Using a set of published management control papers and their bibliographic citations, this study scrutinizes the knowledge structure of French management control research. Specifically, this paper vets the impact of the different types of publications, the extent of use of classic and non-accounting literature as well as the impact of foreign and French journals. The networks which contributed to the internal construction of management control theoretical backgrounds are also examined.
In this research we use bibliometric techniques based on analysis of 74 articles (3049 references) published in the “Comptabilité, Contrôle, Audit” French review (CCA) from its initiation in 1995 until 2003.