Organizational Control
Processes by which an organization influences its subunits and members to behave in ways that lead to the attainment of organizational goals and objectives
Why do we need organizational control?
It is the aspect that keeps the organization running it dose this by:
- monitoring people, operations, and external activities
- Providing effective control requires good communication and feedback among team members
- Action may or may not be taken based on control information
The Control Process
Occurs in four steps
- Establish Control Standards
- Measure peoples performance
- Compare their performance to the standards
- Take corrective action as needed
Starbucks Control Process
They do an excellent job of asking customers what they think the organization should focus on, they then have customers vote on the most important criteria and then use control to make everything run smoothly
Benefits of Control
- Cost and Productivity
- Quality Improvement
- Opportunity Recognition
- Better Management of Uncertainty
- Decentralized Decision Making
DOBQC
Do Onions Bring Quality Costs?
Levels of Organizational Control
Strategic Control and Operational Control
Costs of Control
- Financial Costs
- Damage to culture and reputation
- Decreased responsiveness / Organizational Agility
- Implementation may not turn out as intended
Strategic Control
Primarily based around general control measures to ensure that things occurring in the business are on track each day. It is done to make sure that things are generally on track.
It is characterized by four methods:
- Premise Control
- Implementation Control
- Special Alerts
- Surveillance Control
Premise Control
Opportunity to check and revise assumptions
Implementation Control
Tracking progress of goals and objectives
Special Alerts
Setting minimum performance standards and problem spotting
Surveillance Controls
Scanning for critical events in environments
Organizational Control
These are hyper specific interventions that are pertain directly to certain business units, projects or tasks. An example of quality control on the production line or an ROA on an investment.
Feedforward
Looking Forward
Feedback
Looking Back
Behavioral Control Orientation
Feedforward > Organizational Culture
Concurrent > Hands on Management
Feedback > Customer Satisfaction / Employee Engagement
Outcome Control Oreintation
Feedforward > Demand Forecasting
Concurrent > Real time “Speed to Market”
Feedback > Accounting statements and profitability measures
Harvard Case Study
The professor of this class said, hey, you are not allowed to collaborate. This is an example of feed forward behavioral control because you are trying to control the future.
What could Harvard do better?
- Clarifying Expectations
- Role of Culture
- Seeking Feedback
