Management Control Shaping Dialogues: Attaching Differences and Reducing the Scope of Dialogs and Pluralism

Abstract

In this article, we study how management control shapes dialogs among actors with different perspectives on the development of infrastructure in Sweden; that is, situations and events where management control “enters” dialogs and influences them. Building on agonistic pluralism and conducting a qualitative study, we identify two roles that management control has in shaping dialogs. One is that management controls attach differences to the dialog, and the other is that management reduces the scope of the dialog. These themes also highlight facilitating and shutting down pluralism and ideas of public value. This study contributes to the previous research that has called for taking pluralism seriously and exploring the role of management control in relation to public values, pluralism, and dialogs. This article provides an understanding of two roles that management control has in shaping dialogs: How ideas of different public values are facilitated and shut down, and how management control contributes to facilitating and shutting down pluralism.