La crisi COVID-19 come “crash-test” per i sistemi di controllo aziendali: il caso di un’azienda di trasporto pubblico locale

COVID-19 crisis as a crash-test for control systems: the case of a local public transport company Management control systems can favor the pursuing of the organizational aims and mitigate or anticipate the risks. This work intends to focus on the fundamental characters of management control systems, detected in moments of particular criticality and instability, such as the health emergency underway in 2020, due to the pandemic triggered by the COVID-19. Through the methodology of the case study, the work aims to highlight that a structuring and implementation of the control systems, consistent with the managerial approach, as well as present in the case of local public transport company, here analyzed, can provide an effective response to a specific emergency such as the COVID-19 crisis. The assumption of this work is that a management control system, capable of overcoming this sort of "crash-test" (where the COVID-19 crisis is considered with a parallelism to the tests conducted in the cars quality control) is essential for guiding the choices and behaviors of management bodies at a time when fundamental decisions must be made to ensure business continuity.