How The Work Of Controlles Has Changed During Covid-19

Reflection notes week. How the work of controllers has changed during covid. Which tools are more and more used. What are the effects on planning in organizations.

This week’s lecture presented key terms in relation to digitalization and digitalization in connection to MAC. Also, an article discussing control in times of covid-19 was briefly presented. The task of reading the article and answer some related questions was to be conducted individually. Therefore, I have chosen the questions related to the article as a basis for this week’s reflection note.

Goretzki and Kraus (2020) argues that in times of crisis, for example the covid-19 crisis, organisations need to conclude at the right balance between diagnostic and interactive control systems. Diagnostic controls being a set of KPIs that are of great interest for management in regard to goal achievement. Goretzki and Kraus draws a line between diagnostic controls and cybernetic controls. Cybernetic controls are previously covered in this course through the application of the Malmi and Brown management control framework. Given the degree of uncertainty in times of crisis, it is challenging to know how realistic it is to achieve pre-defined targets and plans before the crisis. Performance expectations become blurred. It is therefore important to incorporate interactive controls in addition to the described diagnostic controls. The former includes focus on strategic uncertainties, identifying how a crisis could affect an organisation. This also include the inclusion of employees in drafting new strategies through interactive face-to-face communication, debates, and dialog.

For crisis management, multi-dimensional performance scoreboard and traditional budgets are tools used.