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Strategy, Management Control and Organizational Design: Empirical Illustrations from SCA Packaging

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Strategy, Control and Competitive Advantage

Part of the book series: Management for Professionals ((MANAGPROF))

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Abstract

As pointed out in the introductory chapter, how to create competitive advantage and improve organizational performance is a central question in the strategy field, and numerous perspectives have been applied in order to understand competitive advantage. This book proposes one explanation based on a contingent fit between strategies and management control systems (Nilsson and Rapp 2005), and the current chapter outlines organizational issues linked to the fit between a management control system and strategy at SCA Packaging (SCAP), a strong competitor on a paper-packaging market in Europe. At the time this chapter is being written, SCAP belongs to the SCA group, which was founded in Sweden in 1929. SCAP is ‘a leading European company in customer-specific packaging, with a focus on state-of-the art packaging design and local service close to customer facilities’ (www.scapackaging.com). SCAP emphasizes its innovation focus, and the company has received numerous awards in recognition of the innovative design of its products. While trying to foster innovative design in its products, SCAP also pays attention to production costs and to ensuring the sustainability of its operations. The company has been granted numerous sustainability and business ethics awards.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In January 2012 an acquisition of SCAP by DS Smith was announced. It was finalized in July the same year.

  2. 2.

    One example of an innovative design is the Moët et Chandon champagne premium box that keeps the drink cool for 2 h. It received the Formes de Luxe award at the luxury packaging fair Luxe Pack in Monaco in 2010.

  3. 3.

    Examples include “Nordic Sustainability Stars,” “The New Economy Carbon Leadership Awards”, “2012 World’s Most Ethical Companies” by American Ethisphere Institute, “Corporate Knights 2010,” “FTSE4Good Index”.

  4. 4.

    The chapter is based on a study presented in the doctoral thesis by Cieslak (2011), defended at the Institute of Economic Research, Lund University.

  5. 5.

    The term “business unit-level strategy” is used interchangeably with “product-market strategy” in the business literature; two generic business unit-level strategies are “low cost” and “differentiation”.

  6. 6.

    There are many definitions of business units, but the main characteristic appears to be the ability to create strategy by exercising control over most of the factors that affect long-term performance (for example, the ability to decide on investments) (Hax and Majluf 1996). The analysis in this chapter applies to SCAP, and the management clusters are referred to as business units, a nomenclature in line with relatively strong decentralization of management in the company. Headquarters is referred to as the corporate center. Note, however, that SCA as a corporate group has recently started to refer to companies within the group as business units.

  7. 7.

    This corroborates a line of thought where accounting, and more generally management control systems, are regarded as tools not only for strategy implementation, but also for strategy creation (Jørgensen and Messner 2010; Simons 1990; Skærbæk and Tryggestad 2010).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Katarzyna Cieslak

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  1. Katarzyna Cieslak
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Correspondence to Katarzyna Cieslak .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University Economic Information Systems, Linköping, Sweden

    Erik Jannesson

  2. Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Fredrik Nilsson

  3. Institute for Management of Innovation and Technology, Gothenburg, Ljusterö, Sweden

    Birger Rapp

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Cieslak, K. (2014). Strategy, Management Control and Organizational Design: Empirical Illustrations from SCA Packaging. In: Jannesson, E., Nilsson, F., Rapp, B. (eds) Strategy, Control and Competitive Advantage. Management for Professionals. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39134-7_6

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