| dc.description.abstract | This thesis investigates the impact of New Work adoption on management control systems. New Work describes a flexible and autonomous way of working that has gained traction in recent years after the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite entailing several advantages, flexible work arrangements present challenges for organizations in general and organizational control in particular. This along with the topic’s recency and popularity calls for more research that takes a holistic look at job autonomy and management control rather than focusing on specific aspects like remote working. To expand the existing literature, this study employs a qualitative approach conducting six structured interviews with individuals from Norwegian startup companies and analyzing them using the Gioia method. It demonstrates that while organizations acknowledge the importance of balancing autonomy and control, they tend to adopt a limited and varied set of formalized performance management approaches. This suggests that traditional control methods may be more difficult to implement and may be perceived as coercive in the context of New Work. Instead, findings show a shift towards employee-oriented management control with a focus on trust as a control mechanism, establishing the foundation for an enabling management control system that supports autonomy while still ensuring organizational control. While the study’s focus on startups may limit generalizability, its findings can facilitate the acceptance and implementation of job autonomy by demonstrating that autonomy and control do not have to be mutually exclusive. | |
