The Impossibility Of Management Control Systems?

While the research in Management Control Systems (MCS) continues to grow; the authors return to question the underpinnings of MCS. Starting from Anthony (1965) they argue that the rational approach to management control relies upon the dominant discourse in management built on a cybernetic view of systems with known outcomes. Drawing from Stacey's view of an organization as a complex responsive process of relating then an organization is the daily interaction of the people that are part of it. This perspective privileges the social and the process of relationship and questions the presuppositions of mainstream management theory underpinning management control systems, namely the privileging of the individual and systems.