Homework Assignment for 4D1165 Behavioural Management Control Year 2007

Part I: The Homework Questions
This, the first section, of my homework assignment contains the twenty homework questions that have been handed out to us students throughout the course, along with the answers I’ve composed in order of answering these.

1. One of the causes of management control problems is lack of direction. Why does this problem exist?

Lack of direction, a fundamental element in many dysfunctional organizations, constitutes one of the primary needs for management control. Employees are likely to perform in an unsatisfactory manner unless expectations and functions are clarified. Flaws in encouragement and surveillance may loosen the strings between employee and employees, resulting in confusion. Confusion, in this context, involves having people do the wrong things; consequentially leading to decreased productivity.

Leo’s Four-Plex Theatre, the first case discussed in class, illustrates the severe effects that a lack of direction may cause. As the personnel of the theatre were unaware of procedures, uninformed about regulations and seemingly, not well instructed on how to perform simple tasks, mistakes occurred. Two lines from the case text make this obvious: (1) The cash counts revealed, almost invariably, less cash than the amounts that should have been collected.[1] (2) Tickets of the wrong color or with the wrong dates in the stub boxes.

Bill Reilly, the manager of Leo’s Four-Plex Theatre, could have solved many of the profitability issues stemming from lack of direction, by the implementation of a relatively cheap control system (as a method to inform and direct the workers).

2. What is the controllability principle?

The controllability principle […] states that people should be held accountable for what they control[2]. People at decision making positions,