Integrative contingency-based framework of MCS: the case of post-secondary education
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how changes in the management control systems (MCS) of post-secondary institutions (PSIs) in Western Canada can be described and explained in terms of formal and informal MCS; and whether and how changes in the MCS of PSIs in Western Canada can be described and explained in terms of an integrative contingency-based framework of MCS based on regulatory accountability systems, competitive markets and organizational culture? Design/methodology/approach The empirical research was undertaken with an exploratory mixed design. The first phase involved descriptive univariate and bivariate statistics as well as non-parametric statistics computed on data from annual reports and financial statements of 46 PSIs in Western Canada to quantitatively explore MCS. The second phase involved the grounded theory (GT) analysis of annual reports of 46 PSIs in Western Canada to qualitatively explore formal MCS in relation to changes in contingencies. The third phase involved the GT analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews of senior managers from PSIs in Western Canada to qualitatively explore informal MCS in relation to formal MCS and changes in contingencies. Findings The research showed that emphasis on formal MCS in Western Canadian PSIs resulted in biased compliance within informal MCS. The exploratory research also demonstrated that the distinction between formal and informal MCS was better understood in a wider framing of MCS in terms of regulatory accountability systems, competitive markets and organizational culture. Originality/value This research led to the elaboration of an exploratory theoretical framework to subsume the distinction between formal and informal MCS into an integrative contingency-based framework of MCS.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.020 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".