Accounting researches have been marked by new approaches in order to manage costs in organizations and by multidisciplinary studies about certain phenomena from different perspectives. This article aims to draw up a profile of cost research in the framework of the accounting and management control theme area during the meetings of the Brazilian National Association of Graduate Programs in Business Administration (ENANPAD) since its inauguration as an autonomous area in 1998 until 2003. Initially, our analysis involved the review of 170 articles accepted in this theme area. Afterwards, we selected 32 specific articles on cost accounting. We examined the analyzed themes, the adopted research methods, which economic segments were investigated, the authors' academic affiliation and the kind of bibliography they had consulted. The results evidenced two main factors: (i) a strong quantitative growth in the accounting theme, increasing from 40 submitted papers in 1998 to 191 in 2003, with considerable quantitative influence in the cost area; and (ii) this quantitative growth was not accompanied, to the same extent, by the qualitative progress of papers in the cost area. This article presents the state-of-the-art of cost accounting research at a Brazilian high-quality scientific event.
research in accounting; cost accounting; management control
