The use of management accounting practices by Romanian small and medium-sized enterprises : a field study

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of each economy all around the world. However, little is known about the taxonomy of both traditional and modern management accounting practices (MAPs) used by SMEs in the process of decision making. In order to address this gap in the literature, this current paper examines the MAPs adopted by the Romanian SMEs. The methodology comprises an analysis of 37 responses to a questionnaire survey carried out among SMEs from one of the most developed regions of Romania. The goal of our study is to determine which tools are being used by Romanian SMEs, and on the other hand, to identify underlying reasons why some specific MAPs are not being used. We find that the large majority of our respondents use a small number of traditional MAPs while most of the modern MAPs documented in the literature and accounting textbooks are very little used. Among the most used traditional MAPs we document the budgeting systems for controlling costs and planning cash flows. On the other hand, the most used modern MAPs were the benchmarking and performance reporting based on financial and non-financial indicators. High costs of implementation, lack of management commitment or financial constraints were the main reasons for the lack of use for certain traditional and modern MAPs. Suggestions for future research and limits are also approached.