Misaligned control: The role of management control system imitation in supply chains

Evelien Reusen and Kristof Stouthuysen

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2017, vol. 61, issue C, 22-35

Abstract: This study investigates how interorganizational imitation influences management control decisions in a supply chain setting. Control design in interfirm exchanges is traditionally thought to be based on the principle of matching, where organizations install MCS that align with the transaction context. However, despite these theorized interrelationships, misaligned transactions commonly exist in practice. In this study, we propose a framework on the potential sources of such misalignment. We argue that control misalignment can be attributed to imitating behavior, by which organizations adopt MCS following the example of other organizations. Based on survey data collected from firms involved in a supply chain triad, we demonstrate that buyers control their upstream suppliers partially by imitating how their downstream customer controls them. Notably, buyers appear to imitate despite variations in transaction context, creating a basis for misalignment in line with our predictions.

Keywords: Management control systems; Transaction context; Misalignment; Supply chain; Imitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361368217300521
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:22-35

DOI: 10.1016/j.aos.2017.08.001

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting, Organizations and Society is currently edited by Christopher Chapman

More articles in Accounting, Organizations and Society from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().