D.Litt. et Phil. / The current political dispensation in South Africa has, as was the case in the past, undoubtedly had a major influence on the language patterns of the country. The 1996 Constitution now provides official recognition of the main indigenous languages. Despite this entrenchment, there is evidence of a marked shift in language allegiance in favour of English. This study focuses on the language attitudes and perceptions of grade 12 learners in three Afrikaans medium high schools in Johannesburg. In order to achieve the task, a “triangulation approach” was adopted. A literature study was done to provide a backdrop to the understanding of the present language situation. Interviews were conducted with the Afrikaans language teachers of the respondents. Questionnaires were then completed by the learners, as well as by the said teachers. The objectives of the empirical study were threefold, firstly to establish the perceptions of the learners with regard to their mother tongue and language in general. Secondly, the possible consequences of the learners’ negative perceptions about their mother tongue on the future of the language, their culture and the community, was investigated. Lastly, to make recommendations as to how these language attitudes can possibly be changed, from the data. The findings of this study confirm the influence of English on the language and cultural patterns of the learners. It is imperative to change the perceptions that the English language provides the only key to success, lest irrevocable damage be done to our country’s unique language and cultural variety.

Contabilidade Gerencial e a Estratégia têm em comum a questão do desempenho organizacional, a primeira tem como objetivo medir o desempenho, a segunda se preocupa em como as organizações podem obter desempenho por meio de vantagens competitivas. Uma abordagem utilizada pela Estratégia é a Visão Baseada em Recursos, nessa ótica, o desempenho é potencializado pelas competências organizacionais da empresa, mas, nessa busca pelas competências, as organizações utilizam-se do Sistema de Controle Gerencial - SCG. Dependendo de como o SCG é utilizado, diagnóstica ou interativamente, ou uma combinação dos ambos, este pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento das competências e balancear as Tensões Dinâmicas e, indiretamente, influenciar o desempenho organizacional. Fundamentado no modelo teórico de Henri (2006), o objetivo deste trabalho foi contribuir para o entendimento deste relacionamento nas 1.000 maiores empresas brasileiras, utilizando a técnica estatística multivariada Modelagem de Equações Estruturais com o método de estimação Partial Least Square PLS. Os resultados em um total de 104 empresas indicam que (i) não existem evidências de relacionamento negativo entre o Uso Diagnóstico e o desenvolvimento de competências organizacionais, sugerindo que, no Brasil, o Uso Diagnóstico pode ter um menor componente disfuncional, e também, que este pode ser visto como uma rotina organizacional necessária para manter a organização dentro de um caminho planejado, o que não é incompatível com o desenvolvimento das competências; (ii) não existem relacionamentos significativos positivos entre desenvolvimento de competências e desempenho econômico, medido pelo Retorno sobre Patrimônio Líquido, o que é coerente com o estudo de Henri (2006), sugerindo que devem existir outras variáveis não contempladas no modelo, ou ainda que o indicador RSPL possa não ser uma proxy adequada de desempenho nos anos de 2005 a 2007; (iii) existe relacionamento positivo entre o Uso Interativo e o desenvolvimento de competências, com exceção do Empreendedorismo, o que é consistente com os resultados de Henri (2006); (iv) existe relacionamento positivo entre as Tensões Dinâmicas e as competências, o que está em linha com Henri (2006) e valida a teoria de que as tensões são importantes para busca da eficácia organizacional; (v) Uso Diagnóstico e Uso Interativo do SCG influenciam positivamente as Tensões Dinâmicas, podendo configurar o SCG como um recurso complementar na ótica da VBR; (vi) quando o desempenho é medido por auto-avaliação, ocorre uma alteração nos resultados