"Power, accommodation and resistance: A Foucauldian perspective on how internal management controls are compromised in Chinese hotels"

by Wang, Jing (2018)

Abstract

The purpose of the thesis is to consider elements of internal management controls employed in hotels in China, specifically with respect to accounting and behavioural control. Accounting and behavioural controls involve mechanisms used to motivate, monitor, measure and sanction the actions of managers and other employees. Internal management control is part of a system of integrated elements (people, structures, processes and procedures) acting together to provide reasonable assurance that an organisation achieves its business goals. The thesis concentrates on internal management control. Accounting controls, being a subset of internal management controls, suit tasks that are routine, familiar and certain; where few exceptions are likely to challenge routines. Examples of mechanisms studied involve highly standardised production models where: costing, budgeting and targeted performance outputs are applied. In contrast, behavioural controls are used to target similar objectives, except those which require tasks that are transparent in terms of input-output, familiarity and routine. The essential difference between accounting and behavioural controls being timeliness; behavioural controls are to be preferred where tasks are to be monitored in real-time rather than after the event. The latter being the territory for accounting controls. While research shows culture effects control few researchers have adopted a qualitative Foucauldian approach. This thesis employs a Foucauldian approach to investigate how internal management controls have developed within the Chinese hospitality industry

Keywords

Foucault, Resistance, Worker Resistance, Supervision, Power, Management, Hotel Work, Management Control

Themes

On Foucault, Foucault, Critical Management Studies

Links to Reference

• https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/12440
• https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/12440/thesis.pdf?sequence=4

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