Culture, management accounting and managerial performance: Focus Iran

Modern management and control systems may not be equally effective in every country. Budget participation is one of the effective tools in western nations. However, management control tools, in general, and budget participation, in particular, could be ineffective or even dysfunctional in other environments. Hofstede (1980) had suggested that cultural differences among countries are influencing factors. In this study, we investigate the impact of culture, budgetary participation, and management accounting systems on managerial performance in Iran. Three-way analyses of variance are used separately for each of the four cultural Hofstede dimensions. We find convincing evidence that the application of management tools and techniques developed in western countries for effective management performance is not as useful in the Iranian context. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.