dos relacionamentos entre competências e desempenho, com as competências Aprendizagem Organizacional e Orientação para Mercado influenciando positivamente o desempenho, indicando que estas duas competências/orientações devem ser estimuladas pelo uso do SCG. Os resultados da pesquisa estão sujeitos a algumas limitações, a principal delas refere-se ao fato que as respostas refletem a percepção dos profissionais de controladoria e finanças das empresas e a análise dos dados também não considerou a estratificação por setores econômicos. Estas limitações ensejam futuras pesquisas, como a sua replicação utilizando outro perfil de respondente, a realização de estudos de casos em empresas com diferentes culturas e desempenhos, bem como estudos que aprofundem a dimensão uso com competências específicas e mesmos construtos oriundos de outros campos de conhecimento. / Managerial Accounting and the Strategy have in common the issue of organizational performance; the first has as the objective of performance measuring the second focuses on how the organizations can obtain performance through competitive advantages. An approach used by the Strategy is the Resource-Based View, through this point of view, the performance is maximized by the company organizational competences, but in this competences search, the organizations use the Management Control System - MCS. Depending on how the MCS is used diagnostically or interactively, or in a combination of both, this can contribute to the competences development and the dynamic tensions balance and indirectly, influence the organizational performance. Originated by the Henri (2006) theoretical model this study proposal is to contribute for this relationship understanding in the 1,000 Brazilian biggest companies, using the multivariate statistic technique Structural Equation Modeling with the estimation method Partial Least Square PLS. The result in a total of 104 companies indicates that (i) there are no evidences of negative relationship between the diagnostic use and the organizational competences development, suggesting that in Brazil, the diagnostic use can have a minor dysfunctional component, and also, that the diagnostic use can be seen as an organizational routine needed to maintain the organization in a planned path, which is not incompatible with the competences development ; (ii) there are no meaningful positive relationships between the competence development and the economical performance, measured by the Return on Equity, which is coherent with the Henri (2006), suggesting that there must be other variables not contemplated in the model, or even that the indicator ROE might not be an adequate proxy of development in the years of 2005-2007; (iii) there is a relationship between the interactive use and the development of competences, excepting the enterprising, which is consistent with Henri (2006) results; there is a positive relation between the dynamic tensions and the competences, which is aligned with Henri (2006) and validates the theory that the tensions are important for the search of the organizational effectiveness (v) diagnostic use and interactive use of the MCS have a positive influence on the dynamic tensions, being able to configure the MCS as an additional resource in the RBV framework ; (vi) when the development measurement is made by self-evaluation, there happens a results change of the relations between competences and performance, with the organizational learning competences and market orientation having a positive influence on the performance, indicating that this two competences/orientations must be stimulates by the MCS use. The research results have some limitation; the main one is that the answers reflect the perception of corporate controllers and finance managers The data analyses did not take in account the stratification by economical sector. These limitations enhance future researches, such as its reply using others professional profiles ; the use cases study methodology in companies with different cultural and performance profiles, and more accurate studies of the usage dimension of specific competences and the same construct deriving from other fields of knowledge.

