ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the meaning of control and then moved onto its referencing within different streams of the management literature. There is a sociological bias to many of these tracts, involving conceptualisations of structure, agency, power and authority. It focuses on subject of control, looking at general academic commentaries on the phenomenon, followed by elucidating three main streams of inquiry relating to control; traditional management theory, broad management literature and the 'critical management' perspective. The term 'organisation' in itself implies a structural form whose central purpose is to control and coordinate activities to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness of human endeavour. To organisational network theorists, firms are social structures comprised of workers which are linked by specific types of interdependencies such as friendship, common interest, relationships, knowledge or financial exchange The founding father of management theory, Max Weber, conceptualised managerial bureaucracy as a preferred state to charismatic solus 'divine right' leadership that had characterised Western society until mid nineteenth century.
