Management control practices in SMEs : between known and unknown

While neglected for a long time in the specialized literature, the management control function practiced in SMEs has however been depicted during the last years by numerous grounded researches. A comparison of the results from theses researches, led in a behavioral accounting perspective or in an instrumental one, allows to infer a general conceptual framework largely shared by the literature and depicting, in a contingent perspective, how the design of the management control system is progressively emerging within a SME (the known). It also highlights the presence of many homogenous subgroups amongst SMEs (such as high-tech SMEs), whose the specificities are largely ignored by the literature, and the existence of some research analytical viewpoints still rarely explored in this literature (such as the link between the risk perception by an entrepreneur and the design of the management control system he implements)