Research Handbook on Organizational Control
Published on 26. May 2026
Book
Hardback
494 pages
978-1-0353-2013-4 (ISBN)
Description
This timely Research Handbook explores the functions and systems of organizational control, which are crucial for organizational success. In light of rapid and disruptive change that has eroded established knowledge of best practices, leading scholars assemble new ideas as to how to combat these emerging challenges.
Chapters analyze various key research agendas relating to organizational control, including configurational structures, technology, new work environments, and systems for ascending organizational forms. Adopting a transdisciplinary perspective, contributors explore a diverse range of subject areas, such as holistic orientation, multi-outcome emphases, and generative spirit. The Handbook provides valuable insights on the dynamic external environments faced by organizations today, highlighting areas for future research, such as how AI and datafication can be managed to respect human agency and societal legitimacy.
The conceptual contributions, exploratory quantitative research, and qualitative case studies presented in this Research Handbook are of great benefit to scholars and students of business, particularly those in the disciplines of management and organizations, management information systems, and managerial accounting.
Chapters analyze various key research agendas relating to organizational control, including configurational structures, technology, new work environments, and systems for ascending organizational forms. Adopting a transdisciplinary perspective, contributors explore a diverse range of subject areas, such as holistic orientation, multi-outcome emphases, and generative spirit. The Handbook provides valuable insights on the dynamic external environments faced by organizations today, highlighting areas for future research, such as how AI and datafication can be managed to respect human agency and societal legitimacy.
The conceptual contributions, exploratory quantitative research, and qualitative case studies presented in this Research Handbook are of great benefit to scholars and students of business, particularly those in the disciplines of management and organizations, management information systems, and managerial accounting.
Reviews / Votes
'Organizational control used to be simple, straightforward, and hierarchical. But that has changed, as Cardinal, Kreutzer, and Miller make clear. Drawing together wide-ranging scholarly perspectives, their rigorous yet accessible volume offers fresh insights on organizational control that bridge micro and macro perspectives and integrate digital-age realities. A significant, overdue contribution.' -- Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Johns Hopkins University, USA 'This outstanding volume shows how organizational control must evolve in the age of algorithms, platforms, and sustainability. Richly multidisciplinary and forward-looking, it sets the agenda for the next generation of control research, teaching, and practice.' -- Sebastian Raisch, University of Geneva, Switzerland 'A timely and forward-looking volume that reframes organizational control for an era of turbulence and technological disruption. Multidisciplinary and penetrating, it equips leaders with actionable insight, while providing scholars with the multiplex analytical depth needed to interpret - and shape - research on these ever-changing processes, systems, and platforms so central to organizational effectiveness.' -- Peter Bamberger, Tel Aviv University, Israel 'This timely, inspiring volume gathers leading scholars to advance the field of organizational control research through rigorous conceptual and empirical work. It offers a sought-after springboard for deepening our understanding of organizational control and shaping the next wave of inquiry. Simply put: a must read!' -- Marc Gruber, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, SwitzerlandMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cheltenham
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 169 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-0353-2013-4 (9781035320134)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Edited by Laura B. Cardinal, SmartState Endowed Chair and Innovation + Commercialization Center Director, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, USA, Markus Kreutzer, Professor of Strategic and International Management, EBS Business School, EBS Universitaet fuer Wirtschaft und Recht, Germany and C. Chet Miller, C.T. Bauer Professor of Organizational Studies, Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, USA
Content
Contents
Preface xix
PART I INTRODUCTION
1 Organizational control in and around organizations: an introduction to the Research Handbook on Organizational Control 2
Laura B. Cardinal, Markus Kreutzer and C. Chet Miller
PART II EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL: TRUST, TECHNOLOGY, AND STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
2 The control-trust literature: beyond the micro-macro faultline 19
Christopher P. Long, Fabrice Lumineau and Sim B. Sitkin
3 Grabbing the wheel: information availability and shared responsibility in decisions to control in trust relationships 38
Gary A. Ballinger, F. David Schoorman and Kinshuk Sharma
4 Crossing the borders of normality: how and why supervisory control actions engender distrust and loss of control effectiveness 54
Katinka Bijlsma-Frankema, Susanne Taeuber, Evelien Croonen and Joost van de Brake
5 Sensing and organizational control 73
Shiko M. Ben-Menahem
6 Strategic levers: the impact of board-controlled CEO succession planning processes on organizational outcomes 87
Anthony J. Nyberg, Patrick M. Wright and Ipsu Khadka
7 Culture and control: building stories to align a firm's strategies and culture 109
Jay B. Barney, Manoel Amorim and Carlos Julio
PART III ALGORITHMIC CONTROL
8 Algorithmic control in platform and non-platform work contexts: structural differences and wicked control problems 124
Martin Wiener, W. Alec Cram and Alexander Benlian
9 Beyond humans: exploring algorithmic control in 21st-century organizations 139
Jorge Walter and Markus Kreutzer
10 Designing control systems: from Weber to platform organizations and artificial intelligence 163
Richard M. Burton, Borge Obel and Dorthe Dojbak Hakonsson
11 So test, therefore, who joins forever - deciphering consistency of datafication technology, leadership, and institutional logic configurations for meeting 21st-century challenges 183
