Tasks, interaction and role perception of management accountants: evidence from Germany

Abstract

The role of management accountants (MAs) has been discussed for more than a decade. Scholars as well as practitioners advocate a new role for MAs: the business partner who is involved in managerial decisions and strategic tasks. This is contrasted with the “bean counter” doing more repetitive and operational tasks. Different tasks and accountant–manager interactions are important indicators of MAs’ roles. An empirical assessment of them would allow us to understand what roles MAs fulfill and which contingency factors impact roles. Contrasting results on tasks and interaction with self-perceived roles of MAs helps to understand the extent of self-serving perception. The sample consists of 183 German MAs. Data were analyzed using multivariate multilevel modeling and ordinal regression. On a descriptive level, the results indicate an extension of tasks from operational into strategic areas. That supports the notion of role extension and so-called hybrid MAs. The main contingency factors affecting roles are the position of MAs, the hierarchical level of the MA function, group affiliation and capital market orientation. The second result is that role perception of respondents is independent of what they do and how intensively they interact with managers. It follows from the study that assuming clear-cut roles and transition to one role is too simplistic. A great variety of tasks and interactions of MAs exists. Future studies should take this complexity fully into account. Additionally, self-rating and self-perceived roles do not seem to be coherent with responses of MAs on what they do and how intensively they interact with managers, which is explained by self-serving bias.