Implications of the New Manufacturing Environment for Management Control System Design

The modern manufacturing environment is characterized by intense international competition, rapid product innovation, turnover and obsolescence, increased use of automation, and significant organizational changes in response to new manufacturing technologies.It is generally accepted that these changes in the manufacturing environment should be accompanied by changes in performance evaluation and reward systems to derive higher performance.However, it is very complicated to identify the required design of a management control system in such a new environment.This paper gives a review of the relevant conceptual and empirical research in this field.It is concluded that evidence on the extent to which organizations have aligned management control systems with the manufacturing environment is both limited and inconclusive.Furthermore, some problems and issues related to the existing literature are addressed and perspectives for future research are indicated.The paper ends with propositions about the relationship between manufacturing environment and choice of management control systems.