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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance pp 1–5Cite as

Organizational Control

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Synonyms

Management control

Definition

Organizational control refers to processes by which agents are able to establish and maintain control over an organization. It comprises the strategic planning process as well as methods and devices that make other agents’ behaviors consistent with objectives.

Historically, managers have been considered to be the trustees of organizational control. However, in this paper, it is argued that managers are not alone in the quest for control (Child 2005; Deetz 1992) and that organizational control is both a source of power and of power struggles in contemporary organizations.

Consequently, it is argued that organizational control is a social construction and that it is best defined in the following terms: a set of practices of integration that regulates social activities (human work) in a social system (organization) that it is both the process and the result of elements that support and constrain its constitution (Briand 2001, 2004).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research on Social Innovations, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Gatineau, Québec, Canada

    Louise Briand

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  1. Louise Briand
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Correspondence to Louise Briand .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Briand, L. (2016). Organizational Control. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_116-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_116-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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