Ch 17 introduction to controlling

Management tenth edition

Stephen P. Robbins Mary Coulter

Chapter Introduction
17 to
Controlling
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
Publishing as Prentice Hall
17–1

Learning Outcomes
Follow this Learning Outline as you read and study
this chapter.
17.1 What Is Control and Why Is It Important?
• Define controlling.
• Discuss the reasons why control is important.
• Explain the planning-controlling link.
17.2 The Control Process
• Describe the three steps in the control process.
• Explain why what is measured is more critical than how it’s
measured.
• Explain the three courses of action managers can take in
controlling.
17–2

Learning Outcomes
17.3 Controlling Organizational Performance
• Define organizational performance.
• Describe three most frequently used measures of organizational
performance.

17.4 Tools for Measuring Organizational Performance
• Contrast feedforward, concurrent, and feedback controls.
• Explain the types of financial and information controls managers
can use.
• Describe how balanced scorecards and benchmarking are used
in controlling.

17–3

Learning Outcomes
17.5 Contemporary Issues in Control
• Describe how managers may have to adjust controls
for cross-cultural differences.
• Discuss the types of workplace concerns managers
face and how they can address those concerns.
• Explain why control is important to customer
interactions.
• Define corporate governance.

17–4

What Is Control?
• Controlling
 The process of monitoring activities to ensure that
they are being accomplished as planned and of
correcting any significant deviations.
• The Purpose of Control
 To ensure that activities are completed in ways that
lead to accomplishment of organizational goals.

17–5

Why Is Control Important?
• As the final link in management functions:
 Planning
 Controls let managers know whether their goals and plans
are on target and what future actions to take.
 Empowering employees
 Control systems provide managers with information and
feedback on employee performance.
 Protecting the workplace
 Controls enhance physical security and help minimize
workplace disruptions.

17–6

Exhibit 17–1 The Planning–Controlling Link

17–7

The Control Process
• The Process of Control
1. Measuring actual
performance.
2. Comparing actual
performance against a
standard.
3. Taking action to correct
deviations or inadequate
standards.

17–8

Exhibit 17–2 The Control Process

17–9

1. Measuring: How & What We Measure

• Sources of • Control Criteria
Information (How) (What)
 Personal observation  Employees
 Statistical reports  Satisfaction

 Oral reports  Turnover
 Absenteeism
 Written reports
 Budgets
 Costs

 Output
Publishing as Prentice Hall  Sales 17–10

Exhibit 17–3 Common Sources of Information for
Measuring Performance

17–11

2. Comparing
• Determining the degree of variation between
actual performance and the standard.
 Significance of variation is determined by:
 The acceptable range of variation from the standard (forecast
or budget).
 The size (large or small) and direction (over or under) of the
variation from the standard (forecast or budget).

17–12

Exhibit 17–4 Defining the Acceptable Range of
Variation

17–13

Exhibit 17–5 Example of Determining Significant
Variation

17–14

3. Taking Managerial Action
• Courses of Action
 “Doing nothing”
 Only if deviation is judged to be insignificant.
 Correcting actual (current) performance
 Immediate corrective action to correct the problem at once.
 Basic corrective action to locate and to correct the source of
the deviation.
 Corrective Actions
– Change strategy, structure, compensation scheme, or
training programs; redesign jobs; or fire employees

17–15

Taking Managerial Action

• Courses of Action (cont’d)
 Revising the standard
 Examining the standard to ascertain whether or not the
standard is realistic, fair, and achievable.
– Upholding the validity of the standard.
– Resetting goals that were initially set too low or too high.

17–16

Exhibit 17–6 Managerial Decisions in the Control
Process

17–17

Controlling for Organizational
Performance
• What Is Performance?
 The end result of an activity
• What Is Organizational
Performance?
 The accumulated end results of all of the
organization’s work processes and activities
 Designing strategies, work processes, and work activities.
 Coordinating the work of employees.

