Rotinas de controlo de gestão e disciplina na execução da estratégia

: estudo de caso da Amorim Florestal

Abstract

Over the years, management control has assumed an increasingly important role in organizations. It is responsible for ensuring that organisations objectives are achieved through an integrated set of management tools, methodologies and processes. To ensure that the objectives are achieved, organisations have implemented management control routines in order to continuously monitor the progress of the defined objectives. Such routines are usually led by the organizational function of management control (controllers) who have the responsibility of supervising and ensuring the effectiveness of these activities. The role of controller has been marked by a growing sophistication and broader scope of responsibilities, especially in larger companies. While in the past the controller’s role was primarily to monitor the company's financial transactions and produce financial reports, today it is not only this that is expected of the function. Now it includes other activities, such as planning and analysis. There is a much closer connection to the strategy, which allowed the controller to act in close collaboration with the leaders of the organisation. The present study, based on the contributions available in the literature, aims to analyze how the evolution of the organizational context can impact on the management control function and its routines. For this analysis, we studied the evolution of the role of controllers that, consequently, has been requiring another type of skills for function performance. In order to analyze the case in a real context, the company where the author works, Amorim Florestal, one of the companies of the Corticeira Amorim group, was studied. For the analysis, interviews were conducted with professionals in the company. The empirical analysis carried out allowed us to conclude that the management control function assumes a preponderant role in the organisation, ix with a very well defined model and routines, which are identified as one of the main success factors of the group. It’s also identified an evolution over time in the function of controller, in which it is not restricted exclusively to reporting, but rather to a more comprehensive set of processes, with intervention throughout the planning model and management control.

Date of Award	14 Jul 2023
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luís Marques (Supervisor)