Normative control, or control through organizational culture, has been widely discussed
since the 1960s in the management literature. Despite a growing body of
research, the concept remains difficult to grasp in its multiple facets and is often
approached in a partial and partisan way by scholars and practitioners alike. In this
article, we conduct a comprehensive review of the abundant but fragmented literature
on normative control, aimed at providing a holistic synthesis of the topic. We
take stock of the literature, present descriptive statistics and unravel a chronology
of four research streams, consisting of cultural optimists, critics, skeptics, and neocritics.
Our findings also identify and describe behavioral levers and organizational
accelerators that encourage the use of normative control, as well as operational sideeffects
and behavioral inhibitors that discourage its use. We contribute to the literature
by offering a unique integrative model of the opportunities and threats of
normative control by highlighting their interconnections and tensions, leading to
promising avenues for future research. In doing so, we wish to transcend ideological
debates and bring clarity, nuance, and pragmatism to a concept that could help
address pressing organizational challenges related to purpose, employee wellbeing
and workplace culture.
Category: Axes de recherche
Direct and spillover effects of board gender quotas: Revisiting the Norwegian experience
Building on the Norwegian case, this study examines the long-term implications of board gender quotas on the advancement of gender diversity in managerial leadership. Previous research has indicated that, aside from the board, the quota had limited impact on achieving this objective. However, these studies have narrowly focused on the spill-over effects of the quota, primarily concentrating on the positions of […]
The silent resistance: An ethnographic study of the use of silence to resist accounting and managerialization
This paper introduces silence as a form of resistance. Critical accounting studies portrayed resistance in terms of visibility and voice, and silence as a passive reaction from marginalized groups unable to speak, deprived of ‘voice’. Instead, we draw on an ethnographic study to follow various resisting strategies drawing on silence to actively undermine accounting technologies […]
Strength of Audit Firms’ Human Resource Systems and Client-Level Audit Outcomes: Evidence from a Multiple Source Study
We examine whether differences in HR systems among audit firms can affect client-level audit outcomes. Based on the audit quality framework of Knechel, Krishnan, Pevzner, Shefchik, and Velury (2013b) and the strategic HRM literature, we posit that audit firms with stronger HR systems are likely to deliver more desired audit outcomes, ceteris paribus. Building on systems theory, we […]
The Effects of Client Importance and Career Concerns on Auditors’ Judgment Conservatism
We examine how client importance affects judgment conservatism depending on auditors’ career concerns. We argue that auditors will interpret being assigned to a client of major importance as a more powerful signal of their promotion chances under strong competition than under weak competition for advancement and, hence, that they will consider their promotion opportunities to a greater extent […]