17–18

Organizational Performance Measures
• Organizational Productivity
 Productivity: the overall output of goods and/or
services divided by the inputs needed to generate
that output.
 Output: sales revenues
 Inputs: costs of resources (materials, labor expense, and
facilities)
 Ultimately, productivity is a measure of how efficiently
employees do their work.

17–19

Organizational Performance Measures (cont’d)
• Organizational Effectiveness
 Measuring how appropriate organizational goals are
and how well the organization is achieving its goals.
 Systems resource model
– The ability of the organization to exploit its environment in
acquiring scarce and valued resources.
 The process model

– The efficiency of an organization’s transformation process
in converting inputs to outputs.
 The multiple constituencies model

– The effectiveness of the organization in meeting each
constituencies’ needs.
17–20

Industry and Company Rankings
• Industry rankings on: • Corporate Culture
 Profits Audits
 Return on revenue • Compensation and
 Return on shareholders’ benefits surveys
equity
• Customer satisfaction
 Growth in profits
surveys
 Revenues per employee
 Revenues per dollar of
assets
 Revenues per dollar of
equity

17–21

Tools for Measuring
Organizational Performance
• Feedforward Control
 A control that prevents anticipated problems before
actual occurrences of the problem.
 Building in quality through design.
 Requiring suppliers conform to ISO 9002.

• Concurrent Control
 A control that takes place while the monitored activity
is in progress.
 Direct supervision: management by walking around.

17–22

Tools for Measuring
Organizational Performance
(cont’d)
• Feedback Control
 A control that takes place after an activity is done.
 Corrective action is after-the-fact, when the problem has
already occurred.
 Advantages of feedback controls:
 Provide managers with information on the effectiveness of
their planning efforts.
Enhance employee motivation by providing them with
information on how well they are doing.
17–23

Exhibit 17–8 Types of Control

17–24

Financial Controls
• Traditional Controls
 Ratio analysis
 Liquidity
 Leverage
 Activity
 Profitability
 Budget Analysis
 Quantitative standards
 Deviations
17–25

Exhibit 17–9 Popular Financial Ratios

Objective Ratio Calculation Meaning

17–26

Exhibit 17–9 Popular Financial Ratios (cont’d)

Objective Ratio Calculation Meaning

17–27

Financial Controls

• Managing Earnings
 “Timing” income and expenses to enhance current
financial results, which gives an unrealistic picture of
the organization’s financial performance.
 New laws and regulations require companies to clarify
their financial information.

17–28

Tools for Measuring Org’l Performance (cont’d.)
• Balanced Scorecard
 Is a measurement tool that uses goals set by
managers in four areas to measure a company’s
performance:
 Financial
 Customer
 Internal processes
 People/innovation/growth assets
 Is intended to emphasize that all of these areas are
important to an organization’s success and that there
should be a balance among them.
17–29

Information Controls
• Purposes of Information Controls
 As a tool to help managers control other
organizational activities.
 Managers need the right information at the right time and in
the right amount.

 As an organizational area that managers need to
control.
 Managers must have comprehensive and secure controls in
place to protect the organization’s important information.

17–30

Information Controls (cont’d)
• Management Information Systems (MIS)
 A system used to provide management with needed
information on a regular basis.
 Data: an unorganized collection of raw, unanalyzed facts
(e.g., unsorted list of customer names).
 Information: data that has been analyzed and organized
such that it has value and relevance to managers.

17–31

Benchmarking of Best Practices
• Benchmark
 The standard of excellence against which to measure
and compare.
• Benchmarking
 Is the search for the best practices among
competitors or noncompetitors that lead to their
superior performance.
 Is a control tool for identifying and measuring specific
performance gaps and areas for improvement.

