Integration: Means and aim of management control
The integration of performance measures and reports is a topic that pertains to the informational dimension of management control systems as well as to their organizational dimension.
Management accounting and control studies have dealt with the problem of integration through three control problems, in the organizational control literature, and as a problem of balancing short-term and long-term performance dimensions, as in the BSC approach. The latter, moving from the need for recognizing the relevance of financial and non-financial performance measures, has opened the door to integrated reporting (IR) and ESG scoring.
Critiques to BSC and IR are discussed, reviewing some of the management accounting theoretical perspectives, such as Institutional Logics studies and Pragmatic Constructivism. The Italian School of Economia Aziendale is acknowledged to be a valuable perspective to the formulation of the problem of integration. The Italian School’s propositions lead to considering integration in accounting and reporting processes (a means), and among the various actors involved in such processes (the aim), as a problem of coherence between the operation system (objective dimension) and the stakeholders’ values and interests (subjective dimension) in any organization.
The article concludes by discussing the main topics of the current issue of this journal in line with the arguments developed above.
Keywords: Integration, PMS, Management Control System.
