Review Article
Peter Hyde, Lei-Tin Ong
Abstract
This paper constitutes a literature review which focuses on the issue of the degree of alignment between the cultural values of the country of origin (Thailand) of a multinational corporation (MNC) with a management control system (MCS) and the values of the managers of the country of operation. There is a great deal of literature on the effect of systems imposed by MNCs in other countries and on the clashes between systems and cultural values of the countries that they operate in. With the concept of cultural distance, it is argued that cultural distance can be applied to management control systems, and that cultural distance can be measured using Schwartz’ cultural values. The particular aspect of a MCS that is studied is the performance measurement system, specifically the balanced scorecard (BSC).Four research questions were developed regarding the impact of cultural distance on the effectiveness of the performance measurement system and its ultimate impact on performance.