Managerial Control and Strategy in Nonprofit Organizations Doing the Right Things for the Wrong Reasons?

This article presents the second stage of a study that engages with the debate that has occurred within the nonprofit literature about the propensity and relative merits of nonprofit organizations adopting for-profit approaches to management. Specifically, this qualitative investigation examines the ways in which nonprofit organizations use management control when implementing their chosen strategies. Although this topic has been the subject of considerable attention in the management accounting research, it has rarely been explored within a nonprofit context. This is surprising not only because of the considerable social and economic impact of this sector, but also because of the apparent trend toward sectoral convergence in many structural and processual respects, including strategic behaviors and approaches to control. Based on interviews with CEOs and senior executives in thirty-two Australian nonprofit organizations, we find that the relationship between strategy and control in nonprofit organizations is similar to that in for-profit organizations, but quite different reasons underlie nonprofit organizations' exercising of management control.