Management Control and Motivation in Management Consulting

Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the interplay between agile and mechanistic management control and the motivation of the employees affected by them, and thereby contribute to the understanding of how management control interplays with motivation. Research question: How does agile and mechanistic management control interplay with employees’ motivation in the management consulting profession? Methodology: Qualitative research with Semi-structured interviews. Seven management consultants from different firms were interviewed. Findings: Agile management control was found to be somewhat more commonly occurring than mechanistic management control among the respondents. Agile management control was seen as more motivating than mechanistic. Personal development was found to be the most prevalent part of intrinsic motivation in this study. Contributions: This paper contributes to the existing literature by offering a perspective of management control’s interplay with motivation specifically for management consultants. This interplay can be seen as being focused on personal development, possibly due to the employees’ motivation to choose this field.