Integration of social sustainability into the management control system : A case study about the integration of social sustainability into the management control system with a focus on performance measurement

Background: Social sustainability is one of the three dimensions of sustainable development and is increasingly highlighted as a central concern for companies. At the same time, it is often the most overlooked dimension mostly because it is a multifaceted concept without a unified definition, which makes its operationalisation and measurement challenging. Competitive advantages can be achieved if social sustainability is integrated into the management control system. One example of this is through the performance measurement system, as it makes it possible for monitoring and improvements of the work with social sustainability. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the knowledge about how social sustainability is integrated into the management control system from an “inside-out”-perspective. This is done by focusing on social aspects in a performance measurement system. Method: This study is a case study with a qualitative method where the primary data has been collected through semistructured interviews. Empirical data has also been collected by secondary data where documents like annual- and sustainability reports for the case company and different governance documents such as policies were analyzed. Conclusion: The conceptual model of the study was used to analyze the case company, which focused on the technical, organizational and cognitive integration of social sustainability into the management control system. New aspects of integration emerged during the analysis, where cultural integration is shown to be a central factor for the case company. The context of the company and the compensations between the dimensions of integration is important. In the context of the case study, social sustainability is integrated into the management control system mainly through their culture, with elements of technical, organizational and cognitive integration, where all four dimensions coexist and compensate for each other.