Conclusions

Chapter 9 draws implications from the previous chapters. To permeate the entire organisation, strategyStrategy should be visible and understandable. Co-workers throughout the organisation should be able to explain the organisation’s strategy to others. Those who want others to buy into their view on what is “the relevant organisation”—the unit that is to be controlled—need to present a credible and persuasive story of what and why. Both managers and co-workers should initiate strategic dialogues within the management control framework, so everyday activities are both guided by the strategy, and can provide impulses for changes in organisational focus. As management control increasingly guides the actions of the workforce, the importance of mutual dialogue between managers and co-workers will increase. One topic would be the reasonableness of achieving specified goals. Such dialogues are important parts in creating a perception of management control as a support, not a straitjacket. Controllers should dress their analyses in practice-relevant narratives, not just numbers, and engage in dialogue with people at different organisational levels, both to help them better see the implications of the numbers, and to help the controllers themselves grasp the work and the organisational setting that the numbers are intended to capture.