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Organisational commitment is a desired outcome of human resource management (HRM) strategies given its links to positive attitudes and behaviour in the pursuit of change. The organisation, however, is just one of several foci for employee commitment and this paper explores the links between multiple commitments and employee behaviour. Cluster analysis of data from public accountants identified four main commitment profiles. Private sector accountants also showed profiles 1 and 4 together with a cluster showing commitment to the work group only and a cluster showing commitment to the supervisor only. Profiles explained variation in behaviour aimed at task achievement and innovation for public but not private accountants. Behaviour was highest for profile 1. HRM strategies need to look beyond organisational commitment and engender commitment to other foci in order to win the behaviour required to support successful change programmes.

An important aim of this paper is to ascertain the extent to which students held realistic expectations about the work cultures they were soon to enter. The paper also aims to investigate the link between value congruence (in relation to both work and work‐family values) and “expected” job satisfaction and organisational commitment, in the case of the students, and “actual” job satisfaction and organisational commitment, in the case of the professionals.

A questionnaire was used to survey a sample of final year BCom students from the University of Adelaide (n=52) and accounting professionals from the same city (n=50).

Significant person‐culture fit discrepancies, in relation to both work and work‐family values, were observed for both groups. For accountants, these were negatively associated with job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Students also expected to enter organisational cultures that supported work values that were significantly more supportive of these values than were the actual organisational cultures described by the accountants. For work‐family values, students' expectations, surprisingly, fell significantly short of what the accountants' actual experience suggested they would be likely to encounter.

A life stage interpretation of the findings for work‐family values is offered and consideration is given to their implications for a broadening of traditional conceptualisations of reality shock.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.

This paper aims to explain the contextual basis for examining the accountant stereotype, describe the multiple influences on its development and propose directions for further research.

This paper takes the form of a review. It discusses a research paper published in the current issue of Meditari Accountancy Research which undertakes a content analysis using the General Inquirer to identify the image of accountants as represented in novels.

Several issues need to be considered when examining these results. The first of these is that the portrayal of accountants in the media has become more positive in recent times. Second, the media is just one influence on the development of stereotypes; third, the media may have limited influence on stereotype formation.

The findings have implications for further research on the development and maintenance of the accountant stereotype.

This review contributes to the debate on possible interventions to create a more positive image of accountants.

This chapter traces the evolution of personality trait research in the behavioral accounting literature and offers suggestions for past and future trends. These personality traits include, among others, those measured by the Myers-Briggs Type and Five Factor models (FFMs), Type A/B, tolerance for ambiguity, locus of control, authoritarianism, and the Dark Triad components of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. In a broad spectrum analysis of accounting journals without regard to timing or geographics, we attempt to capture the major phases of personality trait research and provide suggestions as to the surrounding environment for such progressions in the literature. In addition to more established research streams, this chapter also discusses other personality traits that have only been marginally investigated in the accounting literature, and possible directions for future research.

This is an in‐depth case study using a grounded theory approach to explore managers’ views of ABC as part of the control system in an insurance company. Relevant issues are allowed to emerge from the data rather than imposing a theoretical framework upon them. Hypotheses are derived rather than confirmed. Issues emerging from this case study include: the relevance of ABC to managers, increased cost awareness coupled with the problem of taking qualitative factors into account, and the existence of different perceptions of managers within the same department. One hypothesis is how an understanding of ABC can affect job satisfaction by influencing the impact of ABC on managers’ actions. In this case study process and non‐process managers had different levels of understanding and use of ABC information. A second hypothesis is that how managers view ABC information depends on whether they adopt a personal or an organisational perspective.

This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The changes the authors are interested in are linked to technology-driven innovations in managerial decision-making and in organizational structures. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps and opportunities for future research.

The authors adopted a grounded theory literature review method (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013) to achieve the study’s aims.

The authors identified four research themes that describe the changes in the management accounting profession due to technology-driven innovations: structured vs unstructured data, human vs algorithm-driven decision-making, delineated vs blurred functional boundaries and hierarchical vs platform-based organizations. The authors also identified tensions mentioned in the literature for each research theme.

Previous studies display a rather narrow focus on the role of digital technologies in accounting work and new competences that management accountants require in the digital era. By contrast, the authors focus on the broader technology-driven shifts in organizational processes and structures, which vastly change how accounting information is collected, processed and analyzed internally to support managerial decision-making. Hence, the paper focuses on how management accountants can adapt and evolve as their organizations transition toward a digital environment.

The majority of medium‐to‐large international organizations have adopted enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) of which SAP R/3 is the current market leader. This paper proposes a framework for the separation of duties in SAP R/3. Separation of duties is viewed as a critical component of an organization’s internal control structure aimed primarily at reducing opportunities for fraudulent activities. R/3 assigns profiles consisting of authorizations to users. Accordingly, R/3 facilitates the implementation of “role‐based access control”, where these profiles may be designed consistent with organizational roles and assigned to users performing these roles. This paper proposes a framework for adequate separation of duties using a role‐based approach in the financial accounting (FI) module of the R/3 system. Case studies were undertaken to refine the framework and to explore its application in a practical environment. This empirical research provided support for the adequacy of the proposed framework.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of Women in Management Review is split into five sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Leadership Styles and Personality; Recruitment and Career Management; Job Evaluation, Appraisal and Equal Pay; Dependant Care and Health/Family Issues; Discrimination and Equal Opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of an Integrated Financial System implementation on accountant profiles in a Swiss public administration. The authors observe the following variables: accountants' skills, accountants' functions, and accountants' educational backgrounds. Each variable was studied before and after the implementation.

This study is an empirical research based on a case study using interviews. The authors designed a questionnaire that they discussed with participants in order to determine how they perceive accountants' job profiles.

The main finding concerned accountants' educational backgrounds. In the public administration that was studied, accountants tended overall to lack the specialized knowledge necessary to work with the complex tools in an Integrated Financial System. The paper also confirmed other authors' findings, that the necessary skill sets change when an Integrated Financial System is implemented. Actually, it was found that job descriptions did not change after the implementation as much as it was expected that they would.

These findings are based only on participants' perceptions, because documentation was difficult to obtain. The small sample size also did not allow for generalizable results.

Public administrations must carefully determine the skills necessary for the accounting staff to work within an Integrated Financial System. Job descriptions must be adapted and prospective new hires should have higher qualifications as well as better accounting and ERP knowledge.

This research was conducted using an ethnographic approach that compared and analysed perceptions from a diverse sample of government employees. The sample population was chosen from among different departments and functions.