Cost Management Practices and Strategic Perspectives: a study in the construction industry of the State of Paraná

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost managementpractices of building industry companies of Parana that follow thetypology of Porter's strategies. The sample comprises member companiesof the Association of Construction Industries of the State of Parana(PR-SINDUSCON) operating in the segment of residential buildings. Thedata were collected by means of questionnaires sent to 317 SINDUSCONmembers. 69 were returned and 54 used for our research. ExploratoryFactorial Analysis of the data allowed us to identify two groups of costmanagement practices. Analyses suggest equality between the adopted costmanagement practices and the Cost Control Planning (CCP) practices amongthe companies of the Group 1, regardless of the generic strategyadopted. The companies of the Group 2 that adopted the differentiationstrategy seem to use mainly the ACR cost management practice. Ourfindings differ from those obtained by Chenhall insofar as companiesthat adopt low cost strategies tend to use managerial controls focusedon cost control and rigid budgetary controls.