Contrairement aux communautés écologiques pionnières et militantes (années 70/90) ainsi qu’aux premiers écoquartiers nord-européens pilotés par les collectivités lors de grands évènements médiatiques (milieu des années 90), les écoquartiers français relèvent de l’intégration progressive des préceptes de la ville durable au sein des modes de production ordinaires de l’urbain (années 2000). A ce titre, ils consistent à fabriquer dans un cadre émancipé du militantisme et de l’expérimentation de nouveaux aménagements (espaces verts rustiques, voiries douces, etc.) et de nouvelles constructions (isolation par l’extérieur, ventilation double-flux, sols écologiques, etc.) en adéquation avec les principes de durabilité. Cette tentative de généralisation de techniques innovantes au sein de la fabrication urbaine française s’accompagne alors d’une myriade de dispositifs éducatifs à destination des travailleurs du projet et futurs habitants du quartier. Ces outils consistent à inculquer aux différents publics ciblés les nouveaux savoir-faire et savoir-vivre nécessaires à la mise en œuvre et au fonctionnement des techniques écologiques. Ainsi, les usages sociaux des travailleurs et habitants posent problème à ceux qui fabriquent les écoquartiers. Ce problème traduit le hiatus entre la figure imaginaire de l’usager escomptée par la fabrication et la réalité des pratiques sociales régulées par les usages. Il indique le caractère socialement subversif de la production d’innovations techniques écologiques et par là même l’existence de nouvelles attentes sur les pratiques sociales. / Contrarily to the pioneer and militant ecological communities (in the 70s and 90s), and also to the first north-European eco-neighbourhoods run by local authorities during the huge press events in the middle of the 90’s, French eco-neighbourhoods come under progressive integration of the durable city’ principles within the modes of production for the ordinary urban space (years 2000). On this account, they consist in fabricating within an emancipated frame, activism and experimentation of new facilities (parks, road works, etc.) in compliancy with principles of durability. This attempt to generalise innovative techniques within the French urban fabrication is accompanied by a myriad of educative plans of action instilled to workers concerned by the project, and future inhabitants of the quarter. These tools assist in instilling new savoir-faire and savoir-vivre necessary for the implementation and functioning of ecological techniques to the different targeted publics. Thus, social usages of workers and inhabitants matter to those who fabricate eco-neighbourhoods. This matter underscores the hiatus between the imaginative figure of the user expected by the fabrication and reality of social practices, which usages regulate. It is indicative of the socially subversive character in the production of ecological and technological innovations, and at the same time the existence of new expectations on social practices.

Au vu de la croissance considérable de la consommation des antidépresseurs au cours des dernières décennies et de la part non négligeable de patients qui restent non traités ou mal traités, la question du bon usage ou du mésusage de ces médicaments s’impose. Les trois études présentées dans ce rapport se sont intéressées à décrire l’augmentation de la consommation des antidépresseurs et à en comprendre les mécanismes sous-jacents. L’analyse des données de vente indique que la croissance des antidépresseurs diffère entre les pays étudiés, mais qu’elle suit un schéma classique d’augmentation suivie d’une stabilisation à un certain seuil, et que les politiques de limitation des dépenses de santé ont un impact, différent selon la maturité du marché. Les travaux sur données de remboursement montrent que si l‘on peut parler de mésusage dans l’utilisation des antidépresseurs, il semble lié non pas à une prescription hors indication mais plutôt inappropriée : traitement sans diagnostic précis, prescription unique suggérant un traitement injustifié, traitement trop court en regard des recommandations internationales qui préconisent au moins 6 mois pour éviter rechutes et récidives. Les travaux que nous avons menés montrent que les bases de données peuvent constituer un outil fiable d’évaluation de la consommation (données de vente) ou d’utilisation des antidépresseurs (bases de remboursement) : utilisation simple et rapide de données de vente afin d’avoir un panorama des pratiques et utilisation plus complexe des bases de remboursement afin de mieux comprendre les pratiques. Utilisés en pratique courante, des tableaux de bord de suivi de consommation pourraient alerter les pouvoirs publics sur les dérives des consommations et permettre de mettre en place des analyses plus poussées afin de caractériser les pratiques et mieux comprendre les vecteurs de la consommation. / Considering the large increase in antidepressant use observed in the last decades, the question of good or poor usage of antidepressants is of importance. The three studies presented in this report consisted into a descriptive analysis of the increase in the use of antidepressants in different countries, and thereafter analyse the underlying mechanisms. Our analysis of sales database indicates that the increase in antidepressants volume differ from country to country, but follows a classical scheme with rapid increase until stabilisation to a certain threshold and that national policies to ensure expenditure limitations has a different impact on the volume depending on the maturity of the market. The analyses performed afterwards on US claims databases, and show that if improper use of antidepressants is a reality, it does not seem to correspond to a massive off-label use but rather to an incorrect use of antidepressants: treatment without precise diagnosis, isolated prescription which suggest undue treatment, treatment for too short periods of time with regards to international guidelines which recommend at least 6 month to avoid relapse or recurrence of the disease. The analyses we have conducted on databases can serve as a basis for the development of a reliable tool to evaluate drug consumption (sales databases) or drug use (claims databases) : simple and rapid use of sales databases to get a mapping of consumption in their environment, and more complex and time consuming use of claims database to gain an understanding of practice. Used in routine, the sales monitoring tools could play a role to alert public health services on abnormal evolution of drug consumption and allow the initiation of more refined analyses either on large claims databases or through prospective cohort of patients in order to characterise the practice and gain an understanding on the drivers of drug use.

