Configuration of Environmental Management Control Tools: Case of environmental indicators in a Moroccan context

Abstract

Today, many companies around the world are adopting environmental strategies correlated with environmental management control. Due to the multidimensional characteristics of environmental performance, the literature proposes several configurations of management control based on several tools. As a consequence, knowing how organizations adapt these control tools to their organizational needs is a growing issue, especially with the predominance of Simons (1995) theory of control levers, which presents a dichotomy between its levers of control, particularly the diagnostic control and the interactive control. In this article, we present the case of environmental indicators, one of the main tools of environmental management control their diagnostic or interactive configuration cannot be easily dissociated. In fact, due to the strategic uncertainties in the environmental field, the management control is more complicated, and its tools have to show an ability to be used both, in interactive and diagnostic ways according to the need.

In this way, the environmental indicators can show a diagnostic configuration because they control the environmental strategy. Then, they can show an interactive configuration because they discuss the environmental strategy. This is actually the result of our exploratory qualitative study based on nine cases in Morocco, meeting certain selection criteria.

Although this article focuses uniquely on the case of environmental indicators, the results of this study have important implications. Indeed, the article’s results strengthen our understanding of the ambidexterity of environmental management control tools and can be expanded to other types of tools.

JEL Classification: G30, M40, Q50

Paper type: Empirical research