Management Control for Sustainability: The Development of a Fully Integrated Strategy

Managers struggle to translate sustainability strategies into actions. This study examines the use of a management control system (MCS) and sustainability control system (SCS) to support the implementation of an integrated sustainability strategy. It is based on in-depth interviews with key finance and sustainability managers in a Swedish global industrial company. We draw upon the levers of control (LOC) concept to analyze the organization’s use of MCS and SCS. The interactive components of the firm’s SCS are characterized by dialogue between strategic and tactical level managers in a non-invasive environment. Thus, the firm deploys these strategic performance controls in an enabling as opposed to a constraining fashion. Strategic validity controls, however, are only well-developed for a subset of the firm’s products and services. These findings suggest that the manner in which an organization deploys interactive controls within its SCS is influenced strongly by the organization’s culture and the industry in which it operates. The organization’s MCS and SCS exhibit technical integration, but faces challenges with respect to organizational and cognitive integration. Yet, technical integration appears to compensate in part for the lack of integration along the other two dimensions. This study contributes to an emerging body of research that adapts management control frameworks to examine the relationship between strategy and sustainability.