Abernethy, Margaret and Mundy, Julia ORCID: 0000-0001-7970-3507 (2014) Uncertainty as a determinant of performance measurement and compensation systems: A review of the literature. In: Otley, D. and Soin, K., (eds.) Management Control and Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, pp. 114-133. ISBN 9781137392107

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Abstract

Management control is about the process of steering organisations through the environments in which they operate, to achieve both short-term and longer-term goals. These goals will differ from organisation to organisation because their stakeholder demands will be resolved in different ways, in part dependent on the relative power of different stakeholder groups in each context, and also on the past history and trajectory of the organisation. However, the longer-term goals will almost inevitably include the survival of the enterprise itself, as this generally is in the interests of most stakeholder groups, most of the time.
In addition, the environment in which organisations operate is itself constantly changing and may be very difficult to predict. Thus, the context within which organisation is being steered is highly uncertain and may change, sometimes quite quickly and radically. It is a moot point as to whether the rate of environmental change, or the degree of uncertainty which organisation now have to face, has increased in recent years. We certainly seem to perceive it as increasing, although this may be partly due to the future being less predictable than the past. It is always difficult to try and look back and envisage how previous situations we face looked at the time, without having our perception coloured by the way events actually turned out, and the consequences for ourselves.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Management control, Uncertainty, Performance management, Compensation
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Business > Department of Accounting & Finance
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2020 14:12
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/13317

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