Organisational Life Cycle Stages and Management Control Systems in Service Organisations

It is argued that service firms ’ control systems need to change throughout the life cycle stages to meet the varying needs of management. The challenge to most service organizations is to address their unique characteristics which had been identified to cause difficulties in controlling quality, measuring performance and controlling costs. Despite this challenge, a review of the literature suggests that the organizational life cycle variable is more researched in organizational studies, compared to Management Control Systems (MCS) studies. To fill in the gap, this study is undertaken to gain understanding of the MCS in mature and growing service firms. A survey methodology was employed. Questionnaires were administered to financial controllers of service organizations operating in Australia. Using t tests and multiple regression analysis, the results indicate that, mass service and mature firms place greater emphasis on more bureaucratic form of MCS as compared to professional service and growing firms