An investigation into the impact of control management practices on Essay

An investigation into the impact of control management practices on employee performance at British Airways - Essay Example From a future-oriented perspective, control can be seen as the â€Å"exercise of influence over the actions and decisions of others† (Camillus, 1986:9). The remedial perspective has of late been set aside as old-fashioned. The future oriented perspective has more relevance today. Early research (Antony, Dearden and Vancil, 1972:2) had concluded that every control system essentially has four elements, namely, a detector or sensor, an assessor, an effector and a communications network. These respectively are linked to measuring problems, determining the importance, altering behavior and transmitting information to all those who are concerned (Antony, Dearden and Vancil, 1972:2). Management control was defined by Antony, Dearden and Vancil (1972:6) as â€Å"the process by which managers influence other members of the organization to implement the organization’s strategies† (Antony, Dearden and Vancil, 1972:2). This is only a primary level definition when compared to the advanced thoughts involved in the current management studies. A recent management theory book (Macintosh and Quattrone, 2010:3) has drawn attention to the phenomenon that half of the world thinks control is undesirable and against freedom and the rest believe that the world is in c haos and needs to be more in control. As management theoreticians went on having a deeper understanding of this concept, a consensus was evolved where bureaucratic control is replaced by intelligent control (Leitch, 2008:8). Today control management systems are designed so as to â€Å"give each person the benefits of effective and helpful supervision while information about control performance is moved efficiently upwards and used† (Leitch, 2008:101). Control management now involves setting the standards for effective performance, evaluation of performance according to those standards and altering behavior to better the performance if any lacuna is found. If the standards are not being met, there have