Performance measurement systems, hierarchical accountability and enabling control

The theory of enabling control explains how the development and design of performance measurement systems (PMSs) induce subordinate managers to experience PMSs as enabling. However, PMSs are often vital to superior managers’ control. The empirical research indicates that PMSs cease to be enabling when given a large degree of attention in control processes. We use a qualitative case study, abductive research, and a hierarchical accountability perspective to explore how superior managers’ use of PMSs for control purposes may support subordinate managers’ experience of PMSs as enabling. We show how superior managers’ choices of how to use PMSs to demand and react to accounts may trigger subordinate managers to use the design characteristics of enabling control. We also show how PMSs can be important to superior managers’ control and still be experienced as enabling by subordinate managers. We show the importance of two choices for superior managers’ use of PMSs in hierarchical accountability: (1) extend performance evaluation over time and (2) limit the discretion for subordinate managers to play out within hierarchical communication.