Managerial control is the function of the management whereby they execute duties such as goal setting, policymaking, deadline determination, criterion establishment, performance evaluation, and executive action. Managerial control is exercised using different techniques. One technique is known as mutual adjustment. Mutual adjustment is when a manager informs workers of what needs to be accomplished and then leaves them to accomplish the work. Another technique is direct supervision, whereby the approach is formal and the manager stays with workers and directs their activities in order to accomplish the work at hand. In organizations that use the standardized work process, managers and workers are all aware of the regulations, rules, and standard operating procedures. Managerial control in these situations depends on the workers adhering dogmatically to the rules and regulations (Grimsley, 2014). In firms that uses a standardized outputs, the managers advice the workers how much to produce in a given time frame. Workers are judged based on their output so they have wider attitude in making decisions about how best to proceed. In firms where education and training is important, the organization often utilizes a standardization of work skills approach. In this situation, the work tasks are doled out by management according to expertise, knowledge, and skills. These workers have more control over how they execute their tasks than workers in other environments (Grimsley, 2014). Because managers are supervising in a constantly changing environment, they use control factors to maintain organization stability. The workers who perform the jobs that keep the organization moving are a major factor in a manager’s daily work life. Workers are from different backgrounds, cultures, and genders. It is this diversity in the workforce that results in the social aspect of management that is especially challenging. Mangers must balance the needs and activities of their workers against the needs and demands of the organization. The organization is functioning in a larger economic context and dealing with competitors and marketplaces (Grimsley, 2014). II. CASE STUDY ARTICLES
A. Investment Firms Noe and Rebello (1997) discuss how a long-time management system deeply rooted in specific investment philosophies hinder and misrepresent the future progress of a firm. These types of entrenched managers have a narrow-minded view of new ideas presented by new workers. The managers control decisions and deliberately present warped variations of new ideas presented by workers. The more entrenched a management system and its managers have become in an investment firm, the more pervasive the practice of distortion and sabotage of new ideas. Additionally, these managers use their control over the organization to inflate the success and validity of the investment practices they are familiar with (Noe and Rebello, 1997). In “Renegotiation, Investment Horizons, and Managerial Discretion,” Noe and Rebello contend that the “impact of managerial opportunism on investment policies depends on the evolution of managerial productivity and how control rights over decisions are allocated between managers and shareholders” (1997, p 386). The longer the managers have been in place and the more income those managers have generated in the past significantly impacts the amount of managerial control they are able to exert and the amount of distortion they are willing to perform. Long-time managers have been able to set policies and procedures that advance their philosophies and power. Shareholders in investment firms that are controlled by long-time managers are less likely to question the manager’s judgments. In their evaluation of the “locus of control,” Noe and Rebello (1997) determined that in investment firms the managers who have been with the firm for a long time and have been successful believe that they should have the power to make major investments decisions and control investment activity. These managers have what is termed an overly internal locus of control because they have great influence with shareholders and how information is presented to shareholders. When investments go wrong, the managers who are in control place the blame elsewhere, on others or on extenuating circumstances. In this type of domineering environment workers outside of management were very bitter.
B. Manufacturing Plants Vallas (2003) contends in his article that the corporate world has changed in the last few decades. Corporate structures are different from the traditional system whereby a manager supervises a team of workers. However, even though non-managers have been encouraged to make some managerial style decisions, managerial control is still a strong element in corporate cultures. Vallas examined four manufacturing plants in which team members had been encouraged to take initiative. The study by Vallas took into account the “degree of managerial legitimacy, the salience of class boundaries, and instances of worker defiance in both traditional and team-based production areas” (2003, p 204). The results were that the decisions and initiative proposed by workers were not instituted or acted upon with any regularity. Additionally the study revealed that giving workers managerial responsibilities or inferring that they had an opportunity to make managerial style contributions caused resentment, doubt, and cynicism. This caused workers to develop “patterns of solidarity that were difficult for managers to control” (Vallas, 2003, p 204). It is ironic that according to the Vallas study the effort made by the manufacturing plants to be more team-oriented and to integrate workers into the decision-making process on a formal and informal basis actually created more distance between managers and workers. Workers were suspicious of the company’s motives for soliciting their input. Additionally, the very act of soliciting workers’ feedback caused workers to realize how little authority or participation they had in their daily work life. In the case of female workers who were asked for input they tended to draw together into an exclusively female group and discuss feminine things, thereby excluding male managers; and Vallas notes that “minority workers used racial solidarity as a shield against managerial control by whites” (Vallas, 2003, p 208).
