Demonstrating the effect of the strategic dialogue : participation in designing the management control system

Stimulation of goal congruent behaviors through the coordinated allocation of human resources—i.e. time, energy and attention—requires the mental models of organizational actors to be convergent. The Strategic Dialogue is advocated for the purpose of convergent mental modeling. In relation to the need for convergence, the concept of Goal Coherence is introduced, which is measured as the amount of consensus on goal priorities within and, moreover, between goal interdependent groups. The relation between Strategic Dialogue and Goal Coherence represents the instrumental hypothesis of the research. Support for this hypothesis is empirically demonstrated in a two-group pre-test/post-test design, using a specific measure of association. This design has been applied twice in a practical case study on the participatory designing of a management control system.