The Concepts of Enabling and Coercive Control Pursued by Public Sector Organizations

Controls in Public Sector – Critical Evaluation
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Controls in Public Sector – Critical Evaluation
The concepts of enabling and coercive control (Ahrens and Chapman, 2004) help us design management control systems (MCSs) aimed at achieving financial efficiency goals. However, the concepts cannot be applied to the wider range of objectives pursued by public sector organizations. 
Introduction
Control is achieving management functions by using the information to direct all the processes of the organization. Public control uses diverse information such as information for public services, information for citizens, and information for management to control public resources within a specific jurisdiction. Furthermore, public enterprises function under the direct control of the government, with some established under the Companies Act and statutes. In essence, these public enterprises are autonomous or semi-autonomous—and it is the role of the public accounting control to strive at achieving public financial efficiency goals. Public enterprises aim to serve the public, and public controls provide amicable assurance that public activities are going as planned by allowing the locals to safeguard the public assets. Regardless, adequate public controls aim at achieving public objectives in efficiency and reliability of financial reporting, operations, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The broader range of objectives challenges sufficient control of public organizations, even though public sector enterprises seek to create a balanced concentration of wealth and economic power (Ahrens and Chapman, 2004). Furthermore, the drawbacks of weak controls in the public sector include misuse or waste of public assets, inaccurate information, and embezzlement or theft—because the local officials will be less vigilant at safeguarding the public assets to ensure more effective use of these resources. In particular, the concepts of controls can apply to the public management accounting sector to achieve financial efficiency goals through accurate and reliable financial reporting and sufficient information.
The paper introduces Controls in the public sector and evaluates the significance of potential challenges when ignored in public enterprises. The writing goes a long way to provide an overview of controls in the public sector based on the historical and theoretical context, focusing on management control systems. It then transitions to discuss management accounting and its changing roles in the public sector and covers the risks that arise when top management in public accounting systems have the ambitions to influence behavior through performance measurement. Through conceptual literature review, I base my argument that regardless of how public organizations pursue diverse objectives, controls are still applicable in public management.   
Overview of controls in the public sector
Controls approaches in public corporations are designed to improve managerial performance in the public sector by creating changes to the processes and structures of the public sector organizations (Dahal, 2019). The wider objectives of controls in the public sector corporations relate to operations, reporting, and compliance. Management accounting in public sector use controls help to achieve operations objectives by ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization’s operations. So, management accounting controls allow public corporations to safeguard public assets against loss to achieve operations and financial performance goals. Furthermore, controlling operations aim to maximize output by emphasizing the value of market efficiency and managerial innovations in the public sector industries.
Public corporations use accounting management controls to achieve wider reporting objectives. Management accounting in the public sector use the concepts of control to report the corporation’s internal and external financial environments. Controls also allow public management accountants to report non-finacial organizational performances which may relate to reliability, timeliness, and transparency. Regardless, the management control systems depend on much more formal financial quantifiable information to help managerial decision-making and reporting. Public sector enterprises are creating market-based control mechanisms: budgetary, performance-based pay, performance indicators, and contractual competition (Kusmiati et al., 2020). At the same time, public management accountants apply controls to achieve the objective of compliances.
Public management accounting employs controls to ensure adherence to laws and procedures regarding public entities. In contrast, private sector organizations manipulate the concepts of controls to monitor information and communication, perform risk assessment, and control internal and external environments. Ahrens and Chapman (2004) argue that coercive controls allow private organizations to redeem credibility because controls systems foster effective top-bottom information flow. Furthermore, controls systems allow the private sector organizations to demonstrate their commitment towards integrity and ethical values through the use of relevant information. Controls in private corporations are used to identify the potential threats towards accomplishing set objectives. Besides identifying these threats, private controls systems can evaluate and determine how to manage these events. In essence, public corporations use controls systems to meet operations, reporting, and compliance; and private corporations use controls to monitor information and communication, perform risk assessment, and control internal and external environments.
Public management accounting and its changing roles
Public organizations are increasingly becoming more complex due to rapid changes and the competitive nature of operations. Besides, public sector organizations struggle to exist now because of globalization, economic liberations, and technological advancements for managerial purposes. That said, management accounting is designed to partner with management decision making, plan and performance management, and provide the competence in financial reporting and control for the formulation and implementation of public organization's strategies (Ahrens and Chapman, 2004). Furthermore, the changes like public enterprises create the need for transparent, complete, reliable, and accurate statistics that can be applied quickly and precisely. However, the current public management accounting has lost its relevancy considering the current public enterprise environments (Ghandour, 2021). Indeed, the constant changes in the public enterprise environment influence management accounting practices and organizational activities. Some of the factors that increase the need for management accounting information include worldwide competition, regulatory environment, economic liberation, and the increasing complexity and size of the organization. So, the public management controls systems should encompass administrative, cybernetics, planning, and cultural controls while decision-making requires strategic and operational decisions. Therefore, management accounting functions have changed with its attention directed towards long-term perspectives by using non-financial facts to act as indicators of future business financial performance and positioning.
The primary purpose of public management accounting is to achieve competitive decision-making by...