The Controller’s Role in Management Control Dialogues

Cecilia Gullberg ()
Additional contact information
Cecilia Gullberg: Södertörn University

Chapter Chapter 7 in Strategic Management Control, 2020, pp 101-115 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The breadth of the controller role, ranging from bookkeeper, “bean counter” and “watchdog” to a more strategic business partner, has long been discussed in the accounting literature. Resting upon the assumption that controllers, at least on the business partner side of the spectrum, frequently engage in dialogue with operations managers, this chapter investigates what such dialogues, or “accounting talk”, may look like and what the role of the controller may be therein. The chapter outlines three common types of dialogues between controller and managers, which serve to create awareness of problems, identify reasonable solutions, and challenge assumptions about how to conduct operations. In these dialogues, accounting information and other types of information jointly form a multifaceted image of operations that may spark discussion and debate around strategic issues. These dialogues may furthermore serve an educational purpose for both controller and managers as information and stories are exchanged around interpretations of data, definition of concepts and day-to-day operational concerns. Assuming this more strategic and interactive role, the controller becomes involved not only in calculations but also in social processes related to educating, persuading and inspiring. The chapter ends with a discussion of how a more strategic controller role can be enabled.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:mgmchp:978-3-030-38640-5_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030386405

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-38640-5_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Management for Professionals from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().