Especially with the wide use of dynamic page generation, and richer user interaction in Web, traditional web usage mining methods, which are based on the pageview concept are of limited usability. For overcoming the difficulty of capturing usage behaviour, we define the concept of semantic events. Conceptually, events are higher level actions of a user in a web site, that are technically independent of pageviews. Events are modelled as objects in the domain of the web site, with associated properties. A sample event from a video web site is the &#039 / play video event&#039 / with properties &#039 / video&#039 / , &#039 / length of video&#039 / , &#039 / name of video&#039 / , etc. When the event objects belong to the domain model of the web site&#039 / s ontology, they are referred as semantic events. In this work, we propose a new algorithm and associated framework for mining patterns of semantic events from the usage logs. We present a method for tracking and logging domain-level events of a web site, adding semantic information to events, an ordering of events in respect to the genericity of the event, and an algorithm for computing sequences of frequent events.

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers&rsquo / ways of using mathematics textbooks while planning the lesson and during the lesson, to document teachers&rsquo / views about elementary students&rsquo / usage of mathematics textbook during the classroom time and for their homework and teachers&rsquo / views about mathematics textbooks&rsquo / characteristics. A case study was conducted in a private elementary school with more class hours for mathematics and six mathematics teachers teaching 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade mathematics in this school participated. Data were collected in the spring semester of 2010-2011 academic year through an interview protocol with 16 main questions addressing teachers&rsquo / mathematics textbook usage and students&rsquo / mathematics textbook usage developed for this study by the researcher through the findings and discussions in the literature. Data analysis was conducted through qualitative methods. The findings of this study showed that participant teachers expressed both positive and negative views about characteristics of textbook and usage of textbook. All of them stated that the textbook was their main tool for lesson preparations and teaching. They followed the curriculum from textbook and decided what to do, how to do, and when to do. Participants underlined that textbook was an effective helper but it needed improvement in many aspects. The findings also showed that teachers viewed that students did not use their textbook efficiently. All of the teachers expressed that students did not prefer to study from textbook if there were not any assignment or homework. Teachers specified that students could improve studying habits from textbook if teachers could direct them efficiently. The findings of this study might be useful to prepare more effective lessons for teachers, to give ideas to teachers for guiding their students for effective textbook usage, and to increase the quality of textbooks.

No description available.