17–32

Contemporary Issues in Control
• Cross-Cultural Issues
 The use of technology to increase direct corporate
control of local operations
 Legal constraints on corrective actions in foreign
countries
 Difficulty with the comparability of data collected from
operations in different countries

17–33

(cont’d)
• Workplace Concerns
 Workplace privacy versus workplace monitoring:
 E-mail, telephone, computer, and Internet usage
 Productivity, harassment, security, confidentiality, intellectual
property protection
 Employee theft
 The unauthorized taking of company property by employees
for their personal use.
 Workplace violence
Anger, rage, and violence in the workplace is affecting
employee productivity.
17–34

Exhibit 17–11 Top Internet Video Sites Viewed
at Work
Top 10 Internet video brands viewed in the U.S. while
at work for January 2008, in millions of streams
YouTube 674.2
Yahoo 156.5
Fox Interactive Media 92.8
MSN/Windows Live 74.2
ESPN 68.3
CNN Digital 41.6
Turner Entertainment 41.4
NBC Universal 30.5
Disney Online 27.2
Source: Bobby White, “The New Nickelodeon 23.5
Workplace Rules: No Video
Watching,” Wall Street Journal,
March 4, 2008, p. B3.

17–35

Exhibit 17–12 Controlling Employee Theft

Sources: Based on A.H. Bell and D.M. Smith. “Protecting the
Company Against Theft and Fraud,” Workforce Online
(www.workforce.com) December 3, 2000; J.D. Hansen. “To Catch
a Thief,” Journal of Accountancy, March 2000, pp. 43–46; and J.
Greenberg, “The Cognitive Geometry of Employee Theft,” in
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Dysfunctional Behavior in Organizations: Nonviolent and Deviant
Behavior, eds. S.B. Bacharach, A. O’Leary-Kelly, J.M. Collins, and

R.W. Griffin (Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1998), pp. 147–93.

17–36

Exhibit 17–13 Workplace Violence

Witnessed yelling or other verbal abuse 42%
Yelled at co-workers themselves 29%
Cried over work-related issues 23%
Seen someone purposely damage
machines or furniture 14%
Seen physical violence in the workplace 10%
Struck a co-worker 2%

Source: Integra Realty Resources, October-November Survey of Adults
18 and Over, in “Desk Rage.” BusinessWeek, November 20, 2000, p. 12.
17–37

Exhibit 17–14 Controlling Workplace Violence

Sources: Based on M. Gorkin, “Five Strategies and Structures for Reducing
Workplace Violence,” Workforce Online (www.workforce.com). December
3, 2000; “Investigating Workplace Violence: Where Do You Start?”
Workforce Online (www.forceforce.com), December 3, 2000; “Ten Tips
on Recognizing and Minimizing Violence,” Workforce Online
(www.workforce.com), December 3, 2000; and “Points to Cover in a
Workplace Violence Policy,” Workforce Online (www.workforce.com),

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. December 3, 2000.

17–38

(cont’d)
• Customer Interactions
 Service profit chain
 Is the service sequence from employees to customers to
profit.
 Service capability affects service value which impacts
on customer satisfaction that, in turn, leads to
customer loyalty in the form of repeat business
(profit).

17–39

(cont’d)
• Corporate Governance
 The system used to govern a corporation so that the
interests of the corporate owners are protected.
 Changes in the role of boards of directors
 Increased scrutiny of financial reporting (Sarbanes-Oxley Act
of 2002)
– More disclosure and transparency of corporate financial
information
– Certification of financial results by senior management

17–40

Terms to Know
• controlling • productivity
• market control • organizational
• bureaucratic control effectiveness
• clan control • feedforward control
• control process • concurrent control
• range of variation • management by walking
• immediate corrective around
action • feedback control
• basic corrective action • economic value added
• performance (EVA)
• market value added
• organizational
(MVA)
performance
17–41

Terms to Know (cont’d)
• management information
system (MIS)
• data
• information
• balanced scorecard
• benchmarking
• employee theft
• service profit chain
• corporate governance

17–42

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America.

17–43

Exhibit 17–7 Popular Industry and Company Rankings

17–44

Ch 17 introduction to controlling

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