Styrelsens användning av styrmedel -en jämförelse mellan entreprenöriella och icke-entreprenöriella företag

Abstract

Management control systems are a popular area of research and a lot of new research has been done over the past years. This development has been looking into new situations and circumstances, and interdisciplinary studies are being made to further understand the connection between different fields of study. A new field of study that has grown significantly over the past few years is the connection between management control systems and entrepreneurship. Leading researchers have proposed a number of questions for further research and one of them is the board of directors’ use of management control systems in entrepreneurial firms. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities in the board of directors’ use of management control systems between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms. The study was conducted as a deductive qualitative study through interviews with respondents from entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial firms. The interviews consisted primarily of Malmi and Brown’s (2008) model of management control systems as a package. This model was accompanied with influences from empirical studies of the link between management control systems and entrepreneurship. The empirical data collected from the conducted interviews were analyzed, and with a focus on similarities and differences between the firms, the material was categorized according to the model of MCS as a package. Significant differences and similarities were mainly identified in performance measuring, cultural control, interaction between management and the board of directors, reward and compensation systems, and long-term planning. The study showed that entrepreneurial firms tend to concentrate their focus on cultural control and a continuous communication between management and the board of directors. Furthermore, management in entrepreneurial firms have more power than non-entrepreneurial firms, and they regularly report to and seek advice from the board of directors. These entrepreneurial firms have shown virtually no long-term planning and performance measurements are used with governing purpose to a small extent. In contrast, non-entrepreneurial firms showed a significant focus on performance measuring and long-term planning. Management had less power and the interaction between management and the board of directors primarily occurred on planned meetings. The board of directors in non-entrepreneurial firms did not use cultural control as an active part of their control package of management control systems and instead regarded it as something that should grow undisrupted within the firm.