Reconceptualizing Organizational Control
Managing in the Age of Hybrid Workplaces, Artificial Intelligence, and the Gig Economy

A reconceptualization of organizational control theory for the 21st century, accommodating new and evolving trends and practices.

Markus Kreutzer (Author), Jorge Walter (Author)

9781009282758, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 November 2024

360 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm, 0.65 kg

'With many trends converging simultaneously, the nature of work in and around organizations is being upended before our eyes. Kreutzer and Walter have directly confronted this situation, and in so doing have created an important, comprehensive examination of organizational control that bridges the past, present, and future. Their contributions to scholarship and practice will be profound.' C. Chet Miller, C. T. Bauer Professor of Organizational Studies, University of Houston

Organizational control addresses the fundamental yet vexing managerial problem of aligning workers' capabilities, activities, and performance with organizational goals and aspirations. In recent years, the onset of COVID-19, combined with new developments in information and communication technologies, has brought about profound changes in organizations, and even in the nature of work itself. We have seen surges in virtual and remote work; progression of alternative work arrangements (especially in the gig economy); and an increasingly wide-spread reliance on algorithmic monitoring and control. These changes have exacerbated the tension between the pursuit of individual and organizational interests, exposing the limits of traditional approaches to organizational control, and questioning whether they still reflect contemporary organizational realities. Providing a comprehensive discussion of the multi-disciplinary approaches to organizational control, this book integrates the new and evolving trends in technology, organizations, and society into a reconceptualization of organizational control for twenty-first-century organizations.

Part I. (Re-)Introducing Organizational Control: 1. Introduction
2. What is organizational control?
3. A history of organizational control
Part II. Current State Of Organizational Control: 4. An organizational control framework
Part III. Quo Vadis Organizational Control?: 5. The future of work inside and outside organizations
6. Reconceptualizing organizational control
7. New directions for organizational control theory and practice.

Subject Areas: Organizational theory & behaviour [KJU]