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This paper aims to emphasize and illustrate the relevance of international comparative approaches which focus on better understanding cultural differences in management accounting and control. Such approaches are particularly fruitful in the European context where they highlight diversity — an essential character of any « European management model ». We first describe, as an initial example of comparative analysis, the various processes of emerging organisational research and schools of management thought in Europe, as distinct from the US. Some different management and accounting information systems in France and the UK, compared on the basis of field research, provide a second illustration in support of comparative approaches.