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The Influence of Management Accounting Departments Within German Municipal Administrations
Author(s) -
Hirsch Bernhard,
Nitzl Christian,
Schauß Joachim
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/faam.12052
Subject(s) - accrual , accounting , management accounting , german , business , governmental accounting , fund accounting , contingency theory , contingency , perspective (graphical) , accounting information system , financial accounting , economics , management , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , earnings , artificial intelligence , computer science , history
The achievement of better performance from municipal administrations is an ongoing challenge. We use the contingency theory perspective, which concentrates on the specific environmental settings of organisations, to examine the influence of management accounting departments within German municipal administrations. Our findings indicate that as the size of municipalities increases, the level of their administrative performance decreases. We additionally show that this negative effect can be mitigated when management accounting is seen as being highly relevant and when the management accounting department performs well. Furthermore, a comparison of the accounting systems (cash versus accrual accounting) used in municipal administrations reveals that a successful working management accounting department can only exert a positive effect when the municipal administration acts under an accrual accounting regime.