Determinants of Organizational Slack in a Company with Decentralized Structure
Keywords:
Organizational slack. Controllers. Managers. Business units. Decentralized structure.Abstract
The goal of this study is to identify the determinants of the organizational slack in a company with decentralized structure, with emphasis on how the controllers in the business units affect the slack. Was conducted a descriptive research, with quantitative approach through a survey, using a survey instrument designed by Indjejikian and Matëjka (2006), which consists of two questionnaires, one for managers and one for the controller of each business unit (BU). The company object of study presents decentralized structure in 45 BU, of which 32 answered the questionnaires. The survey results indicate that the performance targets, when the growth of the BU is caused by the increase in the sales and market share, sacrificing the return on investment in the short and medium term, are easier to reach and allow greater organizational slack than in more stable BU situations. Also, they indicate that the organizational slack is higher in environments characterized by higher information asymmetry between the holding and the BU managers, defined by the focus of the BU controller. Test results of the relationship between the variables focus of the BU controller and organizational slack show that the controllers of the BU prioritize decision-making support in the BU over their responsibilities to the corporate Management Control System. The higher the controller operating time at the BU, the greater their dedication to their responsibilities related to BU management at the expense of focusing on the holding tasks. It is concluded that the relationship observed in this study between the level of organizational slack and the focus of the BU controllers is in keeping with that stated in the reference study. In general, the analysis results are aligned with the research of de Indjejikian and Matejka (2006), considered the limitations of comparison due to the sample differences.
Downloads
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
Once the papers have been approved, the authors will assign their copyrights to this Journal. The Copyright Assignment Conditions include:
1. The Mackenzie Administration Journal holds the rights to all the papers published therein through assignment of copyright.
2. The author retains moral rights to the paper, including the right to identify the author whenever the article is published.
3. As of July 1, 2015 RAM adopted the CC-BY license standard (Creative Commons– BY). Authors are allowed to copy, distribute, display, transmit and adapt articles. Authors must attribute to RAM explicitly and clearly an article’s original publication (with reference to the journal’s name, edition, year and pages in which the article was originally published), yet without suggesting that RAM endorses the author or its use of the article. Contents are released by means of the CC-BY license to fully inter-operate with a variety of different systems and services, including for commercial purposes. In case of an article’s reuse or distribution, authors must make the article’s licensing terms clear to third parties. CC-BY criteria follow open access policies by major OA (Open Access) publishers and journals, such as PLoS, eLife, Biomed Central and Hindawi, among others.
4. When formally requested by the author, this Journal may allow the paper to be published as a chapter or part of a book. The only requirement is that prior publication in this Journal (Journal name, issue, year and pages) must be clearly and explicitly shown as a reference.
