Skills, Influence, and Effectiveness of Management Accountants

2020 ◽  
pp. 0000-0000
Author(s):  
Hans ten Rouwelaar ◽  
Frans Schaepkens ◽  
Sally K. Widener
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interpersonal Skills ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Business Partner ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Conceptual Skills

The role of the management accountant (MA) has broadened to include acting as a strategic business partner. Our study examines whether MAs believe they need interpersonal skills (i.e., ability to constructively challenge and question assumptions, numbers, and their meanings), conceptual skills (i.e., making and leading decisions consistent with the organization's business environment and strategy), and/or technical skills (i.e., computer, accounting, and data modeling) to be influential and effective in this expanded role. To examine our hypotheses, we use survey data from 215 controllers in Dutch healthcare organizations and develop a partial least squares path model. We conclude that interpersonal and conceptual skills are associated with MAs' perceptions that they influence management's decision making, while all three skills are associated with their effectiveness. We also find that technical and conceptual skills are jointly associated with the influence of MAs while conceptual and interpersonal skills are jointly associated with their effectiveness.

Secure Attachment and Career Indecision: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 657-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayoung Phang ◽  
Weihua Fan ◽  
Consuelo Arbona
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Career Decision ◽  
Career Indecision ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Secure Attachment ◽  
Career Decision Making ◽  
Mediating Role

Over the past few decades, researchers have been trying to understand the career decision-making process from interpersonal and affective perspectives. Previous findings suggest that secure attachment is negatively linked to career indecision, but the extent to which other variables mediate this relation is less clear. The present study was designed to identify underlying mechanism in the relation between attachment and career indecision. This was done by examining a model which links secure attachment with career indecision through the mediating role of emotional intelligence. Participants included 362 female undergraduate students from a large Southern University. A path model was tested to investigate (a) the direct association of attachment to three dimensions of career indecision (lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information) and (b) whether emotional intelligence mediates the relations between attachment and the career indecision dimensions, while controlling students’ age. Results indicated a very good fit for the proposed path model. With two exceptions, results provided support for the study’s hypothesis regarding the direct and mediated links in the model; all paths were in the expected direction. Results of the study provide support for the notion that different antecedents may explain career decision-making difficulties, and therefore, college women may require diverse intervention approaches

Sustainable partnerships: the art of high-performing alliances and joint ventures

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 558
Author(s):  
Amita Riksen ◽  
Nick Chipman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
Joint Ventures ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Strategic Objectives ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Industry Response

In the increasingly transparent, real-time, digital business environment, the degree of collaboration required to succeed is rapidly expanding. Interdependencies created among diverse market participants, prospective partners and stakeholders is dramatically altering who actively participates in the oil and gas industry and how much influence they can yield. An industry deeply premised on technical innovation and excellence must evolve to broaden the value proposition and address the complex, expanded stakeholder groups. Traditional value drivers need to be extended to effectively leveragemulti-party joint ventures (JVs) to address the principles of license to operate and deliver the required capabilities. PwC hypothesises that risk-averse, technical, legal and quantitative biases drive joint venturing agreements to narrow obligations and sub-optimal outcomes. This is because narrow agreements ignore the behavioural, organisational and critical relationship-driven outcomes in contracting, venturing and alliance configurations. By widening the lens of JV agreements and strategic alliances, the authors look briefly at real case studies and undertake critical observations of the emerging industry behaviour, in identifying the following range of factors industry participants need to confront: the power and agility of social media driving industry response; the role of subjective, human factors in realising strategic objectives; the perceived rights of JV parties as the reality; the role of emotion in decision making and misalignments of culture/style/behaviours among stakeholders; the balance of diversity versus control requirements in governance management; the enablers for co-creating, high-performing ventures and contracting for co-operation alongside risk management; using the letter of the contract to facilitate rather than dictate behaviour; and, the power of influence to enable decision making. The shared experiences of the authors identify an attribution framework underpinning the contractual frame and extends into the effective planning and execution traits of high-performing, co-operative JVs.

When Do Opportunity Costs Count? The Impact of Vagueness, Project Completion Stage, and Management Accounting Experience

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Marie Victoravich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Management Accounting ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Opportunity Costs ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Business Partner ◽  
Project Completion ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT: Management accountants have recently migrated toward a business partner role, and as a result they often assist management with the decision-making process. Thus, it is imperative that they excel at identification of relevant information such as opportunity costs. This study experimentally tests the prediction that management accounting experience mitigates the tendency to ignore opportunity costs with respect to two factors: opportunity cost vagueness and project completion stage. This study also investigates whether attending to opportunity costs has an impact on project continuance decisions. Results indicate that management accounting experience mitigates the effect of vague opportunity costs and project completion stage. It was also found that attention to opportunity costs acts as mediator and this in turn reduces the tendency to continue an existing project. This suggests that attending to opportunity costs influences decision-making and that it is likely to have an economic consequence.

scholarly journals ANALISIS PEMILIHAN SUPPLIER BAHAN BAKU PADA CV GENERAL TIMBER INDONESIA

MANAJERIAL ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Lilis Supiani
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supplier Selection ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Business Partner ◽  
A Company

This study aims to determine the system of decision-making and priority criteria in supplier selection. Supplier selection is part of the supply chain. The role of suppliers affect the production process of a company as a supplier is a major business partner in the operation of the company's work. every manufacturing company has a standard priority suppliers so that it takes an analytical tool for decision-making. Method Analythical Hierarcy Process (AHP) is a decision making method of analysis used in decision-making with a systems approach, where decision-makers are trying to understand a condition of the system and help make predictions in decision-making. Distributing questioner to determine priority criteria CV General Timber supplier in Indonesia.The results of evaluation research in the company's performance CV General Timber Indonesia, there are five priorities, namely Cost supplier criteria with a weighting of 0.29%, Quality 0,26%, Quantity by 0.16%, Delivery 0.15% and Flexibility of 0.13 %

