Family Influence and Management Accounting Usage – Findings from Germany and Austria

Although contingency-based research finds many factors that influence a firm's management accounting (MA ) system, despite the vast economic importance of family firms in most Western countries, researchers have not considered family influence as a contingency variable for MA systems. Using survey results from Germany and Austria, we explore the effect of the level of family influence on selected aspects of MA usage. We find that firms with higher levels of family influence use fewer strategic and operational MA instruments, formalize their strategic plans to a lesser extent, establish fewer discrete MA departments, and employ fewer management accountants with academic degrees