Management control use in emerging economies: How controls manifest and combine in South African non-profit organizations
Authors:   , Berning-Van Zyl Anika 
Published: November 2023

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) play a very specific service-delivery role in the
emerging economy (EE) of South Africa where these organizations deliver various
social services. However, regardless of their importance, some of these organizations
struggle to maintain their organizational efforts as they face various challenges such
as a lack of funding, poor government support, limited employees and volunteers, as
well a lack of organizational capacity and proper management systems. A potential
solution is proper control systems which will help them align their organizational efforts
more efficiently. However, little is known about which management controls (MC) are
present in South African NPOs. The context in EE are different from those in developed
countries and literature on MC in EE is scarce. More research is needed to determine
the presence and operationalization of MC in EE, and specifically in South Africa.
Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to explore how NPOs, in the EE of
South Africa, use MC practices under different circumstances. The research question
was investigated by means of four empirical chapters, which included a combination
of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The first empirical study investigated how
different MC practices are prevalent in different situations and nine interviews with
NPO directors were conducted. The second empirical chapter focused on how
different MC practices are prevalent in different situations and how it relates to
managerial performance. A survey questionnaire, aimed at NPO directors, was
utilized, and generated 94 responses. Furthermore, the third empirical chapter utilized
the responses from the same survey and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis
(fsQCA) was performed to determine how MC practices were used together as
packages. The fsQCA findings were further investigated by means of a discussion
group that included nine NPO directors. The last empirical chapter investigated how
controls were used to facilitate organizational change and included ten interviews with
NPO directors.
It was found that South African NPOs do use MC in their day-to-day activities, as well
as when specifically facilitating organizational change. However, these organizations
do not realize they are implementing the theoretical concepts of MC. They identify
these activities as merely operational activities and, therefore, controls are perhaps
not as developed in these organizations. Furthermore, the contingency elements do
not have the influence on the use of controls as was expected which indicated that the
circumstances do not necessarily influence the particular use of controls. It was also
identified that South African NPOs use controls in packages, and not in interrelated
systems. These findings ultimately allowed for greater insights regarding MC use in
EE, specifically South African NPOs, which stipulates the various controls that are
suitable under different circumstances allowing NPOs to implement controls more
effectively based on their specific contextual situation.