摘要：This study investigates the relationships between institutional and economic pressures in the implementation and use of target costing in a Brazilian subsidiary of a multinational Asian company. An explanatory interpretive case study method was used. The results at Alpha suggest that there is a trend toward institutionalizing practices (including change in the structure) independently of interpretation of such practices. However, the response to these demands (allowing their interference in the course of action, changing the routine, or not) is influenced by the actors’ interpretation of the environment, which may be influenced by institutional and economic pressures and by the presence of biases and conflicts between the institution and the routines. The explanation we found for the internalization of target costing in the coupling form does not concern the coupling or the relationship between the institution and its routines; instead, it addresses an interpretation and construction process of the meaning of the institution (recursiveness) that generates these behaviors as answers
