ارتباط انعطاف پذیری استراتژیک با انرژی و بهره وری انرژی – نقش واسطه انتخاب سیستم های کنترل مدیریت Linking energy-related strategic flexibility and energy efficiency – The mediating role of management control systems choice

1 INTRODUCTION One of the most promising means of achieving cleaner production in the manufacturing industry is to reduce energy consumption and thus to enhance industrial energy efficiency (Schulze et al., 2016). Consequently. major energy-consuming countries have announced new additional measures for enhancing energy efficiency: While China is targeting a 16% reduction in energy intensity by 2015 (China State Council, 2011), the European Union has committed itself to the ‘20-20-20’ targets for 2020. These targets aim on reducing the EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, establishing a share of 20% renewable energy sources in total energy supply and increasing energy efficiency by 20% (Council of the European Union, 2007). Likewise, Japan aims on significantly enhancing its energy efficiency in the industrial sector as well as on cutting 10% from electricity consumption by 2030 (Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2010). In all these different initiatives, the industry sector plays a significant role in achieving the energy related targets (Trianni et al., 2013). Enhanced energy efficiency has also received economic relevance for the manufacturing companies themselves as it decreases both the energy consumption on the one hand (which also reduces total energy costs) as well as additional energy cost savings due to efficiency improvements related to the optimization within the energy procurement (Thollander, Danestig and Rohdin, 2007). Yet, among several barriers to achieve energy efficiency (Rohdin, Thollander, and Solding, 2007), a major challenge for a lot of organizations is to balance the promotion of strategic flexibility on the one hand, and enhancing efficiency on the other (Kortman et al., 2014). Efficiency requires the exploitation of existing capabilities and is often best served by well-defined processes that specify how different activities should be carried out. Flexibility, in contrast, requires the exploration of new opportunities which can best be achieved if employees are allowed to deviate from routine activities (Eisenhardt et al., 2010). Therefore, prior literature suggests that managers should aim at balancing strategic flexibility and operational efficiency to enable a sustainable competitive advantage (Perez‐Valls et al., 2015).