Exploiting existing resources or exploring new ones is an old dilemma. As exploitation consists in “the refinement and extension of existing competences, technologies and paradigms” (March, 1991, p. 85) and exploration means “experimentation with new alternatives” (March, 1991, p. 85),...

Is an implementation of a management control system in a public company a lever of change ? A case study was carried out with the French National Railway Company between 1996 and 1998. The management control adapts to the strategic and structural change. The objectives are to decentralize the...

This paper describes an exploratory field study which was carried out at the SNCF. In a network company like SNCF it is more difficult to adopt the assumptions on which traditional management control is based. Now this company is entering into a new process of change of its control system. Is a...

This paper examines issues related to the explanation of the budgeting practices variety. The framework chosen to explain diversity is the contingency theory. It gives us the opportunity to determinate the explanatory factors of budgeting practices: uncertainty, technology, organization, and...

During the last decades, research in the field of management control has been characterised by the emergence of a great variety of trends which are referred to as “critical”. This study reviews critical management control research in Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) from 1976...

The budget process has been a subject of debate for many years and in some companies this has implied the suppression of budgetary control. The first examples of companies managing without budgets can now be studied in order to understand how new these ways of managing are. We’re presenting in...

This paper examines how buyers control their suppliers in asymmetric interfirm transactional relationships. The conceptual framework is based on two perspectives –Transaction Cost Economics and Relational Exchange View. The empirical research analyses three case studies of buyer firms: one in...