy and Management Control System’s design
The relationship between management control system (MCS) and strategy has been widely discussed in literature but traditional studies on the fit between MCS and strategy assume that MCS must be designed to conform with a previously well-defined strategy.
In this paper we adopt the idea that strategy is a continuous process, intertwined with daily business practice, and that strategy and MCS are mutually dependent; both these elements should be considered when designing a MCS. Through the analysis of a case study, we investigate how MCS affects firm’s strategy exploration ability and firm’s strategy evolution. We claim that MCS design must be periodically revised in order to seek a balance between its ability to support exploration of new strategic directions and its ability to allow the exploitation of previously defined strategies.
