How do management control systems function when under pressure to mainstream gender equality into a core business? This question is being discussed with an interpretive approach from both the institutional and the gender perspective. Empirical evidence stems from two longitudinal case studies within the Swedish public sector where management by objectives (MBO) is the current model for governmental control. The analysis is based on four aspects: management by objectives, gender mainstreaming, the concept of loose coupling from organization studies and institutional change as translation.

The gender perspective highlights constructions that tend to enable or to hamper gender equality. The sociological institutional perspective sheds light over rules, norms and culture. In the empirical cases, it becomes evident that formal goals within MBO proved unable to overrule prevailing norms that have grounded a well established gendered (malestream) culture.  Control systems are designed to handle new issues; however, in the cases studied, this took place merely normatively and in line with the core business, not by changing the grounds on which the control system stands. The MBO model consequently lacks the ability to integrate gender in a transformative mode.