Organizational and individual contingency factors and management practices

Abstract

It has been argued that the decision-making process has never been more important (or complex) as it has increased the amount of unstructured information, increasingly hostile competition and frequent innovations. In this context, the Global Management Accounting Principles (GMAP) were proposed with the objective of assisting managers of different organizations to evaluate and improve their Management Accounting System (MAS), improving the information provided and, consequently, decision making. In this way, the aim of this study consisted of analyzing the associations between organizational and individual Contingency factors and management practices from the perspective of the GMAP of the industries in Paraíba. To this end, managers’ data from 86 industries were acquired through the application of an electronic questionnaire during the year 2020. The data analysis was performed using Spearman's correlation. Regarding organizational contingencies, positive and significant associations were found between strategy and practices related to GMAP. However, the size didn’t show significant association with the adoption of such practices. Regarding individual contingencies, negative and significant associations were found between the manager’s time in the position and one of the management practices. Additionally, the manager’s education showed positive and significant association with some practices related to GMAP. In conclusion, no significant associations between manager’s age and management practices were found. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the antecedents of contemporary management practices from a new perspective (the GMAP). Little is known about the factors that contribute to an effective management accounting function in light of the guidelines provided by the GMAP structure. Likewise, these results may be of interest to professionals as they provide important reflections on the contribution of GMAP to management, as well as they point to the need for such practices to be implemented considering the specific context of each organization.