Study goals
Propose a maturity assessment model for management control systems (MCS) in Service SMEs to understand their evolution and their influence on sustainable growth, allowing for a healthy migration from one type of system throughout the organizational life cycle (OLC).
Relevance / originality
Once the case studies allow us to understand how the MCS evolve over time and we can correlate these with the sustainability of organizations, it is possible to predict moments where the more evolved MCS should be implemented in SME.
Methodology / approach
Literature review on OLC and MCS focusing on service organizations built the proposed model. It is understood that, for a later phase, case studies of successful and unsuccessful companies will help to refine a predictive model with grounded theory methodology.
Main results
A literature review supports further improvement of the model and the proposed model includes contributions from several important authors in MCS and Services theory. A causal correlation model is proposed, with mediating variables relevant to research in entrepreneurship and SME.
Theoretical / methodological contributions
Contributes with a predictive model in OLC and MCS, in order to assess the impact of latter in the former. Other contribution is the use of grounded theory to build theory in organizational studies with an emphasis on predictive/normative models.
Social / management contributions
By knowing at which phases of OLC certain organizations successfully managed to migrate systems effectively (or not), it is possible to foresee moments of systems and controls migration that can increase sustainability and survival of service organizations, mostly entrepreneurial SMEs.