C. Colleges and Universities At colleges and universities there is an assumption by some that these institutions have no bottom line and are not for profit. The authors of “That Adjunct Situation: Exploitation, Dilettantism, and the Downsizing of Academia”, begin by correcting that misapprehension. In today’s economy, universities and colleges are very much for profit organizations. They are functioning under more and more pressure to be profitable, as a result they have done what many other business organizations have done in the last decades, downsized their workforce. By downsizing, institutions of higher learning can increase their profitability (Swartzlander, et al., 1998). Traditionally, professors in academia were not held accountable for production in the same way as workers in other organizations. However, it has been several decades since universities and colleges started reducing tenured hires and began employing less expensive non-tenured professors and adjuncts. In general, most universities and colleges do not have strong labor unions backing their workers. As a result, those institutions have become corporatized. New management styles in higher education have been met with varying levels of hostility. Because tenured faculty is not unionized and adjunct faculty is not unionized and both faculties are competing for the same jobs, management has more power. Workers in academia are faced with changing forms of rules and regulations “based on flexible modes of capital accumulation and managerial control” (Swartzlander, et al., 1998, p 78). Universities and colleges are experiencing what the authors refer to as a permanent budget crisis. The reason that there is more and more pressure to operate profitably is because the economy of the entire country has moved to embrace managerial policies that support downsizing and a more affordable work force. University professors are hostile to the “ corporatization strategies such as flexible managerial control and shifts toward part-time work forces, the blind acceptance of the need for corporatist strategies of downsizing instruction in higher education only serves to strengthen the power of administrative management” (Swartzlander, et al., 1998, p 78).
III. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS Although the articles reviewed addressed managerial control issues at a wide variety of organizations, an investment firm, manufacturing companies, and higher education institutions, the results and conclusions were largely consistent. Workers do not like management and do not appreciate issues of managerial control. In the case of the investment firms managerial control was viewed as a negative because the managers in charge are resistant to new investment ideas and strategies. These long-time managers deliberately underplay the value of new strategies and play up the value of their own methods. Shareholders are misled or are not apprised of investment opportunities recommended by newer workers because the managers in charge control what is presented to the clients. In the case of the four manufacturing plants, the workers were resistance to different tactics used that were intended to include them in the decision-making process because they did not believe these overtures from management to be sincere. The hegemony in these organizations was so firmly in place that workers balked at the idea that management might give up some of its control. Instead, the workers thought that management was trying to trick them into some kind of misstep. In higher education the accusations against increased managerial control are that it disrupts what tenured professors’ view as their special status by treating them like managed professionals. This is the same way that doctors and lawyers who work for corporations are treated and they resent management as well. Adjunct faculty and tenured professors alike view management and administration with suspicion. Noe and Rebello (1997) used models and calculations to make their point about worker suspicion and managerial control abuse. Vallas (2003) and Swartzlander, et. al. (1998) supported their conclusions with anecdotal evidence. In the complex culture of the workplace, be it an investment firm, manufacturing plant, or university, there is amble opportunity to collect anecdotal evidence. This type of research is useful because of the human relationships and interactions involved. All of the articles were thoughtful and the evidence offered in the form of anecdotes is as persuasive as the evidence offered via anecdotes supported by measurements. While these studies reveal that managerial control is often viewed in a negative light by workers, it is an important part of leadership. An organization’s performance is determined by how well its managers lead and control its workers. Managers cannot control a lot of their environment. Nevertheless, their leadership is needed to direct workers. The fact that there is a general distrust of management by workers is a dilemma. Demographics do not seem to have as much impact on the situation as might be assumed. Highly educated professors were just as resentful of management and administration as the factory workers, and the investment agents who may be assumed to be making the most money of the employees surveyed resented their managers as much as their lower paid contemporaries in manufacturing and higher education. Mangers need to be accommodating and flexible when relating to all the different demographics and cultures in their workplace. Good management in organizations means knowing something about goal-setting and decision-making. It also means trying to figure out the best way to empower employees. That is the challenge in managerial control. How to control without aggravating an already suspicious workforce. Idealistic ideas about management and leadership may not get the workforce on board and functioning like a team.
References
Grimsley, Shawn. (2014). Managerial Control: Definition, Techniques & Types. Education Portal. Internet Resource.Noe, T. H., & Rebello, M. J. (January 01, 1997). Renegotiation, Investment Horizons, and Managerial Discretion. Journal of Business Chicago, 70, 3, 385-408.Swartzlander, L. A., Garcia, R., Sweeney, M., Dayton, B., Hunter, A. L., Stoll, P., Meija, S., Hoffman, H. (April 01, 1998). That Adjunct Situation: Exploitation, Dilettantism, and the Downsizing of Academia. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, 31, 3, 65-113.Vallas, S. P. (May 01, 2003). The Adventures of Managerial Hegemony: Teamwork, Ideology, and Worker Resistance. Social Problems, 50, 2, 204-225.
