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We document the relationship between size, the presence of a full-time accountant, strategy, and the adoption of management control systems (MCSs) in small- and medium-sized Canadian manufacturing enterprises (SMEs).

Using survey results from 247 Canadian SMEs, we use partial least squares to holistically test our model and also present data for each MCS.

We find that the presence of a professional accountant is strongly associated with the adoption of MCSs and is a significant explanatory variable more often than either size or strategy.

While the impact of organization and strategy has been extensively studied within large organizations, we investigate these relationships within SMEs. Additionally, we investigate the impact of having a full-time accountant, a constraint unique to SMEs due to their limited resources.

Limitations include the fact that we likely have a significant survivor bias as the average age of our sample firms was 30 years. Our analysis of nonresponse bias does not allow us to conclude that such a bias did not exist. Also, it is possible that some respondents believed they had a certain MCS when others might think they did not.

This study will be of interest to owners/managers of manufacturing SMEs, their advisors, and economic development agencies. Our study also has implications for accounting education as most students will work for SMEs.

Few studies have documented the MCSs adopted by North American SMEs, and none have considered the impact of the presence of a full-time accountant.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between New Zealand universities and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand (ICANZ), the main organization of the accounting profession in New Zealand.

The relationship is approached as an archival search, producing a descriptive analysis of the universities' involvement in the Institute's professional exams, from the creation of the Institute in 1908 until the turn of this century.

At first this connection was through the qualifying examination system of the Institute, with the universities providing the means for the Institute to educate prospective members. Differences in approach towards accounting education, identified in the ongoing issue of a degree prerequisite, and the development of accountancy departments in the universities, led to the Institute later in the twentieth century turning to other tertiary institutions to provide its accounting professional examinations. This paper shows that although the accountancy departments in the universities have benefited from contact with the Institute, the nature of the relationship has been determined to a large extent by the requirements of the New Zealand accounting profession.

The paper provides historical insights on the interaction between the universities and the Institute, explaining the reasons for the Institute's influence on accounting education in the universities.

Business advisory services are an emerging service category for external accountants in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate determinants of SME demand for business advice, drawing on the agency theory, relational marketing and resource-based literatures.

The study empirically tested theoretical predictions based on an Australia-wide survey of SMEs, in which 485 firms responded to a questionnaire.

The results show that the purchase of business advice is significantly and positively associated with the perceived competence of the external accountant, but significantly and negatively associated with length of the relationship. However, the authors observe a significant positive interaction between tenure of the relationship and competence. A unique contribution of this study is the development of the understanding of the combined role of the external accountant’s competence and the tenure of the relationship. The findings indicate that SMEs require time to verify whether accountants have the competence to provide business advice, suggesting that information asymmetry and uncertainty is minimised only after SMEs have nurtured relationships with their external accountants, and after they have developed some confidence in the competence of their external accountants. At the same time, the negative association with tenure suggests that when accountants are not perceived as competent advisors, SMEs purchase less advice over time.

The paper has important theoretical implications by augmenting agency theory, the relational marketing and the resource-based literature, and it clarifies which antecedent factors are important in explaining demand for business advisory services provided by accountants to their SME clients. In particular, the paper highlights the importance of the combined roles that the external accountant’s competence and tenure play in the SME–accountant relationship, highlighting how these two factors can overcome credence issues and ex ante information problems.

The findings have practical implications for government initiatives targeting support to SMEs, as the findings identify small firms and firms planning to grow as likely to gain the greatest benefit from external advice and support.

This study adds to the limited literature and scant theoretical discussions on the emergence of business advisory services that accountants provide to their SME clients by drawing on several theories to explain the determinants of business advice.

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the effect of labour market status on the current probability to be invited to a hiring interview. The authors compare the effect of periods of unemployment, part-time job and short-term contracts (STCs).

Correspondence tests were conducted for accountants and sales assistants. The authors estimate the discrimination components from the response rate of each candidate by the asymptotic least squares method.

The authors find that men with a part-time profile suffer discrimination in both professions. Other differences of treatment are specific: for accountants, the authors find that the probability of success decreases with the time spent in unemployment, while for sales assistants the probability of success is smaller with a history of STCs.

This study compares the effect of different dimensions of career history (part-time versus full-time, permanent versus short-term, unemployment versus employment) for experienced job candidates. It also proposes an alternative way to exploit the design of a correspondence experiment.

