Strategic alignment in decentralized organizations – The case of Svenska Handelsbanken

• Strategic alignment in empowerment-based organizations involves a strong role for technocratic controls and organizational structure.
• Technocratic controls empower by confirming performance and trigger actions. Simultaneously, local actions are made visible to be monitored.
• Experience and time enable close surveillance based on technocratic controls without undermining empowerment.

SummaryRecent research emphasizes technocratic controls to support the self-management aspect of empowerment. Strategic alignment is ascribed to socio-ideological controls. However, the indirect nature of socio-ideological controls pose a question regarding monitoring of strategic alignment in organizations with empowerment-oriented controls. We adopt a holistic approach in exploring the role of and interaction between organization structure, socio-ideological control and technocratic control through a qualitative case study. Our study confirms the essential role of socio-ideological controls in ensuring strategic alignment, but highlights the role of trust in experienced-based advice-giving from superiors to subordinates. Technocratic controls contain information that provide visibility of local actions and are used in hierarchical communication. The interrelationship between socio-ideological and technocratic controls is dependent on the organization structure design through time and proximity. A high capacity to communicate is thereby established, enabling monitoring without impairing empowerment.