Action control system and new public management in public sector organization: an in-depth case study
Keywords:
Management control system, action control system, new public management, public sector organization, AustraliaAbstract
This study is about the exploration of action control system, a component of management control system in the context of New Public Management (NPM) initiatives. The NPM initiatives created the changes to the structure and processes of public sector organisations with the objective of getting them to run better. A Government Department in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has been adopted as a field of investigation for the purpose of this exploration. This study investigated how the action control technologies have been implicated in the organisational environment within this department. Considering management control systems are socially constructed Giddens’ structuration theory is adopted in this study to obtain a better understanding of human actions and to explore how these control systems are implicated in the wider social context through time. This study used a single case with strong naturalistic and interpretive interests. Since the nature of the present research is explorative and the focus of this research is to study in depth of a particular phenomenon qualitative research methodology has been chosen to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon. The study revealed that a number of action control tools have been introduced to guide the employees and to act for the best interest of the organisation.
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