Management Control Systems, Environmental Uncertainty, and Organizational Slack: Empirical Evidence

Abstract

This study examines the relations among management control systems (MCS), environmental uncertainty (EU), and organizational slack (OS). Given a firm's EU, managing OS requires the support of an appropriately designed MCS. Thus, for different levels of OS and EU, we examine two forms of MCS: budgetary control and performance measurement system encompassing both financial and nonfinancial measures. EU and OS were determined using archival data, and MCS data was obtained via a survey questionnaire to chief executive officers (CEOs). As hypothesized, the results show that, given firms’ EU, the two forms of control play distinct but different roles in managing OS.

Citation

Ghosh, D. and Lee Willinger, G. (2012), "Management Control Systems, Environmental Uncertainty, and Organizational Slack: Empirical Evidence", Epstein, M.J. and Lee, J.Y. (Ed.) Advances in Management Accounting (Advances in Management Accounting, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 87-117. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7871(2012)0000021010