A Critical Perspective on Trust & Management Control Concepts

Abstract

Purpose – This article critically examines concepts of trust and concepts of management control particularly for themself and together. Some of the most prominent/influential concepts, and the underlying assumptions behind them, are problematized and re-conceptualized in order to generate new research questions. Design/methodology/approach – A theorizing methodology is used, including the analysis and problematization of the content of important concepts found, which is grounded in the imperative literature of the fields. Findings – Two rather distinct research perspectives, hence a ‘rational or behaviour and action oriented’ versus an ‘emotional and values and belief oriented’ can be made out in the research field of management control and the field of trust but also the fields combining these research areas. Particular researchers’ use of specific constructs, and the absence of conflicting constructs within the same perspective, demonstrates that reality out there is still mainly described in two different ways. However, both ways ignore some aspects of reality and the world as it is in practice. One interesting finding describes how trust could be seen as a ‘package’ as well, the same way as we in the field are speaking about ‘management control packages’ (Malmi & Brown, 2008). Originality/value – Several new models illustrate the re-conceptualized constructs of trust and management control, for itself and together. These models must be further evaluated in order to achieve real validity and can as such, in this paper only be seen as provocative. The aim with this stimulation is to generate truly new research questions and this with help of ‘thinking outside the box’ as this research is not supposed to be ‘footnote-on-footnote research’ (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2011).