Management accounting system changes : a case study of a family controlled bank

• Main Author: Ogundele, B.
• Published: University of Salford 2018
• Subjects: 658
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.741151

Family controlled businesses represent a significant proportion of global businesses in some countries accounting for as much as seventy five percent of business income. While an emerging body of knowledge has focused on Management Accounting in aspects of family business, these processes in family controlled banks remains less researched in Management Accounting literature and nascent in the context of emerging market economy as Nigeria. This study explores complexities and organisational dynamics associated with Management Accounting System (MAS) changes experienced by a family controlled banking group while transforming to a financial services group by examining inter organisational to intra organisational influences in the process of MAS changes. The study extends the use of institutional theory in examining possible influences shaping the overall process of MAS changes and how MAS changes are transmitted between a group and component subsidiary firms. Thus, by adopting a single case study organisation with multiple units of analysis and data obtained from multiple sources (Primary and Secondary), this study explores MAS change processes in the case study organisation using time and life course analysis. This is combined with a theoretical framework adopting theoretical triangulation and is designed to extend the present application of institutional theory to include role of external and internal institutions, power blocks, and family interests in influencing, designing, implementing or resisting MAS change processes. By extending current knowledge of institutional factors and how they affect the process of MAS changes to a varied context as family businesses operating in an emerging market economy, the study provides evidence of how change evolves under varied influences of institutional factors and how actors reshape change initiatives across the inter and intra organisational levels. Findings indicate family owners as sources of resistance, family trust as an influencing factor in design and implementation of MAS in subsidiary firms. Furthermore, controlling family members mobilise resources to influence variations in the level of implementation and extent of MAS control(s) in subsidiary firms (where there is strong family presence in management) lending credence to the notion of practice variation framework in institutional theory.