Marissa Nafsik founded Mana Consulting (MANA) in 2010. The company has grown from a oneperson operation to a rather diverse consulting company specialising in management consulting, technology consulting, particularly with respect to internet technologies, and, more recently, a forensic accounting service. MANA now employs 45 professional staff and 10 administrative staff. In the early days, Marissa was able to manage the company by meeting with staff on a one-onone basis, holding lots of social gatherings and developing a strong culture of friendliness and hard work. The work seemed to get done with minimal formal monitoring of staff. Marissa was also very careful about who she hired, as it was important to her that new employees would adapt quickly to the company’s culture.

Of course, as the company has grown, Marissa has found it increasingly difficult to use her personal touch like in the early days. As the company grew, she thought it best to document the kind of culture she wanted to preserve. Each employee was provided a copy of the MANA WAY as she called it. Still, as the company continued to grow, Marissa felt she was losing control. She found it more difficult to spend time with her staff and found herself constantly in her office planning, tendering for new consulting work, speaking with clients about work programs and the like.

Moreover, since the forensic accounting business has started to take off, she has restructured the company into three divisions with a consulting manager for each division. She thought her best option for influencing the managers’ performance was to set some key targets relating to revenue within each division as well as to costs. She also set some expectations about client and employee satisfaction.

What was worrying her now was whether she needed to rethink her negative attitude towards incentives and bonuses. She sat back in her chair and reflected. She was proud of what she had created but, in some ways, longed for the early days.

Required

(a) Using Simons’ levers of control, analyse the case — identify and provide evidence of the existence of each of Simons’ levers of control.

(b) Do you have any suggestions for how Marissa should proceed?