Management Control Systems and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions: An Empirical Study of Innovators and Low Innovators

The present study anchors on ‘innovators’ of Miller and Roth (1994) and ‘defenders’ and ‘prospectors’ of Miles et al. (1978) strategies. The defenders and prospectors are categorized here as ‘low-innovators’, since they are perceived to be involved in less aggressive innovation than the innovators. Four novel hypotheses addressing primary constructs, namely, interactive control system (ICS), diagnostic control system (DCS), power distance (PD) and uncertainty avoidance (UA), are explored in this study. Based on responses from companies across varied sectors, such as, IT, manufacturing and finance, companies are classified as innovators and low-innovators (defenders and prospectors). t-test is used for statistical verification of the hypotheses whereas, Levene’s test and Wilk–Shapiro tests are conducted to verify the assumptions of t-test. Findings from the empirical research support that innovators use ICS whereas defenders use DCS. Innovators and prospectors have smaller PD than defenders and lastly, innovators have weaker UA than prospectors and defenders.