RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT CONTROL 287
systems theory, such approaches rarely inform empirical research work. Perhaps
the most important contribution these disciplines can make is to broaden the
horizons of management control researchers to include an appreciation of the
overall context within which their work is located. The issues of the appropriate
level of analysis, the definition of systems boundaries and the nature of systems
goals deserve much more thorough attention. Even more importantly, the idea
of control in an open system facing a complex and uncertain environment is also
central for the design of effective systems to assist organizations to survive.
Current issues
Our suggestions here are seen partly as an attempt to raise important issues which
appear under researched at present and partly to promote the use of broader
theoretical and methodological perspectives. Our argument is that the closed and
functionalist perspective which stillpredominates needs to be extended.
We see the environment of control as changing, we also see it as of central
importance and it is this to which we first turn. Although there have been attempts
to broaden the scope of what is perceived as part of a control system (notably
by Hopwood, 1974b, Merchant, 1985, and Lowe and Machin, 1983), a narrow
financially biased perspective still dominates much of the control literature. The
management literature has relatively recently emphasized ideas such as the bal-
anced scorecard (predated by many years in France by the ‘tableau de bord’)
where non-financial measures (e.g. customer, operations and innovation perspec-
tives) are placed alongside traditional financial measures (Kaplan and Norton,
1992). The range of what is included as a management control is being extended
with studies of performance-related pay, operational and process controls, and
the whole issue of the management of corporate culture. However, studies of the
overall practice of control, integrating the whole range of such functional controls,
within particular organizations are still scarce. It should be clearly recognized that
such attempts raise considerable methodological problems, of both a practical and
theoretical nature. From a practical point of view, there is the issue of the extent
to which a single researcher (or even a small team) can come to grips with such
a wide range of practices in a sensible timescale. Such work would seem to be
necessarily case study based, which raises issues of generalizability.
More fundamentally, it raises epistemological issues regarding the nature of
theory in this field (Otley and Berry, 1994). It may well be that applied problem-
solving methodologies are all that can be expected at high levels of resolution
such as those necessary when observing practice within single organizations.
Nevertheless, it is also our belief that the insight such attempts would provide
would form an important basis for subsequent theoretical development. Another
potentially fruitful approach is that of ‘middle range thinking’, as proposed by
Laughlin (1995), which is both rooted in the critical tradition and strikes a balance
between the notions of reality and subjectivity. This type of theory involves the
use of skeletal frameworks which are then ‘fleshed out’ with empirical details of
particular situations.
The recognition of the importance of the environment raises another important
issue, the relationships across the boundary of what has traditionally been seen as