Do Management Accountants Play a Different Role in Family Firms? Empirical Evidence on Management Accountants' Qualifications and Roles in Family and Non-Family Firms

Abstract

This study investigates whether management accountants in family firms differ from their counterparts in non-family firms concerning the required qualifications and roles performed within the organization. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm theory, we hypothesize that management accountants in family firms perform more traditional roles and rely more on soft skills compared to management accountants in non-family firms. We test our hypotheses using survey results from large firms from Austria. Utilizing bivariate statistical analyses, we did not find support for the hypothesized relationships. We thus conclude that the role of management accountants does not differ significantly in large family and non-family firms, which can be attributed to family firms losing their specific resources with growing size. We conclude with the implications of these findings and avenues for further research.

Keywords: Family firms, Management accounting, Management accountants, Skills, Roles, Austria