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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between managerial control strategies, role-stress and employee adaptiveness among call centre employees.

Based on a conceptual model, a questionnaire-based survey methodology is adopted. Data were collected from call centre employees in India and the data were analysed through PLS methodology.

The study finds that outcome control and activity control increase role-stress while capability control does not have a significant impact. The interaction between outcome control and activity control also tends to impact role-stress of employees. Role-stress felt by employees has significant negative impact on employee adaptiveness.

The sampling approach was convenience based affecting the generalisability of the results.

The paper provides guidelines for utilising managerial control approaches in a service setting.

The paper looks at managerial control approaches in a service setting – a topic not quite researched before.

This paper analyzes the effect of strategic context on managerial compensation design, and the interactive influence on firm performance for a set of Spanish companies. Specifically, this study examines the performance implications of the fit between different managerial compensation systems and diverse firm’s strategic orientations – representing various levels of managerial discretion. Based on a framework combining agency theory and managerial discretion concept, a research design with both archival and survey data is used to test hypotheses in a sample of 82 firms. The findings offer sufficient confirmation of theoretical arguments, providing extensions of this research stream for non‐U.S. firms. Results show that firms benefit from the design of managerial compensation systems when they match the managerial control and risk‐bearing requirements imposed by the strategic context. Specifically, risk‐encouraging compensation systems are better for prospector firms – high level of managerial discretion – whereas risk‐discouraging compensation systems are better for defender firms – low level of managerial discretion.

The purpose of this paper is to extend previous research on trust and sales control to develop and test an argument that links informational uncertainty to the development of managerial trust in the salesperson.

Hypotheses are developed suggesting that shared goals and length of attachment reduces uncertainty, which has the effect of promoting managerial trust in the salesperson. In addition, it is hypothesized that sales control will have a (negative) moderating effect on these uncertainty‐trust relationships. Data were collected from 100 sales managers to measure their: sales control strategies, degree of trust, goal congruence, and the relationship tenure with three of their salespeople. An ordinary least squares regression analysis was used to test a model of hypothesized relationships.

The results supported a direct and positive relationship between lower uncertainty (via goal congruence and relationship tenure) and managerial trust in the salesperson. Furthermore, the results confirmed that sales control had a negative moderating effect on these relationships.

These study findings are important to researchers because the literature strongly suggests that trust is critical in the relationship between sales manager and salesperson and so furthering the understanding of trust‐building strategies is an important advancement to academic sales research.

Managers can use this study to understand and recognize factors that impact trust development while avoiding the potential risks of salesperson opportunism. Examples are provided as to how practitioners can operationalize these findings to build more productive relationships with their salespeople.

This chapter provides an extensive review of literature on the interaction between and interdependence of informal and formal working practices in various workplace settings. The aim of the chapter is to elucidate the organisational, managerial, human relations and social factors that give rise to informal work practices and strategies, on the shop-floor not only at workers and work group levels but also at supervisory and managerial levels. This chapter helps the reader to understand the informal work practice of making a plan (planisa) in a deep-level mining workplace.

This paper presents an in‐depth analysis of processes of “team” working within a shopfloor manufacturing setting. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the paper examines how human resource management (HRM) practices shaped and influenced the outcomes of “team” work, and addresses the influence of context in examining how and why team‐based systems took on their own particular characteristics and processes with both intended and unintended consequences on the shopfloors studied. The paper argues that an interplay of contextual factors (important factors include company history and worker orientation), HRM strategies and features of the socio‐technical system (including technology, work organisation and control, and social dimensions of the managerial control system in the teams) influenced team processes and outcomes. This analysis builds on Mueller’s work on contextual factors by recognising the influence of traditional modes of managerial control, management style and company culture.

The premise of the paper is that Foucault's concept of governmentality has important but unacknowledged implications for understanding strategy. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the governmentality approach, the paper seeks to suggest how governmentality can be used to conceptualise strategy. More generally, the paper seeks to contribute to the body of research on governmentality articulated by authors such as Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose.

The paper reprises the argument that accounting is constitutive of social relations. It proceeds to discuss Peter Miller, Ted O'Leary and Nikolas Rose's seminal contributions to the conceptual development of governmentality. In outlining their work, the paper highlights the significance accorded to the emergence of standard costing and scientific management and its subsequent role in developing both the strategies and structures of managerial capitalism. The paper examines how this, in turn, was pivotal to the emergence of strategy as an important means through which organisations began to understand and conceive of themselves. The paper rehearses the standard criticisms made of governmentality within the accounting literature, before arguing that the concept emerges intact from the critique levelled against it. Proceeding to summarise Foucault's radical conception of power, the paper notes the elusiveness of Foucault's relationship with strategy. Elaborating on the nature of governmentality, the paper employs the concept to re‐examine the managerial revolution. The objective is to explore its implications for understanding strategy.

The paper builds on the innovative work published in accounting on governmentality to construct an account of the emergence of the managerial revolution. This yields important insights on strategy. In particular, the paper challenges Chandler, arguing that the birth of strategy is best seen as a post‐hoc rationalisation produced by the emergence of systematic management and standard costing. The paper explores how governmentality might be developed to study strategy. The overarching message of the paper is that there is a need to rethink strategy as a language and social practice. Strategy, therefore, must be understood as much as a cultural and political project than as an economic one.

The paper highlights how strategy can be regarded as a cultural and political phenomenon. This opens up the possibility of accounts of strategy that are firmly grounded within studies of organisations, politics and society. Dispensing with neo‐economic notions of strategy, the paper advocates writing Foucault into strategic management.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the fit between the strategy of service centres and their business model (BM) and to identify the BM components' characteristics and links that allow it to stand out in terms of service delivery and business performance.

This study applies an inductive qualitative multiple case study approach through the empirical analysis of top-performing Italian service centres operating in the Medium–Heavy Commercial Vehicle sector.

Research findings underline that the BM components of top performers are consistent amongst each other and with the adopted strategy and make a positive impact on the firm's performance. In particular, top performers are characterised by a solid financial structure based on equity, formalised and flexible organisational structures and processes, clarity in strategic direction and long-term orientation, grounded capabilities, competences and skills, trustful relationships with main service partners and a comprehensive set of managerial mechanisms.

This paper presents some limitations, typical of qualitative research based on case studies. Future works may include other dimensions of performance for identifying top performers, and extend the empirical analysis to different sectors and national contexts.

This paper supports the relevance of contingency theory – particularly the strategy-structure-performance paradigm – in the analysis of the role of a BM in successful servitization strategies of service centres. It highlights that the BMs of the top-performing companies are characterised by some common elements. From a practical perspective, the authors provide insights that can be useful for designing successful service-based BMs for service networks.