Management control packages in public sector organizations
How can public sector managers make sure that employees stay motivated and do their jobs well? Which types of management control (MC) do they use, and which effect has the presence of austerity measures on the use of these types of MC? Using interviews, observations, document analyses, literature and survey research, this thesis examines these questions. At least three conclusions can be drawn on the basis of this thesis.
First, in times of austerity, managers are more likely to resort to stricter, result-oriented types of MC. These types of MC focus particularly on the achievement of results by employees, but have strong limitations in the public sector because the limited measurability of output in that context.
Second, some types of MC can conflict with each other when they are used simultaneously. For instance, sometimes managers create and reinforce a friendly and informal culture, while at the same time they try to make employees more accountable for the work they do. The informal culture may then reduce the possibility of managers to make employees accountable for their work, and simultaneously, this increased accountability may erode the informal culture.
Third, MC can have the character of a selffulfilling prophecy. When managers for instance assume that their employees shirk and are effort averse, and therefore employ more constraining types of MC, such as monitoring their behavior more intensively, employees are more likely to show this type of effort-averse behavior. In other words: the MC you are subjected to defines you – to some extent.