It perhaps seems intuitive to find that our perception of the various managerial controls we face at work shapes our perception of our employer as a whole. Research from the University of East Anglia highlights how this can result in so-called “workplace deviance”, which covers things such as a reduction in effort and higher absenteeism.

The researchers describe management control systems as the various processes and procedures that are used by managers to set targets and then monitor progress toward them, while also providing feedback to employees and encouraging them to conform to various organizational norms and expectations.

Perceptions of control

The researchers were particularly keen to explore the perceptions of managerial control rather than the actual control itself. They focused on compensation systems and performance management systems.

The results show that when such management controls are viewed as threatening they can motivate employees if the perception is mild. As the controls increase, however, they can result in various abnormal behaviors.

“Our study aims to understand how threatening perceptions of those controls affect the behavior of employees in the workplace,” the researchers explain. “We find that the effect of management controls on deliberate ignorance is concentrated in employees with a high need for professional autonomy, usually highly skilled workers.”

The reverse can be the case for non-skilled workers, however, who can find managerial controls motivational provided that any punishments are not perceived to be excessive.

“Although our research is conducted in the health care sector, we believe the findings of this study could be translated to other settings; mainly those settings where management controls are used to guide the achievement of organizational objectives and there is a mix of skilled and non-skilled workers,” the authors conclude.

They hope that managers will heed the warnings presented by the research and temper any use of managerial controls that are perceived as excessive. With the current craze of quiet quitting showing how ready employees are to zone out at work, this is hopefully a lesson managers won’t need to learn firsthand.