Social responsibility as a management control system

Abstract

In this thesis, we examine how businesses with social responsibility as part of their core strategy use related management control systems within Harvard Business School Professor Robert Simons' business strategy control model. The model explains the interaction of four control levers (Beliefs Systems, Boundary Systems, Interactive Control Systems, and Diagnostic Control Systems) to balance business strategy. We examine how management control systems for social responsibility apply to each control lever both in theory and through the application of case examples. Finally we overlay the model from corporate America onto the Naval Postgraduate School to examine where socially responsible management control systems operate to control and adjust the overall socially responsible strategies.