This study builds on two concepts: management control (MC) and Internet-enabled
business model (IEBM).MC is a wide set of formal or informal mechanisms that the
management has implemented for aligning people’s behaviour towards the set
organisational goals and answering to control needs that arise from the business
environment. In this study, the focus is on a business model context-driven set of
controls. Unlike in the discussion of MC as a system is typical, I use the word system
to describe such management control that is implemented by the company
management for aligning employees’ behaviour towards the strategic targets. In the
IEBM, the Internet is crucial infrastructure and enabler for existence. The choice of
technology made by company management divides IEBMs into utilisers of paid and
free technology. Value creation and capture can only realise by acting as part of an
ecosystem of the same technology users. Technology, the ecosystem, value creation
mechanisms, and innovation are the central attributes that describe IEBMs. Those
significantly affect the design of MCS as well. However, whilst the MCS literature
has concentrated on strategic features of innovation and development, the IEBM
level of decisions and the MCS package designed because of them, has not yet been
explored much in the MCS literature. The case company of this interpretive study is
a free technology software developer for system coders globally. This study
contributes to our existing knowledge by showing that the MCS package design is
two-fold: MCS for the behavioural control within the organisation, and MCS for the
external actors in the ecosystem. Further, the MCS package for the organisation is
designed around three main control questions: ensuring value creation and capture,
diminishing risks, and enabling of innovation. In addition, the package has another
layer, where IEBM control systems aim in the direction of external actors, the
ecosystem. That layer builds on a strong organisational culture, some very labelling
activity, an anchor/core practice, and also on such social, technical, economic, and
institutional minimal structures, which provide governance but allow considerable
independence at the same. Those structures govern the ecosystem and the IEBM
reciprocally.