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Management accounting research on farms: what is known and what needs knowing?

Sinclear R. Ndemewah (Chair of Management Accounting and Control, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany)
Kevin Menges (Chair of Management Accounting and Control, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany)
Martin R.W. Hiebl (Chair of Management Accounting and Control, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany)

Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change

ISSN: 1832-5912

Article publication date: 4 April 2019

Issue publication date: 9 April 2019

1056

Abstract

Purpose

It is difficult to develop an overall picture of the practice of management accounting (MA) in farms and farm enterprises (FEs) because little research has been published on the topic, and these studies are mostly discrete and unconnected to the others. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the available research, develop an explanatory framework for MA practices in farming entities and identify some major avenues for future research on the topic.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses systematic literature review methods. After an extensive database search and an examination of references/citations, 41 empirical journal articles published between 1964 and 2016 are identified, described and analyzed in this research paper.

Findings

The findings reveal that the practice of MA in farms is subject to information problems and that the empirical research on this topic largely lacks a theoretical explanation. Therefore, the explanatory framework of MA practices in farming entities reveals that these practices are subject to influencing factors such as familism, government farm policies, market competition, technological changes, the seasons and the weather/climate.

Research limitations/implications

The overall limited findings on the practice of MA in FEs indicate that caution should be taken when generalizing the current knowledge on the use of MA practices in other organizational forms to farming entities. Moreover, future research should draw on explicit theories to explain empirical results.

Originality/value

This paper is the first comprehensive literature review of studies on MA practices in farms and FEs.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the second author’s master’s thesis submitted at the University of Siegen. A previous version of this paper has been presented at the 15th Annual Conference for Management Accounting Research (ACMAR) in Vallendar, Germany. The authors would like to thank the ACMAR participants and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which have helped to improve the paper.

Citation

Ndemewah, S.R., Menges, K. and Hiebl, M.R.W. (2019), "Management accounting research on farms: what is known and what needs knowing?", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 58-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAOC-05-2018-0044

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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