Management Control Systems Before and after the Transition from a Communist to a Capitalist System: The Case of Albania

Abstract

For quite a while, in the second half of the 20th Century, Albania was considered the possibly most radical communist country, even beyond Mao’s China, and was an isolated country in Europe. Then, after the fall of the Berlin wall, it evolved towards some form of western capitalism, which is where it stands now. About a quarter of a Century has passed since then, and we have examined the change with some perspective. For this purpose, we did a field study of a number of firms in Albania through in-depth interviews with managers, before and after the change took place. After some considerations about the communist systems and the Marxian theory underlying them, we present the main results of the interviews realized in Albania with people that were managers during the socialist period, and people that are managers now. We then compare the results and analyze the differences to draw some conclusions about management control systems that can be generalized under the two systems.