Management of anaesthesia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Moppett
Keyword(s):  
Patient Outcome ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Patient Safety ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
Patient Comfort ◽  
Successful Management ◽  
Key Aspects

Successful management of anaesthesia requires expertise in the triad of knowledge, technical skills, and non-technical skills. The decision-making and techniques chosen should all be focused on patient safety, followed by patient comfort and efficiency. There is increasing evidence that anaesthesia management has an influence on patient outcome beyond the first couple of postoperative days. This chapter provides an overview of some of the key aspects of management of anaesthesia: the importance of proper preparation at all stages; the evidence—or lack thereof—for choices between techniques and drugs; and the key role of effective communication by the anaesthetist.

Why Business Unit Controllers Create Budget Slack: Involvement in Management, Social Pressure, and Machiavellianism

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank G. H. Hartmann ◽  
Victor S. Maas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Business Unit ◽  
Budgetary Slack ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Personality Construct

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates business unit (BU) controllers’ inclination to engage in the creation of budgetary slack. In particular, we explore whether controllers who are involved in BU decision making are more susceptible to social pressure to engage in slack creation than controllers who are not. We expect, and find, a crucial role of the controller’s personality. Results from an experiment among 136 management accountants suggest that the personality construct Machiavellianism interacts with involvement to explain controllers’ responses to social pressure to create budgetary slack. Controllers scoring high on Machiavellianism are more likely to give in to pressure by BU management to create budgetary slack when they have been involved in decision making. In contrast, controllers scoring low on Machiavellianism are less likely to give in to pressure to create slack when they have been involved in decision making.

scholarly journals Rational Managerial Decisions in Business Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-77
Author(s):  
Evgeny Shumkin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
The State ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Managerial Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Business Area

This article features managerial decisions in business area, where the state plays the role of an external regulator of public relations and the main influencer. The legal tools that affect decision-making in business depend on the social mechanisms of business regulations. The author describes the position of the rational regulator that evaluates the decisions made by a business entity. Positive law is an integral part of objective reality and is a set of codified principles of legally appropriate behavior. Imperative and dispositive regulations of public relations in business area imply that a business entity can choose a model of managerial and entrepreneurial behavior based on the rules provided by the legislator. The active role of the state as an external regulator of the social relations reflects the problem of dissonance between legal and social norms underlying managerial decision-making, which leads to additional economic and transaction costs. The paper also features the problem of frustration conflict between the regulator and the business environment in the context of applying the rationality proposed by the state in business activities and the problem of choosing the right managerial decision for its subjects. By refusing from a radical and negative assessment of the entrepreneur's management decisions, the state can solve this problem. The state needs to be more tolerant to business risks as an alternative rationality, without identifying them with deviant behavior. By preventing alienation of business from the state, one can eliminate the conflict between law and favorable climate in business area, i.e. maximal convergence of social and legal norms.

Economic crisis as a driver of management accounting change

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Endenich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Management Accounting ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Statistical Sense

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate change processes within German and Spanish management accounting which are induced by the recent economic crisis. To illuminate these changes, a particular emphasis is put on budgeting processes and the role of management accountants. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-sectional field study that mainly builds on interviews with senior management accounting executives in nine German and nine Spanish companies was conducted. The German and Spanish companies were matched in terms of industry and size to assure comparability of the two national samples. Findings – The most recent economic crisis represents a crucial driver of management accounting change in the companies comprising my sample. Whereas budgeting is increasingly performed continuously, the empirical evidence suggests that opportunities are continually evolving that might result in a more powerful position of management accountants within corporate decision-making processes and an improved image of management accountants. Research limitations/implications – The findings of this study should not be generalised in a statistical sense. However, the results may be used as the basis for qualitative and quantitative follow-up studies. Practical implications – The paper provides several examples which demonstrate, that management accountants can improve their image and their influence on corporate decision making in times of economic crisis. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature by providing both theoretical refinement of and empirical evidence on propositions on the influence of the economic crisis on management accounting.

Emotions and ERP information sourcing: the moderating role of expertise

2014 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 456-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Majorique Leger ◽  
René Riedl ◽  
Jan vom Brocke
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Resource Planning ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Erp System ◽  
Expert And Novice ◽  
Novice Users

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a laboratory experiment in which the paper investigated how expert and novice users differ in their emotional responses during use of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in a decision-making context, and how such a difference affects information sourcing behavior. Design/methodology/approach – In a simulated SAP business environment, participants’ emotional responses were physiologically measured based on electrodermal activity (EDA) while they made business decisions. Findings – Results show that both expert and novice users exhibit considerable EDA activity during their interaction with the ERP system, indicating that ERP use is an emotional process for both groups. However, the findings also indicate that experts’ emotional responses led to their sourcing information from the ERP, while novices’ emotional responses led to their sourcing information from other people. Research limitations/implications – From an academic standpoint, this paper responds to the recent call for more research on the role of emotions for information systems behavior. Practical implications – The paper discusses the implications of this finding for the development of ERP system trainings. Originality/value – Because emotions often do not reach users’ awareness level, the paper used EDA, a neurophysiological measure, to capture users’ emotional responses during ERP decision making, instead of using self-report measures that depend on conscious perception. Based on this method, the paper found that emotions can lead to different behavioral reactions, depending on whether the user is an expert or novice.

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