To further understand the impact of organizational communication and commitment on job stress and performance. Over the past 20 years, the constructs of organizational commitment and communication have been studied extensively but little attention has been paid to the relationship between them and other organizational variables such as job performance and stress. Also, differences between employees either in managerial or full time accounting positions and between respondents from the USA and Taiwan were evaluated.

Differences and relationships were assessed using standardized and valid instruments measuring four organizational variables in Taiwan and the USA.

No country level difference in stress and communication levels were found but organizational commitment and performance levels were higher in the USA. At the same time, higher levels of organizational communication led to higher levels of organizational commitment and job performance in both countries. Rather surprisingly, stress levels were not found to be related to either organizational communication or job performance. Further, the only measure that indicated a difference between those in managerial and full time accounting positions was work performance which was higher for those doing full time accounting.

The results are discussed in terms of their importance and implications for organizations, particularly those utilizing employees with professional training and operating in different cultures. The finding that stress levels were not reduced by increased organizational communication and had little impact on job performance suggests that in the accounting field stress may play a different role than it does in other professions.

Furthers our understanding on the impact of organizational communication and commitment on job stress and performance.

This study focused upon the role, function and scope of the financial management systems operating in the small business sector of the economy. The research sought to understand why in certain firms robust financial systems exist whereas in others they are seen to be weak. To this end the role of the accounting profession as it effects financial management systems was investigated. The study produced some interesting results. Bookkeeping systems adopted for financial accounting scored positively which may well be linked to the high preponderance of integrated computer systems adopted by firms. Management accounting systems did not score as well as financial accounting overall. Whilst smaller businesses were most likely to be dissatisfied with their management accounting systems, long established firms were as likely to be dissatisfied with their financial and management accounting systems than more recently established entities.

Numerous studies have examined the institutional setting of accounting as a professional occupation. However, institutional deeds and outcomes derive from the behaviour of individual actors, particularly those key players who drive the creation, policy development and outlook of practitioner associations. Recognising this, and in search of a more detailed understanding of the dynamics of professional formation, this study applies the prosopographical method of inquiry to accounting development in Australia during the period 1886 to 1908. Motives and actions are identified with the founding members of the Incorporated Institute of Accountants, Victoria, during this formative era, which saw key personalities transfer their allegiance to the Australasian Corporation of Public Accountants. The beliefs, preferences and ambitions of individual participants are shown to exert significant influence over the process of professional formation, highlighting the capacity of prosopographical studies to augment the predominantly vocational and institutional focus of the prior sociology of professions literature.

This chapter combines quantitative studies of the connections between stressors and performance in accounting settings and identifies the mediators and moderators of stressors–performance relationships. Using meta-analyses and path analyses, this research compiles 72 studies to investigate the relationships of stressors with accountant and auditor performance. As hypothesized, bivariate meta-analyses results indicate that work-related stressors negatively affect performance, and burnout and stress are negatively related to performance, whereas motivation is positively related to performance. Moreover, a meta-analytical structural equation modeling indicates that role stressors have significant direct and indirect effects (through burnout and stress) on job performance. Accumulation of multiple samples through meta-analysis bolsters statistical power compared to single-sample studies and thus reveals the sign of residual direct effects of role stressors on job performance in accounting settings.

In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

Good earnings quality (EQ) provides reasonable assurance as to the reliability of future cash-flow generation capability of the borrowing firms and thereby mitigates the credit risk of the banks. Against the backdrop of the stressed-assets problem in public-sector banks in India, adversely impacting the public finance system, this paper aims to explore the role of EQ of the borrowers in obtaining bank credit and the ways to mitigate the problem.

Using a sample of listed 3,486 non-financial and non-government firms, the authors apply Jones (1991) model to estimate their EQ. Then, the authors conduct Hausman’s (1970) test and find the existence of a two-way relation between bank finance and EQ. The authors adopt a two-stage least-square regression model to test the nature of the association between the two after controlling for firm and industry-level characteristics.

The empirical results suggest that there exists a two-way negative association between EQ and bank finance implying that the Indian firms tend to report abnormal accruals to enhance tangibility for enjoying higher credit limits and easier access to bank finance. Also, the poor EQ is associated with earnings volatility, adversely impacting the credit quality. The findings are consistent.

The study highlights the role of EQ in mitigating credit risk and addressing adverse selection problems in granting credit by practicing bankers.

The findings of the study enrich the literature on EQ, capital structure, agency theory and public finance in several ways and have significant ethical and policy implications in bank-finance-led economies.