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.