This study aimed to detect the impact of cultural differences in a planning and control system. In order to reach this objective, a qualitative research was realized in a Brazilian subsidiary of an British multinational corporation. In order to understand more deeply the way the interaction between the national culture and management control practices occured, it was selected a cultural dimension identified by Hofstede (1980) in his study about values of people in over 50 countries. The dimension chosen was uncertainty avoidance, which is defined as the extent to which the members of a culture feel themselves comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, aspects strictly related to the planning and control system. The research was based on interviews which sought to investigate the way the informants dealt with uncertainty in their planning and control system. Where the theory suggested more than one possible behaviour, an alternative could be selected. Finally, the reports were able to confirm some results antecipated in the literature while others seemed to be opposite to what was expected, suggesting the influence of other factors.
organizational culture; culture of Brazil; culture of England; management control