Towards a More Comprehensive Understanding of the Roles of Management Accountants

Abstract

The study was designed to address specific gaps in the literature by identifying a comprehensive set of antecedents and characteristics with respect to the roles of management accountants (MAs) and exploring the consequences of how these roles are discharged. Interviews were conducted with 18 financial managers (FMs) and 18 operating managers (OMs) in medium and large manufacturing firms. Theoretical lenses of management control, contingency and role theory were used in the interpretation of the findings. A comprehensive picture of the antecedents, characteristics and consequences associated with the roles of MAs emerges from the data and the findings suggest that management and the MAs themselves play a critical part in the determination of the roles of MAs. In particular, the findings reveal contingencies and conflicts with regard to the interaction between MAs and OMs including the management control consequences associated with how MAs interact with OMs. For some MAs, the paper argues that role conflict, despite its negative connotations, may facilitate more effective management control. The adoption of a ‘business partner’ model for MAs is found here to be ambiguous, conditional and uncertain.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the paper. The authors acknowledge helpful contributions from Norman Macintosh, Bill Ryan, John Maher, Hans ten Rouwelaar, delegates of the European Accounting Association conference in Dublin 2006, and delegates of the Irish Accounting and Finance Association conference in Limerick 2005. The managers, who generously provided their time for this research, are also acknowledged.

Notes

For previous research highlighting the necessity of business knowledge, communication and interpersonal skills see surveys conducted by Siegel (1996), Siegel and Sorersen (1999) and Burns and Yazdifar (2001) and field studies by Mouritsen (1996), Chenhall and Langfield-Smith (1998), Johnston et al. (2002) and Pierce and O'Dea (2003).