An evaluation of the completeness of Ferreira and Otley's (2009) performance management framework, using a multi-disciplinary approach.
This study considers the completeness of Ferreira and Otley's (2009) evaluative framework, designed to identify the performance management and management control issues in organisations. There is growing criticism in the literature that Ferreira and Otley's (2009) framework is essentially technocratic in nature, ignores socio-ideological controls such as organisational culture and clans, and needs to be combined with a social science perspective. Consequently, this study reviews the literature pertaining to certain socioideological controls, using a multi-disciplinary approach which focuses particularly on the social sciences. Combining insights obtained from the literature, the study then applies Ferreira and Otley's (2009) framework in an empirical case study setting, assessing the extent to which the framework can identify the performance management and control issues in a small South African knowledge-intensive company. Findings from the study suggest that Ferreira and Otley's (2009) framework is indeed deficient in that it is not able to identify cultural controls, clan controls and personnel controls. The possible implications of the cultural paradigm for control system design, contingency theory, and the general management control framework are also discussed.
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