Management Control: A Process that Creates Organizational Meaning

Purpose - The present article uses Checkland and Holwell’s (Checkland and Holwell, 1998) POM Model to describe how the workings of management control can be understood in a company. Design/methodology/approach - The model departs from employee’s wish to act in a meaningful way. From a data-rich surrounding, they select information to which they then attribute meaning in collaboration with other employees in the organization. This process of organizational unification around an interpretation forms the basis for decisions and actions that can be regarded as a process that creates organizational meaning. Interviews with three different organizations supply the data for three examples regarding how to describe this organizational sensemaking. Findings - The examples show that individuals in an organization can contribute to resulting meaningful actions. Their shared goals and values form the basis of interpretations of information and impressions collected by the organization’s employees can be described as a management control process. Originality/value - The meaning of the conceptmanagement control has varied over time. The original definition, in some respects normative, has been challenged in recent years in favour of a more behaviourist-oriented definition