دانلود رایگان مقاله مدیریت توسعه پایدار با سیستم کنترل مدیریت

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to synthesize evidence of management control systems (MCS) that are employed by organizations to enforce sustainable development (SD). We aim at suggesting a roadmap for coherent research. For this, we conduct a ‘systematic’ review based on an initial sample of 12,139 sources between 1988 and 2013. We then discuss 83 empirical studies in natural and social sciences. The MCS framework of Malmi and Brown (2008) ensures a comprehensive understanding of SD enforcement in practice. We identify diverse types of controls that organizations use to enforce SD. Our findings problematize examples where the MCS is unable to appropriately address all relevant aspects of SD. We find that organizations prefer to manage and control smaller aspects of SD, such as environmental responsibility. Social responsibility is addressed less frequently, and only few organizations implement a sustainable MCS (SMCS) that addresses all aspects of SD. Classic ‘cybernetic’ controls are the preferred choice in MCS, but organizations have advanced beyond them during the past decade. Our main contribution is a structured map of contemporary research that points to areas where our understanding of SMCSs is still scarce, such as their interplay with contextual factors and the resulting, long-term performance effects.

7. Contributions and limitations

This paper addresses the research question: “Which management control systems do organizations apply to manage and evaluate sustainable development?” Based on our systematic literature review of 83 journal, conference and book contributions dealing with environmental, social, or sustainable MCS from 1988 to July 2013, we find that SMCS has attracted increasing attention over the past 10 years. We make several contributions to research and practice. 7.1. Contributions to research First, we use reproducible criteria to identify 83 seminal studies in the field of SD enforcement, and then structure them by their contributions using the framework of Malmi and Brown (2008). We also contribute by comparing these studies to each other and thereby constructing a comprehensive map of knowledge about this field in both narratives and tabular overviews. Researchers that would like to work in this field, or judge contributions, can profit from our categorizations and highlighted research gaps. We thereby complete other maps of related research, such as the reviews on the general conceptualization of SMCS (Burritt & Schaltegger, 2010; Gond et al., 2012), the conceptualization of SD (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012), contemporary topics on MCS (Berry et al., 2009), SMCS and strategy (Crutzen & Herzig, 2013; LangfieldSmith, 1997), green human resource management (Renwick, Redman, & Maguire, 2013), and the influence of contextual variables on MCS design (Chenhall, 2003).