How to Dress for Success: A case study on the role of management control systems in managing the trinity of challenges inherent in the fashion industry

Sammanfattning: This paper aims to investigate how MCS can manage inherent challenges in the fashion industry. This was examined by conducting an in-depth qualitative case study of a Swedish fashion chain, in which the role of MCS in managing tensions between the challenges of creativity, low cost and speed, was investigated. Selected parts of Tessier and Otley's (2012) theoretical management control framework were used as theoretical lenses. The findings indicate social controls to have a significant role in managing tensions since these controls proved to be able to address dual opposing control objectives. Moreover, the speed, at which fashion trends changes seems to have resulted in a dominant short-term focus, which strategic control systems proved insufficient to counterbalance. However, the empirical data indicates that a certain social control, with the features of having dual objectives and addressing both operational and strategic level, helped create long-term thinking within the organisation to some extent. Furthermore, an additional tension was identified in the Tessier and Otley (2012) framework: the tension between operational short-term focus and strategic long-term focus.