Mobile phone usage involves the mobile phone, the telecommunications system, mobile phone users, and the adoption and use of the system. Mobile communications is a complex and rapidly changing industry consisting of the hardware, software, network and business aspects. Mobile phone users are influenced by demographic, social, cultural and contextual factors that complicate the understanding of mobile phone usage. Advances in technology and market competition drive the addition of new services and features. In contrast, human cognition and attention are more constrained and many users find it difficult to cope with the cognitive demands of mobile phone technology. The aim of this study is to develop a model for representing the influence of motivational needs and cultural factors on mobile phone usage variety. The link between motivational needs and mobile phone usage variety, the cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety, as well as usage spaces as an approach to representing usage variety, are researched. The research encompasses a literature study, structured interviews, a pilot study and a survey. The pilot study and survey yielded data about mobile phone usage of university students under the age of 30 in South Africa. The results from the statistical analysis were triangulated with the findings of the literature study and the observations made about mobile phone usage during this two-year period. A final survey was conducted to verify the model. The contribution of this study is a mobile phone technology usage model (MOPTUM) for representing the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety in such a way that users can use the model to express their mobile phone usage needs in non-technical terms while marketers and designers can use the model to convert the expressed user needs into the features required. MOPTUM draws on concepts and models from sociology, computer-supported cooperative work, human-computer interaction and technology adoption models from the field of marketing. MOPTUM verifies some existing findings on mobile phone usage and then integrates and extends these existing models to provide a new model for understanding the motivational and cultural factors that influence mobile phone usage variety. / Computing / Ph. D. (Computer Science)

De nos jours, ce ne sont pas que les collections multimédias qui deviennent de plus en plus volumineuses, mais aussi les métadonnées qui les décrivent. L’extraction des métadonnées est très coûteuse en consommation de ressources. Cela pose le problème de la gestion efficace de ces grands volumes de données, en minimisant cette consommation. Le fait que les utilisateurs sont en constante interaction avec les documents multimédias et les métadonnées complique encore plus cette gestion. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions le problème de la gestion de métadonnées en intégrant les interactions des utilisateurs à deux niveaux: dans le processus de création de métadonnées et dans leur enrichissement. La grande variété de standards et normes de métadonnées existants ne sont pas interopérables. Les solutions proposées à ce problème d’interopérabilité se sont focalisées sur la création d’ontologies qui décrivent les contenus multimédias du point de vue sémantique, sans forcément prendre en compte les standards de métadonnées et d’autres informations de plus bas niveau sur les documents. Pour résoudre ce problème nous proposons un format de métadonnées qui intègre les standards et normes les plus utilisés et qui est flexible et extensible en structure et en vocabulaire. Dans le cadre d’un système de gestion des contenus multimédias, le processus d’indexation est celui qui consomme le plus de ressources, à travers les algorithmes d’indexation qui extraient les métadonnées. Dans les systèmes classiques, cette indexation est accomplie avec un ensemble d’algorithmes d’indexation figé dans le temps, sans se soucier de la consommation des ressources ni de l’évolution des besoins de l’utilisateur. Pour prendre en compte les besoins que l’utilisateur spécifie dans sa requête, afin de n’extraire que les métadonnées nécessaires et ainsi limiter d’un côté le volume de métadonnées à gérer et de l’autre la consommation des ressources, nous proposons de répartir le processus d’indexation en deux phases: une fois à l’acquisition des contenus (indexation implicite), et une deuxième fois, si besoin, au moment de l’exécution de la requête de l’utilisateur (indexation explicite) en ayant recours à une liste d’algorithmes d’indexation déterminée principalement en fonction de la requête de l’utilisateur. L’utilisateur est de plus en plus pris en compte dans les systèmes multimédias à travers ses interactions avec le système et le document. Nous proposons d’aller plus loin dans la prise en compte de l’utilisateur, en considérant ses interactions avec les différentes parties du document mais aussi avec les métadonnées qui décrivent le document. Cela a été réalisé à travers l’extension du format de métadonnées proposée, par l’ajout d une température à chaque élément du format, qui varie dans le temps, étant calculée en fonction de la façon dont l’utilisateur interagit avec le document, mais aussi avec les métadonnées dans une période de temps. Nous avons validé nos propositions dans deux domaines différents: la vidéo surveillance et le commerce électronique. Le projet LINDO nous a permis la validation du format des métadonnées et de la