Abstract
Normative control, or control through organizational culture, has been widely discussed since the 1960s in the management literature. Despite a growing body of research, the concept remains difficult to grasp in its multiple facets and is often approached in a partial and partisan way by scholars and practitioners alike. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive review of the abundant but fragmented literature on normative control, aimed at providing a holistic synthesis of the topic. We take stock of the literature, present descriptive statistics and unravel a chronology of four research streams, consisting of cultural optimists, critics, skeptics, and neo-critics. Our findings also identify and describe behavioral levers and organizational accelerators that encourage the use of normative control, as well as operational side-effects and behavioral inhibitors that discourage its use. We contribute to the literature by offering a unique integrative model of the opportunities and threats of normative control by highlighting their interconnections and tensions, leading to promising avenues for future research. In doing so, we wish to transcend ideological debates and bring clarity, nuance, and pragmatism to a concept that could help address pressing organizational challenges related to purpose, employee wellbeing and workplace culture.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Notes
While we excluded book references from our systematic search, we made an exception to incorporate, as part of the backward search, three book references which are widely listed in the literature and emblematic of the cultural optimists (Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters & Waterman, 1982) and cultural critics (Kunda, 1992) streams.
In case of doubt as to whether the article was out of scope, it remained included in the dataset until the next stage (see Fig. 3) of the systematic review.
This coding proceeds from our final selection of 79 articles. As soon as one (or more) citation(s) from an article substantially contributes to an element of the synthesis, we count this article for this element. An article can contribute to several elements of the synthesis, but it is counted only once for each element.
References
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We gratefully acknowledge the valuable support of Prof. Didier Van Caillie in the development of this paper.
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Appendix: Data extraction form
Appendix: Data extraction form
Article | Research outlet | Basic methodology | Data |
|---|---|---|---|
Ouchi and Price (1978) | Organizational Dynamics | Conceptual | n.a |
Peters (1978) | Organizational Dynamics | Conceptual | Findings derived from the author's experiences and experiments with large American and European corporations |
Ouchi (1979) | Management Science | Conceptual | n.a |
Deal and Kennedy (1982) | Addison-Wesley Publishing Company | Conceptual | Findings derived from the authors' experiences and experiments as consultants |
Peters and Waterman (1982) | Harper and Row | Conceptual | Findings derived from the authors' experiences and experiments with large American and European corporations |
White (1984) | Management Decision | Conceptual | n.a |
Lebas and Weigenstein (1986) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | n.a |
McDonough and Leifer (1986) | Journal of Product Innovation Management | Qualitative | Case studies on 12 new project developments in three organizations, interviews |
Ray (1986) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | n.a |
Knights and Willmott (1987) | International Studies of Management and Organization | Mixed—Conceptual and Qualitative | Case study in a medium-size U.K. life insurance company, observation |
Birnberg and Snodgrass (1988) | Accounting, Organizations and Society | Quantitative | Survey, data collected from 1051 respondents working in 22 large manufacturing and construction firms in Japan and US |
O’Reilly (1989) | California Management Review | Conceptual | n.a |
Kunda (1992) | Temple University Press | Mixed—Conceptual and Qualitative | Ethnographic study in a high-tech company in the US |
Barker (1993) | Administrative Science Quarterly | Qualitative | Ethnographic study in a US manufacturing company, enriched with interviews |
Willmott (1993) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | n.a |
Daniel et al. (1995) | Management Accounting Research | Quantitative | Survey, data collected from 1487 employees in Japanese and US firms |
Frenkel et al. (1995) | Work, Employment and Society | Conceptual | n.a |
Simons (1994) | Strategic Management Journal | Qualitative | Longitudinal case study with newly-appointed managers, interviews |
Leifer and Mills (1996) | Journal of Management | Conceptual | n.a |
Parker (1997) | Organization | Conceptual | n.a |
Sewell (1998) | Administrative Science Quarterly | Mixed—Conceptual and Qualitative | Illustrative case studies |
Gabriel (1999) | Human Relations | Conceptual | Extracts from existing case studies by other authors |
Grugulis et al. (2000) | Work, Employment and Society | Qualitative | Case study in an IT and security consulting firm in the UK, observations, interviews and secondary data |
Ezzamel et al. (2001) | Journal of Management Studies | Qualitative | Case study in a UK manufacturing industry, participant observation and interviews |
Alvesson and Willmott (2002) | Journal of Management Studies | Mixed—Conceptual and Qualitative | Two illustrative case studies from the authors’ own research |
Mulholland (2002) | Personnel Review | Qualitative | Case study in a UK call center, participant observation, observation, interviews |
Ainsworth and Cox (2003) | Organization Studies | Qualitative | Case study in two family-owned businesses, case records, document analysis, participant observation, site visits and interviews |
Robertson and Swan (2003) | Journal of Management Studies | Qualitative | Longitudinal case study in a small innovation consultancy, observation, interviews |
Kärreman and Alvesson (2004) | Organization | Qualitative | Case study in a large multinational IT/management consulting firm, participant observation, observation, secondary data, interviews |
Sundrum (2004) | International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics | Conceptual | n.a |
Rosenthal (2004) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | n.a |
McLoughlin et al. (2005) | Work, Employment and Society | Qualitative | Ethnography in a coke-making plant, enriched with semi-structured interviews |
Sisaye (2005a) | Leadership and Organization Development Journal | Conceptual | n.a |
Sisaye (2005b) | Leadership and Organization Development Journal | Conceptual | n.a |
Welch and Welch (2006) | International Business Review | Conceptual | n.a |
Weiskopf and Loacker (2006) | Management Revue | Conceptual | n.a |
Widener (2007) | Accounting, Organizations and Society | Quantitative | Survey to test a structural equation model, data collected from 122 chief financial officers |
Alvesson and Kärreman (2007) | Organization Science | Qualitative | Case study in a large consulting firm, interviews and observations |
Garrety (2008) | Journal of Business Ethics | Conceptual | n.a |
Costas and Fleming (2009) | Human Relations | Mixed—Conceptual and Qualitative | Case study in a global management consulting firm, interviews |
Carls (2009) | Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management | Qualitative | Case studies in four large-scale retailing companies in Italy, interviews |
Cushen (2009) | Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management | Qualitative | Ethnographic study in an Irish high-tech large company, enriched with interviews and secondary data |
Fleming and Sturdy (2009) | Employee Relations | Qualitative | Case study in a US-owned call center in Australia, interviews and observations |
Marginson (2009) | Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change | Qualitative | Case study in a UK based organization in global communications industry, interviews, questionnaire, observations and secondary data |
Morsing and Oswald (2009) | Corporate Governance | Qualitative | Case study on a Danish healthcare company |
Fleming and Sturdy (2011) | Human Relations | Qualitative | Case study in a US-owned call center in Australia, interviews and observations |
Harris and Ogbonna (2011) | Journal of Business Research | Quantitative | Survey, data collected from 259 respondents in the hospitality industry |
Costas (2012) | Journal of Management Inquiry | Qualitative | Case study in the UK “human competences” team of a large, global consulting firm, interviews |
Weiskopf and Munro (2012) | Organization | Conceptual | n.a |
Westwood and Johnston (2012) | Organization | Qualitative | Field study in an Australian state-owned lottery corporation, participant observation, observation |
Fleming (2013) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | n.a |
Kleine and Weißenberger (2014) | Journal of Management Control | Quantitative | Survey, data collected from 294 medium- to large-sized, cross-sectional German organizations |
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Colling, L., Ceulemans, K. A holistic view on the opportunities and threats of normative control: a literature review. J Manag Control 34, 275–316 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00187-023-00358-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00187-023-00358-x