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  • Publication
    Controlling Strategic Initiatives: A Contribution to Corporate Entrepreneurship
    (Difo-Druck GmbH, 2008)
    The dissertation explores the role of control in managing strategic initiatives. It con-sists of four interrelated parts. In the first part, the study reflects the current state and progress of management control research. Based on a broad literature review, the inter-disciplinary research is organized around an integrative framework en-compassing key antecedent, control, mediating, and outcome variables, as well as the interrelationship among them. The review displays the progress made in the past and identifies shortcomings and opportunities for future control research. The multidimensional nature of control is revealed and a categorization including six control mechanisms (both formal and informal input, behavior, and output control) is presented. Furthermore, the role of these control mechanisms in managing strategic initiatives and their influence on initiative performance are examined. A typology of strategic initiatives is proposed, and, using a configurational approach, the control mechanisms applicable to each of the six initiative types are theoretically analyzed. Typical traps and obstacles preventing firms from applying such optimal configurations are discussed. The relationship between control mechanisms and growth initiative performance is empirically examined based on survey data from 201 firms in six industries. The re-gression results for the direct effects' model suggest distinct relationships between these control mechanisms and performance and reveal a more complex picture of the informal control mechanisms than previously identified in existing research. Finally, we take an entrepreneurial perspective and analyze the indirect impact of the three formal control mechanisms, their antecedents, as well as mediating factors on growth initiative performance. The structural equation modeling results mainly support their proposed indirect impact and the mediating role of two behavioral factors, namely, learning and micro-political activities. Overall, this dissertation contributes to research on control, corporate entrepreneur-ship, and strategy process research. More specifically, the results enrich our understanding of the relationship between control and the performance of entrepre-neurial initiatives and are relevant to managers driving growth and other strategic initiatives in their companies.
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