Analysis of controllership's sociopolitical and cognitive legitimacy in Brazil

Abstract

In different parts of the world, efforts have been made to find legitimacy and identity for controllership. In this context, the following research question emerges: What is the identity of controllership in Brazil? To answer this question, this research is based on studies of legitimacy and aims to identify and analyze the sociopolitical (Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002; Aldrich, 1999) and cognitive legitimacy (Scott, 2001; Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002) of controllership in Brazil. To achieve the proposed goal for sociopolitical legitimacy, we examine documents, rules, and resolutions of official and professional representative bodies. To analyze cognitive legitimacy, we investigate publications in major accounting journals, materials presented conferences and seminars, descriptions of courses on controllership, books, and manuals. The results show that controllership in Brazil has sociopolitical legitimacy. It has its own bodies and rules, but it must improve its organization and development levels, as has occurred in the United States and Germany. Cognitive legitimacy increases in books and manuals, and courses on controllership are present in most accounting programs. There are opportunities for improvement, mainly for journal publications.