Financial Accounting: Development Paths and Alignment to Management Accounting in the Italian Context

153 Pages·2015·3.06 MB·English

by  Sara Trucco (auth.)

Contributions to Management Science
Sara Trucco
Financial
Accounting
Development Paths and Alignment to
Management Accounting in the Italian
Context
Contributions to Management Science
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/1505
Sara Trucco
Financial Accounting
Development Paths and Alignment to
Management Accounting in the Italian
Context
SaraTrucco
FacultyofEconomics
RomeUniversityofInternationalStudies
Rome,Italy
ISSN1431-1941 ISSN2197-716X (electronic)
ContributionstoManagementScience
ISBN978-3-319-18722-8 ISBN978-3-319-18723-5 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-18723-5
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015943431
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
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Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 ABriefOverviewoftheBook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 TheoreticalContributionsofthePresentWork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 PracticalContributionsofthePresentWork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 StructureoftheBook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 FinancialAccounting:DevelopmentPaths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 FinancialAccounting:APossibleFramework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1 FinancialAccounting:AnObjectivePerspective. . . . . . . . 10
2.2.2 FinancialAccounting:ASubjectivePerspective. . . . . . . . 14
2.3 TheRoleofVoluntary,Non-financialandForward-Looking
DisclosureinFinancialAccountingInformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 MandatoryandVoluntaryDisclosure:
FirstLevelofAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.2 FinancialandNon-financialInformation:
SecondLevelofAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3.3 Forward-LookingandHistoricalInformation:
ThirdLevelofAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4 TheoriesforSupportingandContainingtheEvolution
ofFinancialAccounting:AnExternalPerspective. . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4.1 AgencyTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.2 SignallingTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4.3 LegitimacyTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.4 ConstraintsonAdditionalDisclosure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5 InternalDeterminantsofFinancialAccountingDevelopment
Paths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.5.1 InstitutionalTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5.2 CorporateGovernanceandCulture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
vii
viii Contents
3 PremisesfortheConvergenceofFinancialAccounting
andManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2 APromisingRelationship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.1 TheDebutof“Control”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.2 TheInternalControlSystem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.3 ABriefFocusonManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.2.4 TheLinkBetweenFinancialAccountingandInternal
ControlSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.2.5 TheVirtuousCircleBetweentheForward-Looking
PerspectiveofFinancialAccountingand
Forward-LookingManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3 PremisesfortheConvergence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.3.1 PremisesforConvergenceinanInternationalSetting. . . . 51
3.3.2 PremisesforConvergenceintheItalianSetting. . . . . . .. . 53
3.4 ConvergenceorDivergenceofFinancialAccountingand
ManagementAccounting:DifferencesAmongCountries
andCultures. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. 56
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4 DriversoftheAlignmentofFinancialAccounting
toManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.2 InstitutionalTheoryinSupportoftheConvergenceProcess
ofFinancialAccountingandManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . 65
4.3 TheViewpointsofProfessionalAssociationsandAcademics. . . . 67
4.3.1 IAS/IFRS:APossibleDriveroftheConvergence
ProcessBetweenFinancialAccountingand
ManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.3.2 FairValue:APossibleDriveroftheConvergence
ProcessBetweenFinancialAccountingand
ManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.4 TheRoleofInformationTechnologyontheConvergence
BetweenFinancialAccountingandManagementAccounting. . . . 73
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5 FinancialAccountingandAlignmenttoManagement
AccountingintheItalianContext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 ResearchHypothesesandResearchDesign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.2.1 ERPandtheConvergenceofFinancialAccounting
andManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.2.2 IAS/IFRSandtheConvergenceofFinancialAccounting
andManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.2.3 IntegrationofAccountingSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2.4 TheResearchDesign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Contents ix
5.3 SampleSelectionandDataCollection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.4 VariableMeasurement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.4.1 ExogenousVariables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.4.2 EndogenousVariables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.4.3 ControlVariables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.5 PilotInterviews:PreliminaryAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.5.1 FinancialAccountantInterviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.5.2 ControllerInterviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.6 SurveyAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.6.1 DescriptiveStatistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.6.2 StatisticalModel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.6.3 ReliabilityandValidityofPLS-SEMModels. . . . . . . . . . 111
5.6.4 EmpiricalFindings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6 DiscussionontheAlignmentofFinancialAccounting
toManagementAccountingintheItalianContext. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.2 TheAntecedentsandConsequencesoftheAlignment
ofFinancialAccountingtoManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . 137
6.3 TheRelationshipBetweentheQualityofFinancialAccounting
andtheQualityofManagementAccounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.4 TheViewpointsofControllersandFinancialAccountants
onConvergence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.5 FurtherFindings:TheMediationRoleoftheIntegration
ofAccountingSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.6 PracticalImplications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.7 LimitationsandFurtherDevelopments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142