Management Control systems and Brazilian culture: an analysis of Anthony´s model

Abstract

Managerial practices are often based on values that are held by the researchers who developed them. Given the rational and universal character the industrial society attributes to certain practices, they are generally believed to be value free. However, this apparent rational and universal character hides values of capitalist ideology which are many times mixed with values of American society. This study analyses one of the most used theoretical structures in management control area the model proposed by Professor Robert N. Anthony aiming to grasp values that could be implicit in the model, in order to evaluate if they are congruent or opposite to the values present in Brazilian culture. Results suggest that some adjustments should be done when applying the model to Brazilian organizations.