The role of management control systems in balancing competing goals

A key function of management control systems (MCS) is to bring an organisation together around a set of shared goals. This is especially important for social enterprises (SEs), which need to balance competing social and financial goals. Through the lens of paradox theory, this research will explore the role of MCS within a SE in bringing the organisation together to simultaneously achieve the social and financial goals during a period of growth. This research is important as prior research has identified that during periods of growth many SEs drift from fulfilling both goals and focus predominately on one goal.