Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

How Do Corporate Social Goals Materialize in Management Control Systems? An Exploratory Study in German Family Businesses

• In Event: Break and Research Exhibition 1
  In Paper Session: Room 1

Abstract

Increasing demands from stakeholders and legislation are forcing companies to make sustainability a core part of their corporate strategy. Consequently, this development induces a need for change and adaptation in management control systems (MCSs). However, the literature is lacking in investigations of the social aspect of sustainability in this regard. Our study aims to fill this void by exploring how corporate social goals materialize in MCSs. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with managers from German family businesses, we specifically focus on social goals as one aspect of sustainability and examine their materialization in MCSs. We contribute to the literature by providing an overview of control mechanisms that companies explicitly apply to manage social goals in order to align employee behavior with their social goal orientation. We find a dominant role of cultural controls in such endeavors.

Authors

• Marvin Kalla, International Performance Research Institute

• Mischa Seiter, Ulm University