ACCOUNTANTS’ PERCEPTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL DECLINE ON AN EXAMPLE OF AN INDUSTRIAL DINOSAUR

The role of accountants within a business enterprise is of key importance. Not only that they record business transactions (bookkeeping), but they also have a complete, overall view of the business process of an enterprise, starting from business decisions and their implementation, over preparing fi nancial statements, to the insight into employee fl uctuation and technology usage. However, accountants in Croatian companies are rarely involved in decision making processes. In this paper the author explores the accountants’ perceptions of organizational decline on an example of an industrial dinosaur through monitoring internal business factors – organization’s fi nancial indicators, fi scal control system, technology and human resources. Research questions were tested by surveying a sample of 126 accountants in Croatia in a scenario-based study. The results showed that there is no reason for marginalization of accountants as decision makers in Croatian business environment. The paper also provides some of possible solutions on how to confront the problem.