Entrepreneurial Cognitive Styles and Configurations of Management Control Systems in SMEs
Advances in Management Accounting
ISBN: 978-1-83608-489-1, eISBN: 978-1-83608-488-4
Publication date: 6 September 2024
Abstract
This study explores the configurations of management control systems (MCSs) while taking into account entrepreneurial cognition styles (ECSs) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The objective is to understand the impact of ECS on deployment and identify the various modes of MCS configurations employed by SMEs. The authors draw on and synthesise two theoretical perspectives relating to cognition and management control packages to understand the associations between ECS and MCS employed by SMEs in managing their business. This study was conducted using a quantitative approach that utilises a questionnaire survey to collect cross-sectional data from 150 SMEs. The authors uncovered three cognitive styles: knowing (e.g. preciseness), planning (e.g. organising), and creativity (e.g. innovativeness). Furthermore, five configurations of MCS utilised by SMEs were identified: customer focus, performance monitoring, administrative focus, strategic focus, and development focus. By combining both analyses, the authors discovered three constellations of significant association between ECS and MCS characterised by Cluster 1’s cohesive integration approach, Cluster 2’s revealing strategic approach, and Cluster 3’s multifaceted exploration. The study is significant because it uncovers the complex relationship between ECS and MCS configurations, highlighting their interdependence within the institutional context. Using a cognitive view, the authors explore how the cognitive styles of entrepreneurs facilitated imprinting institutional context into MCS configurations. These insights enable us to envisage that ECS is not mutually exclusive but forms a continuum that provides more plausible explanations that relax the direct universal relationship between MCS configurations and contextual factors.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and Chris Akroyd, editor of Advances in Management Accounting, for valuable comments and suggestions that significantly improved the quality of the paper. Early versions also benefitted from conference presentations at the International Council for Small Business World Congress 2018, the 10th International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, October 2018, the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand – AFAANZ (2021) and the 53rd Conference of Decision Science Institute (DSI) – November (2022). Finally, we acknowledge that the study benefits from a research project grant from the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Qatar University: Reference code QUENT-CBE-003.
Citation
Ammar, S. and Hassan, M.K. (2024), "Entrepreneurial Cognitive Styles and Configurations of Management Control Systems in SMEs", Akroyd, C. (Ed.) Advances in Management Accounting (Advances in Management Accounting, Vol. 36), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 145-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-787120240000036006
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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