sélection des algorithmes d’indexation dans le cadre de l’indexation explicite, dans le cadre de la vidéo surveillance. Dans le domaine du commerce électronique, nous avons exploité les interactions des utilisateurs réels avec un site de vente en ligne pour calculer la température des métadonnées associées aux pages du site pendant une période de deux mois. Nous avons utilisé cette température pour réaliser le reclassement des résultats obtenus pour une requête de l’utilisateur. Nous avons réalisé un test utilisateur sur une vingtaine de personnes. [...] / Nowadays, not only multimedia collections become larger, but also the metadata describing them. The metadata extraction is the most ressource consumming process in the management of multimedia collections. This raises the problem of the efficient management of these large data volumes while minimizing ressource consumption. Users’ constant interactions with multimedia documents and metadata complicate this management process. In this thesis, we adress this problem of metadata management by integrating users’ interactions at two levels: in the process of metadata creation and in their enrichment. The existing metadata standards are heterogenous and not interoperable. The proposed solutions for this interoperability problem focused on creating ontologies that describe the multimedia contents from a semantic point of view, without necessarily taking into account metadata standards and other low level information. To solve this problem, we propose a metadata format that integrates the most widely used metadata standards and which is flexible and extensible in structure and vocabulary. In a multimedia management system, the indexing process is the most resource consumming, through the indexing algorithms that extract metadata. In conventional systems, the indexing is accomplished with a fixed set of indexing algorithms, without considering the resource consumption and users’ changing needs. To take into account the user’s needs, specified in his query, in ordre to extract only the necessary metadata and thus, on one side, to limit the metadata volume and on the other to reduce the resource consumption, we propose to split the indexing process into two phases: first time, at the contents acquisition time (i.e., implicit indexation), and, a second time, if necessary, at the query execution time (i.e., explicit indexation), employing a list of indexing algorithms determined mainly according to the user’s query. The users are more and more taken into account in multimedia systems through their interactions with the system and the documents. We propose to go further in this consideration, by taking into account users’interactions with different parts of the document, and also with the document’s metadata. This was achieved through the extention of the proposed metadata format, by associating a temperature to each metadata element. This temperature is calculated according to the users’ interactions with the document and with the metadata, in a time period. We have validated our proposals in two different domains: vidéosurveillance and e-commerce. The LINDO project has allowed us to validate the metadata format and indexing algorithms selection in the context of explicit indexation, for a video surceillance use case. For the e-commerce, we have used an online shopping site and the interactions of its real users, for a two months period, to calculate the temperature of the metadata associated to the web pages describing the site’s products. We have used this temperature for reranking the results obtained for a user’s query. We conducted a user study with twenty people, which shows that, for some users’ queries, the results reranking helps the users to find faster the desired information. This thesis has addressed the problem of taking into account the user in the multimedia documents management by: (1 )proposing a model metadata that integrates the most used metadata standards; (2) spliting the multimedia indexing in two steps ( implicit and explicit indexation); (3) enriching the metadata according to the users’ interactions with the system, the multimedia documents and the metadata.

Contabilidade Gerencial e a Estratégia têm em comum a questão do desempenho organizacional, a primeira tem como objetivo medir o desempenho, a segunda se preocupa em como as organizações podem obter desempenho por meio de vantagens competitivas. Uma abordagem utilizada pela Estratégia é a Visão Baseada em Recursos, nessa ótica, o desempenho é potencializado pelas competências organizacionais da empresa, mas, nessa busca pelas competências, as organizações utilizam-se do Sistema de Controle Gerencial - SCG. Dependendo de como o SCG é utilizado, diagnóstica ou interativamente, ou uma combinação dos ambos, este pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento das competências e balancear as Tensões Dinâmicas e, indiretamente, influenciar o desempenho organizacional. Fundamentado no modelo teórico de Henri (2006), o objetivo deste trabalho foi contribuir para o entendimento deste relacionamento nas 1.000 maiores empresas brasileiras, utilizando a técnica estatística multivariada Modelagem de Equações Estruturais com o método de estimação Partial Least Square PLS. Os resultados em um total de 104 empresas indicam que (i) não existem evidências de relacionamento negativo entre o Uso Diagnóstico e o desenvolvimento de competências organizacionais, sugerindo que, no Brasil, o Uso