Out of Control
Control is a managerial process that directs the activities of individuals toward the achievement of organizational goals. Types include bureaucratic, market, clan, and standard controls.
Bureaucratic control involves the use of rules, standards, regulations, hierarchy, and authority to guide performance. Examples include budgets, statistics reports and performance appraisals. Three approaches to bureaucratic control include feedforward, concurrent and feedback control.
Market control involves prices, competition, and exchange relationships to regulate activities. Examples include stores that sell goods or services. Clan control is based on the idea that employees share the values, expectations and goals of the organization and behave accordingly. This method of control does not assume employees and organizations naturally share the same interests. Standard control involves setting performance expectations and comparing employee performance to those standards. Performance data comes from written or oral reports and personal observations. Managers may look for exceptions to these targets.
Direct Video Link: The Control Processopens in a new window (4:28)
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Managers may use one or more types of control to achieve organizational goals. Control systems must be based on valid performance standards. However, employees must recognize the relationship between their actions and achieving the goal. Without employee buy-in, employees may engage in nonproductive behaviors or try to “beat the system”. These employees may object to corporate monitoring or have poor morale. Managers may mitigate these behaviors by informing employees of the goal, provide them with the tools and information needed to make behavior changes and incentive achievements. Organizations also use the balanced scorecard approach to report multiple performance measures. These efforts provide a broad picture of the organization’s performance.