Management control as a system or a package? Conceptual
and empirical issues
Despite the trend in investigating combinations of MC practices that form packages or systems,
there is ambiguity about what is meant by a ‘‘control package’’ or ‘‘control system’’.
In this paper, we address questions related to MC as a package and as a system, both from a
conceptual and empirical perspective. The purpose of our study is to clarify a number of
issues, so as to guide future research in this area. We do not claim to have all the answers.
Rather we make a number of assumptions explicit to show when it is important to address
multiple MC practices simultaneously, why this is the case, and what the empirical implications
are. Our research directly relates to the systems approach to contingency theory
and the literature’s struggle to clearly define its most fundamental concept, i.e., ‘‘internal
consistency’’. Our analysis provides a formal definition of ‘‘internal consistency’’ and shows
how it can be used to conceptualize MC systems, thereby giving contingency theorists the
necessary ingredient to move forward.