Simon Schafheitle and Antoinette Weibel
12 Configurations of internal and external control in police organizations adopting predictive policing technology 201
Henrik Dosdall and Stefanie Buechner
13 Trust, organizational control, and the emergence of collective human capital resources: the impact of AI 216
M. Audrey Korsgaard, Yoojin Jeong and Robert E. Ployhart
PART IV INTEGRATING INFORMATION PROCESSING, CREATIVITY, R&D, AND AUTONOMY IN ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL PERSPECTIVES
14 An information-processing perspective of organizational controls 236
Mona V. Makhija
15 The control of organizational creativity 252
Isabella Grabner and Gerhard Speckbacher
16 Control dynamics for R&D units in the MNC: from local to global innovation 268
Kazuhiro Asakawa, Bjoern Ambos and Tina C. Ambos
17 Control and autonomy in management and organizations research 287
Vanessa M. Conzon and Poonam H. Zantye
PART V INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL-ALLIANCES, DIGITAL PLATFORMS, AND ECOSYSTEMS
18 William Ouchi and the shift from control to governance in the study of inter-organizational relationships 307
William S. Hesterly
19 Control in digital platforms 314
Christoph Lechner and Alexander Goeritz
20 Control in ecosystems: an evolutionary perspective 330
Stefano Brusoni and Anja Schulze
21 Human resource controls within a workforce ecosystem 347
Scott A. Snell, Shad S. Morris and Kirsi Jarvis
PART VI ACCOUNTING AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
22 Configuring performance measurement systems for organizational innovation 370
David S. Bedford
23 Accounting-based perspectives on performance management 391
Ralph W. Adler
24 Sharing insights across disciplines: leveraging research from the management accounting literature on the levers of control 410
Lucia Bellora-Bienengraeber, Roland F. Spekle and Sally K. Widener
PART VII SUSTAINABILITY AND RELIABILITY - EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF CONTROL
25 Expanding conceptualizations of sustainability control - moving beyond managerial design for improving sustainable workplace behaviors and performance 428
Leanne Johnstone, Peter Beusch and Jonas Gerdin
26 Organizational control for catastrophic risk mitigation and organizational reliability 448
Peter M. Madsen
Preface xix
PART I INTRODUCTION
1 Organizational control in and around organizations: an introduction to the Research Handbook on Organizational Control 2
Laura B. Cardinal, Markus Kreutzer and C. Chet Miller
PART II EVOLVING DYNAMICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL: TRUST, TECHNOLOGY, AND STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
2 The control-trust literature: beyond the micro-macro faultline 19
Christopher P. Long, Fabrice Lumineau and Sim B. Sitkin
3 Grabbing the wheel: information availability and shared responsibility in decisions to control in trust relationships 38
Gary A. Ballinger, F. David Schoorman and Kinshuk Sharma
4 Crossing the borders of normality: how and why supervisory control actions engender distrust and loss of control effectiveness 54
Katinka Bijlsma-Frankema, Susanne Taeuber, Evelien Croonen and Joost van de Brake
5 Sensing and organizational control 73
Shiko M. Ben-Menahem
6 Strategic levers: the impact of board-controlled CEO succession planning processes on organizational outcomes 87
Anthony J. Nyberg, Patrick M. Wright and Ipsu Khadka
7 Culture and control: building stories to align a firm's strategies and culture 109
Jay B. Barney, Manoel Amorim and Carlos Julio
PART III ALGORITHMIC CONTROL
8 Algorithmic control in platform and non-platform work contexts: structural differences and wicked control problems 124
Martin Wiener, W. Alec Cram and Alexander Benlian
9 Beyond humans: exploring algorithmic control in 21st-century organizations 139
Jorge Walter and Markus Kreutzer
10 Designing control systems: from Weber to platform organizations and artificial intelligence 163
Richard M. Burton, Borge Obel and Dorthe Dojbak Hakonsson
11 So test, therefore, who joins forever - deciphering consistency of datafication technology, leadership, and institutional logic configurations for meeting 21st-century challenges 183
Simon Schafheitle and Antoinette Weibel
12 Configurations of internal and external control in police organizations adopting predictive policing technology 201
Henrik Dosdall and Stefanie Buechner
13 Trust, organizational control, and the emergence of collective human capital resources: the impact of AI 216
M. Audrey Korsgaard, Yoojin Jeong and Robert E. Ployhart
PART IV INTEGRATING INFORMATION PROCESSING, CREATIVITY, R&D, AND AUTONOMY IN ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL PERSPECTIVES
14 An information-processing perspective of organizational controls 236
Mona V. Makhija
15 The control of organizational creativity 252
Isabella Grabner and Gerhard Speckbacher
16 Control dynamics for R&D units in the MNC: from local to global innovation 268
Kazuhiro Asakawa, Bjoern Ambos and Tina C. Ambos
17 Control and autonomy in management and organizations research 287
Vanessa M. Conzon and Poonam H. Zantye
PART V INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL CONTROL-ALLIANCES, DIGITAL PLATFORMS, AND ECOSYSTEMS
18 William Ouchi and the shift from control to governance in the study of inter-organizational relationships 307
William S. Hesterly
19 Control in digital platforms 314
Christoph Lechner and Alexander Goeritz
20 Control in ecosystems: an evolutionary perspective 330
Stefano Brusoni and Anja Schulze
21 Human resource controls within a workforce ecosystem 347
Scott A. Snell, Shad S. Morris and Kirsi Jarvis
PART VI ACCOUNTING AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
22 Configuring performance measurement systems for organizational innovation 370
David S. Bedford
23 Accounting-based perspectives on performance management 391
Ralph W. Adler
24 Sharing insights across disciplines: leveraging research from the management accounting literature on the levers of control 410
Lucia Bellora-Bienengraeber, Roland F. Spekle and Sally K. Widener
PART VII SUSTAINABILITY AND RELIABILITY - EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF CONTROL
25 Expanding conceptualizations of sustainability control - moving beyond managerial design for improving sustainable workplace behaviors and performance 428
Leanne Johnstone, Peter Beusch and Jonas Gerdin
26 Organizational control for catastrophic risk mitigation and organizational reliability 448
Peter M. Madsen