Enabling control is a model proposed in 2004 by researchers Thomas Ahrens and Christopher Chapman, and it has since become one of the major approaches in management control. It is derived from the work of Paul Adler and Bryan Borys (1996), who distinguish two types of workflow formalization in the model of enabling bureaucracies: coercive and enabling. Its core idea is to “allow employees to better master their tasks.”

When applied to management control systems, it provides a framework for analyzing the balance between efficiency and flexibility, emphasizing employee participation in their interactions with management technologies.