Best of Both Worlds: Management Controls in a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Organisation in the Post-Pandemic Hybrid Era

This research explores management control systems (MCSs) in the post-pandemic hybrid work era and how different controls are used to facilitate managerial intentions, drawing empirical evidence from a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firm. It adopts a qualitative methodology and a single case study approach while leaning on the Tessier and Otley (2012) framework. The findings provide a holistic understanding of how a hybrid firm adopts an array of controls spanning technical and social elements, with performance and compliance/boundary objectives (operational and strategic) and how managerial intentions (enabling and constraining, interactive and diagnostic, rewards and punishments) are reflected in MCSs. This is important against a backdrop where prior research has focused on MCSs of firms operating either physically or virtually, and the hybrid setting represents the new normal in the post-pandemic era. It is insightful to practitioners adapting controls and for policymakers in understanding the functioning of MCSs in modern workplaces.