Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to report the level of adoption and the benefits derived from traditional and contemporary management accounting practices in the Greek hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach-An empirical survey via questionnaires was conducted on a sample of 85 leading hotels in Greece. Descriptive statistics on the adoption level, the relative benefits and future emphasis of individual practices provide the basis for discussion. Findings-The adoption rates for many recently developed practices were very satisfactory. Overall, traditional management accounting techniques (e.g. budgeting practices, profitability measures, product profitability analysis, customer profitability analysis absorption costing, and nonfinancial measures for performance evaluation) were found to be more widely adopted than recently developed tools. It is concluded that traditional management accounting is very much alive and well. Many hotels intended to place greater emphasis on more recently developed techniques in the future, particularly activity based costing techniques (activity based costing, activity based budgeting, and activity based management), balanced scorecard and benchmarking. Research limitations/implications-The study, examined a large array of items since, as with all surveys, it is possible that respondents may have misinterpreted some elements. Second, the findings of this study should be interpreted bearing in mind that the survey included the largest Greek hotels and not the general population of hotel enterprises. Finally, this research was limited to the Greek hotel sector. Originality/value-The survey provides a unique detailed examination of the management accounting practices and an indication of future trends.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between contextual factors, strategic management accounting (SMA) and historical performance in hotels. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey was conducted on a sample of 106 leading hotels in Greece. Findings – The analysis of the survey data indicates that seven contingent factors affect SMA usage in hotels: The seven factors are perceived environmental uncertainty, structure, quality of information system (IS) information, organizational life cycle stage, historical performance, strategy and size. The findings also indicate that lagging performance affects SMA and that this effect is moderated by the perceived environmental uncertainty. Research limitations/implications – Some of the limitations are inherent to the survey method used, such as the use of perceptual measures and the potential of common method bias. Data were collected from the Greek hospitality industry, and consequently, the results may be generalizable only to that population. Practical implications – The accounting professionals and hotel managers will also be benefited, as the study aims to identify the most relevant SMA tools adopted in the hotel industry, as well as the relationship between these tools and other external and organizational factors. Originality/value – This research adds to the current knowledge in management accounting system design in hotels. This paper increases the understanding as to why hotels are more likely to implement SMA. The results provide the first empirical evidence of the relation between SMA usage, organizational factors, external factors and historical performance in hotels.

Purpose -The purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing the use of cost management systems (CMS) for decision-making, control and performance evaluation. Design/methodology/approach -An empirical survey via questionnaires was conducted on a sample of 100 leading hotels enterprises in Greece. Findings -Results indicate that the extent of the use of CMS for decision-making, control and performance evaluation is significantly positively associated with the quality of information technology, the chief financial officer (CFO) educational background and significantly negatively associated with CFO age. No association was found between CMS design, age of firm, and CFO tenure in the organization. Research limitations/implications -Cross-sectional studies, as this work presented here, can establish associations, but not causality. Furthermore, the goal of the research was to examine the main effects and not the interactions between the various independent variables that affect the scope of CMS. Originality/value -The results provide the first empirical evidence of the relation between cost system design, quality of information technology and CFOs' characteristics in the hospitality industry. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the role of the CFO in CMS design.

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