SUN ETD - Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing SUN ETD - Theses and Dissertations by Author "Berning-Van Zyl, Anika"

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    MANAGEMENT CONTROL USE IN EMERGING ECONOMIES: HOW CONTROLS MANIFEST AND COMBINE IN SOUTH AFRICAN NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
    (Stellenbosch University, 2024-12) Berning-Van Zyl, Anika; Human, G. J. P.; Budding, G.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Business Management.
    Non-profit organizations (NPOs) play a very specific service-delivery role in the emerging economy (EE) of South Africa where these organizations deliver various social services. However, regardless of their importance, some of these organizations struggle to maintain their organizational efforts as they face various challenges such as a lack of funding, poor government support, limited employees and volunteers, as well a lack of organizational capacity and proper management systems. A potential solution is proper control systems which will help them align their organizational efforts more efficiently. However, little is known about which management controls (MC) are present in South African NPOs. The context in EE are different from those in developed countries and literature on MC in EE is scarce. More research is needed to determine the presence and operationalization of MC in EE, and specifically in South Africa. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to explore how NPOs, in the EE of South Africa, use MC practices under different circumstances. The research question was investigated by means of four empirical chapters, which included a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The first empirical study investigated how different MC practices are prevalent in different situations and nine interviews with NPO directors were conducted. The second empirical chapter focused on how different MC practices are prevalent in different situations and how it relates to managerial performance. A survey questionnaire, aimed at NPO directors, was utilized, and generated 94 responses. Furthermore, the third empirical chapter utilized the responses from the same survey and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was performed to determine how MC practices were used together as packages. The fsQCA findings were further investigated by means of a discussion group that included nine NPO directors. The last empirical chapter investigated how controls were used to facilitate organizational change and included ten interviews with NPO directors. It was found that South African NPOs do use MC in their day-to-day activities, as well as when specifically facilitating organizational change. However, these organizations do not realize they are implementing the theoretical concepts of MC. They identify these activities as merely operational activities and, therefore, controls are perhaps not as developed in these organizations. Furthermore, the contingency elements do not have the influence on the use of controls as was expected which indicated that the circumstances do not necessarily influence the particular use of controls. It was also identified that South African NPOs use controls in packages, and not in interrelated systems. These findings ultimately allowed for greater insights regarding MC use in EE, specifically South African NPOs, which stipulates the various controls that are suitable under different circumstances allowing NPOs to implement controls more effectively based on their specific contextual situation.