Understanding Control Theories

• The term "control" is interpreted differently, lacking precision empirically but highly complex scientifically, and practically presenting connotations of crisis in developing countries due to corruption and inefficiency.
• Control theories are related to what to control, why control, who controls and how, the purpose of control, method, context and timing.

Control Theories

• Organic Theory: entities self-regulate to meet their needs.
• Mechanical Theory: machines' and systems' controls to achieve a purpose.
• Causal Theory: control is the outcome of actions, producing consequences.
• Dynamic Theory: Control arises from diverse organizational flows, human, technological, capital etc, needing verification for normal operation.
• Functionalist Theory emphasizes it is a function developed in line with administrative and operational functions in organizations.
• Materialistic Theory explains control as a struggle between capitalists and workers.
• Empiricist Theory says control work is shaped by the experience of those who develop them.
• Ethical Theory posits that control relies on ethics within organizations.
• Administrative Theory: Control is the adjustment made by a director to fulfill organizational goals.
• Anarchist Theory claims control means allowing each individual to do what's needed without restrictions to achieve the organization's goals.
• Psychological Theory: Influential aspects affecting people impact their psyche, shaping behaviors and manipulation.
• Disciplinary Control Theory is framed a context of in vigilance and punishment.
• Bureaucratic Theory justifies authoritarian treatment to maintain worker discipline for production standards.
• Institutional Theory says that the impact of the environment on control activities must be recognized.
• Informational Theory says control effectiveness relies on the information system and its signals.
• Cognoscitive Theory says all discipline and knowledge controls the body, where science controls technique.
• Social Theory says that control is an agreement among groups, formal or informal.
• Systemic Theory claims control is implemented on organized systems to achieve a goal.
• Critical Theory detects deviations, watches actions, creating clashes between controllers and controlled.
• Humanistic Approach states control is human-led, affecting human relations.
• Evaluative Theory explains that control adds value to the organization, it must be effective.
• Risk-Control Theory says that control is crucial as a preventive measure, because all activity has risk.
• Control as a Conflict Factor Theory says can cause tensions between controllers and controlled because no one likes being controlled.
• Complex Theory states organizational control cant be simplified to functions, but a system integrating diverse elements.

Control in Organizational Theories

• Management includes diverse control concepts rooted in management practices.
• Control has been reduced to monitoring objects to correct deviations from traced plans.
• Administration roles include planning and directing.
• The administrative functions of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling are developed in organizations, particularly by Henry Fayol.
• Franco and de Mendonca identify diverse control approaches with elements like objectives, standards, and intervention.
• Classical administration sees control as intervening to achieve a goal.
• Neoclassical emphasizes monitoring formalized processes for coordinated objectives.
• Bureaucracy focuses in supervising for predictable organizational behavior.
• Human relations focuses on conditions of the workers
• Cybernetic control involves the interrelation of variables to maintain harmonic operations.
• Strategic administration means strategically planned intervention.
• Contingency approach sees control as dependent on the definition of situational factors.
• Organizational activity is often reduced to inspection, examination, verification, and vigilance.
• Theories focus on control as power exerted through surveillance and intervention to achieve goals.
• Organizational control has been understood through metaphors like the body or prison.
• Control has been conceived as correction, fiscal oversight, and culture, now often presented as quantitative, indicator-based monitoring.
• Corporate social responsibility is increasingly relevant to organizational control, especially internationally.
• Global information overload is seen as a challenge affecting social participation and risk management.
• Lack of historical, theoretical, and practical acknowledgment impacts perceptions around the world.
• Studying organizational control requires assessing shared beliefs, collective views, and controller practices.

Essentials to Organizational Control

• Transversal themes in organizational control include fraud, professional ethics, and process integrity.
• Studying organizational control requires comprehensive knowledge of regulation, inspection, supervision, and warning systems.
• Effective controls apply to all processes and key attributes of an entity’s financial and socio-environmental evolution.
• Total surveillance, social control, and risk management are emerging as responses to complex problems.
• Control should solve obscurity and information as solution of uncertainty.
• Real time info should meet needs with more value to the info system.
• Future info, that can simulate future behavior
• Value-based info and not cost
• Global data includes not financial and financial information
• Extract synthetic data tailored to get element analysis

Simplified Control Function

• Defined by Blanco I. (1997)
• In 4 actions
• Planning/Standars- action
• Compares results with standards
• Implement a action for standards
• Implementation of action

Wider Version of Control Function

• 12 instances
• Initial State- original system control
• Define norms and parameters
• Measurements through engineer sensors
• Sciences- defined with indicators
• Data is measured
• Info Validation
• Comparatives results (vs expectatives)
• Info Analysis
• Situation values

Perspectives of control

• Blanco Illescas defines classical control as verification and penal and anglosaxon ideas of guides to make corrections and improvements
• Japanese way is activities that are necesary for long term objetives
• There are types
  • From location
  • From areas
  • From dimension
  • The level
  • The time
  • Emphasis
  • Permanence
  • Sources

Info Tendencies for control

• Segmentations and Integrations
• Past info to future
• Impacts
• Manage from regulatory information etc.