Diagnóstico pode ter um menor componente disfuncional, e também, que este pode ser visto como uma rotina organizacional necessária para manter a organização dentro de um caminho planejado, o que não é incompatível com o desenvolvimento das competências; (ii) não existem relacionamentos significativos positivos entre desenvolvimento de competências e desempenho econômico, medido pelo Retorno sobre Patrimônio Líquido, o que é coerente com o estudo de Henri (2006), sugerindo que devem existir outras variáveis não contempladas no modelo, ou ainda que o indicador RSPL possa não ser uma proxy adequada de desempenho nos anos de 2005 a 2007; (iii) existe relacionamento positivo entre o Uso Interativo e o desenvolvimento de competências, com exceção do Empreendedorismo, o que é consistente com os resultados de Henri (2006); (iv) existe relacionamento positivo entre as Tensões Dinâmicas e as competências, o que está em linha com Henri (2006) e valida a teoria de que as tensões são importantes para busca da eficácia organizacional; (v) Uso Diagnóstico e Uso Interativo do SCG influenciam positivamente as Tensões Dinâmicas, podendo configurar o SCG como um recurso complementar na ótica da VBR; (vi) quando o desempenho é medido por auto-avaliação, ocorre uma alteração nos resultados dos relacionamentos entre competências e desempenho, com as competências Aprendizagem Organizacional e Orientação para Mercado influenciando positivamente o desempenho, indicando que estas duas competências/orientações devem ser estimuladas pelo uso do SCG. Os resultados da pesquisa estão sujeitos a algumas limitações, a principal delas refere-se ao fato que as respostas refletem a percepção dos profissionais de controladoria e finanças das empresas e a análise dos dados também não considerou a estratificação por setores econômicos. Estas limitações ensejam futuras pesquisas, como a sua replicação utilizando outro perfil de respondente, a realização de estudos de casos em empresas com diferentes culturas e desempenhos, bem como estudos que aprofundem a dimensão uso com competências específicas e mesmos construtos oriundos de outros campos de conhecimento. / Managerial Accounting and the Strategy have in common the issue of organizational performance; the first has as the objective of performance measuring the second focuses on how the organizations can obtain performance through competitive advantages. An approach used by the Strategy is the Resource-Based View, through this point of view, the performance is maximized by the company organizational competences, but in this competences search, the organizations use the Management Control System - MCS. Depending on how the MCS is used diagnostically or interactively, or in a combination of both, this can contribute to the competences development and the dynamic tensions balance and indirectly, influence the organizational performance. Originated by the Henri (2006) theoretical model this study proposal is to contribute for this relationship understanding in the 1,000 Brazilian biggest companies, using the multivariate statistic technique Structural Equation Modeling with the estimation method Partial Least Square PLS. The result in a total of 104 companies indicates that (i) there are no evidences of negative relationship between the diagnostic use and the organizational competences development, suggesting that in Brazil, the diagnostic use can have a minor dysfunctional component, and also, that the diagnostic use can be seen as an organizational routine needed to maintain the organization in a planned path, which is not incompatible with the competences development ; (ii) there are no meaningful positive relationships between the competence development and the economical performance, measured by the Return on Equity, which is coherent with the Henri (2006), suggesting that there must be other variables not contemplated in the model, or even that the indicator ROE might not be an adequate proxy of development in the years of 2005-2007; (iii) there is a relationship between the interactive use and the development of competences, excepting the enterprising, which is consistent with Henri (2006) results; there is a positive relation between the dynamic tensions and the competences, which is aligned with Henri (2006) and validates the theory that the tensions are important for the search of the organizational effectiveness (v) diagnostic use and interactive use of the MCS have a positive influence on the dynamic tensions, being able to configure the MCS as an additional resource in the RBV framework ; (vi) when the development measurement is made by self-evaluation, there happens a results change of the relations between competences and performance, with the organizational learning competences and market orientation having a positive influence on the performance, indicating that this two competences/orientations must be stimulates by the MCS use. The research results have some limitation; the main one is that the answers reflect the perception of corporate controllers and finance managers The data analyses did not take in account the stratification by economical sector. These limitations enhance future researches, such as its reply using others professional profiles ; the use cases study methodology in companies with different cultural and performance profiles, and more accurate studies of the usage dimension of specific competences and the same construct deriving from other fields of knowledge.