Beyond the Technical Use of Management Control Systems: Valuing Public Employees’ Experience of Interactional Fairness

The growing demands from civil society to be more effective, ef!cient
and accountable have increasingly made relevant for Public Organizations (POs) the
role of Management Control Systems (MCSs) for enhancing the congruence of
employees’ behaviours with organizational objectives. Managers are the main recipients
of MCSs, but the only attention to the technical-formal use of these systems
may not allow them to reach their purposes. Executive employees’ perceptions of
MCSs’ managerial use decide to what extent these latter will bring performance
improvements. Mostly, fairness perceptions, within the superior-subordinate relations
during MCSs’ managerial use, can be a relevant driver in ensuring employees’
motivation to contribute to the pursuit of organizational objectives. Focusing on
executive employees’ perceptions and adopting the theoretical perspective of fairness
in the psychology-based approach to MCSs, this paper aimed to analyze the role
of public employees’ Perception of Interactional Fairness (PIF) and of its two
sub-dimensions, namely Perception of Interpersonal Fairness (PINFF) and Perception
of Interpersonal Fairness (PINTF), in arising employees’ Work Engagement
(WE) and Goal Commitment (EGC). To test the model, a survey was conducted
among employees of an Italian municipality. A regression analysis was performed.
The results showed that: PIF, PINTF and PINFF have a positive effect on WE and
EGC; furthermore, WE mediates the link between PIF, PINTF and PINFF and EGC.
The study contributes to the psychology-based management control literature that
explores the in"uence of MCSs on public employees’ attitudinal and behavioural
outcomes from the perceptive perspective.