Management Control Systems in the Public Sector during Crises: An Institutional Logics Perspective
Sammanfattning: This paper examines the role of the management control system (MCS) in the Swedish Migration Agency during the European Migrant Crisis in 2015. The primary aim is to investigate how MCSs shape the ability to respond to crises in the public sector, an environment characterized by institutional complexity. In doing so, the study contributes to three literatures. First, we contribute to the literature on institutional logics by detailing how actors can enact multiple competing logics by hierarchically ordering them into principal and contrasting logics. Further, we suggest that time constraints during crises may affect actors' ability to enact multiple logics as they must shorten their decision-making process. Second, we contribute to the literature on institutional logics and MCSs by suggesting that institutional complexity may create difficulties in achieving internally consistent and balanced levers. We also demonstrate how logics may have led some actors to remain tightly coupled to the MCS during the crisis, while other actors decoupled. Third, we contribute to the literature on flexibility in public sector MCSs by suggesting that flexibility should be viewed as an outcome of a more holistic set of MCS practices, as opposed to focusing exclusively on budgeting or performance measurement. Our findings further suggest that the logics guiding actors and the management attention on changing the MCS during crises can enable public sector organizations to overcome inflexible MCSs.
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