Role conflicts of management accountants in the context of their structural relationship to production

Abstract

After tracing the development of accountancy and behavioural accounting research it was postulated that accountancy serves various, and sometimes conflicting,clients and ends. This formed a basis for a contingencies model of management accountancy, which emphasised the effect of organisational and environmental factors upon accountants' roles, their structural relationships, and the management accountancy control system. The research concentrated on the first two factors. It was hypothesised that the structural relationship of the management accountant, i.e. decentralised or centralised, would be associated with conflicts regarding his role, his interpersonal relationships with others, managers' perceptions of his influence and managers’ study and evaluation of accountancy data. The research involved semi-structured interviews with accountants and managers in six large manufacturing organisations. It was discovered that subjects tended to hold service expectations for the management accountants' role. Decentralised managers perceived lower role conflicts, possibly due to their greater influence on the mode of accountancy provision. Managers' service expectations were often not met, whatever the structure. Conflicts regarding accountants' attributes and interpersonal relationships rarely presented problems, except where accountants were perceived as unwilling or unable to partake in general management. Most accountants sought a service role, but some were frustrated, perhaps due to the high specification of their book-keeping activities, their inability to control their workpace, and their accountancy technical system. A minority sought and played a book-keeping role, possibly due to their role-derived satisfactions and desired career progression. Decentralised managers studied accountancy reports more than their centralised counterparts and evaluated them more highly. This was perhaps due to the formers' greater influence over the accounting process. Influence variables had a pervasive association with other variables, which suggested tentative support for some of the claimed benefits of participation.