PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 10256835

The control function of management.

K A Merchant
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The control function of management can be a critical determinant of organizational success. Most authors discuss control only through feedback and adjustment processes. This article takes a broader perspective on control and discusses the following questions: What is good control? Why are controls needed? How can good control be achieved? If multiple control strategies are feasible, how should the choice among them be made?

Explore related subjects

FeedbackHumansOrganizational ObjectivesPersonnel ManagementJournal Article

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

K A Merchant. 1982. The control function of management.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10256835/

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2006

Effects of feedback and calibration on the verbal estimation of the duration of tones.

Two experiments investigated the effects of feedback (Experiment 1) and calibration (Experiment 2) on verbal estimation of the duration of tones ranging from 77 to 1183 ms in length. In Experiment 1, accurate feedback was provided after half the trials in the feedback condition, and this was contrasted with a no-feedback condition in which feedback was absent. In Experiment 2, in the calibration condition, participants estimated the duration of the second of two tones, after a first tone of a known duration (ranging from 50 to 1200 ms) had been presented. In the no calibration condition the value of the first tone was unknown. Compared with conditions without feedback or calibration, the feedback/calibration operation produced no significant change in group mean estimates, nor coefficients of variation of estimates, but the absolute deviation of estimates from the real stimulus duration, and the absolute deviation of individual estimates from the group mean, were both significantly reduced. The feedback/calibration thus made participants' mean estimates thus more accurate and more similar to one another, but the actual mechanism by which this was done was apparently a subtle process of adjustment, rather than a gross change in mean estimate or estimate variability.

Feedback↗
PubMed2006

Feed-forward control of a redundant motor system.

We describe a model of feed-forward control of a redundant motor system and validate it using, as examples, tasks of multi-finger force production. The model assumes the existence of two input signals at an upper level of the control hierarchy, related and unrelated to a task variable. Knowledge of the Jacobian of the system is assumed at the level of generation of elemental variables (variables at the level of effectors). Variance at the level of elemental variables is considered as the sum of two components, related and unrelated to variability in the task variable. An index of stabilization of the task variable is similarly introduced as to how it was done in several studies using the framework of the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis. Several phenomena have been simulated including data point distributions corresponding to presence and absence of force-stabilizing synergies in two-finger tasks, changes in synergies with practice, and changes in synergy indices in preparation to a fast action. The model is discussed in comparison to other models of control of multi-element systems based on feedback processes. It shows that patterns of structured variability in the space of elemental variables can result from feed-forward processes. Relations of the model to the equilibrium-point hypothesis are also discussed.

Feedback↗