A evolução do controlo de gestão em Portugal

: o caso da Lúcios, Engenharia & Construção

Abstract

The final work of this master degree aims to study the evolution of management control in Portugal, based on a case study where we compare whether the addressed theoretical practices have been considered in the day-to-day operation of the organizations.
Management control is a very broad concept and that has caused some disagreement among the leading researchers in the field. Taking advantage of inputs from various authors, we can conclude that management control is the process by which using internal information for the production of a set of conclusions that will result in important feedback to organizations and help them to improve the decision of the managers.
In addition, management control plays an important role in the alignment of all work teams and it should also be understood as the system of rules, practices and other activities that are carried out to direct the worker's behaviour towards the organizations ideas.
Management control has gained an increasingly important place within organizations. In early 1920 appeared the first practical control to fund the production process and processing of raw materials. With technological developments, routine tasks were systematized and opened doors for management control to evolve to a point where, today, is seen as an extremely important business partner to improve the decision making of companies.
This work addresses two different management models. The model of Management Control Systems, of Malmi and Brown, which proposes a dynamic control structure based on five pillars: administrative, cyber, planning, cultural and pay and compensation.
The model of Performance Management System, proposed by Ferreira and Otley, which brings to this work a more procedural and broad view of management control systems, since it is a friendlier model for organizational performance.
Lúcios, Engenharia & Construção appears in this work to understand the importance of management control within the organization. Complementary to the finished main objective that was just mentioned, we also will seek to understand how this department has evolved over the years. The application of the two models of control to this company aims to better understand this area of “Lúcios”, in order to move forward with a value proposition for the company.
The company created a management control department recently. Nevertheless, this team work is evolving in accordance with the best practices of the international management control. The implementation of the “balanced scorecard” was an important milestone in “Lúcios”. Not only forced the company to rethink its strategy, as allowed to implement a performance management system in line with the ideals of “Lúcios”.

Date of Award	24 Mar 2017
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luís Marques (Supervisor)