The influence of stakeholders on management accounting practice

This study investigated the influence of stakeholders on management accounting practice (MAP). The research objectives were to: appraise level of influence exerted by stakeholders on management accounting activities; assess practice areas in management accounting affected by stakeholder’s influence; and determine the stakeholder groups that wield the highest influence on MAP. Data collection was aided by a structured questionnaire administered on Senior Finance Officers tasked with strategic and financial oversight roles from 131 firms across major sectors of the Nigerian economy. Descriptive statistics, one sample t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), and Multiple-discriminant analysis were used for analysis. Results suggest that the overall level of influence wielded by stakeholders on management accounting activities is moderate. MAP of companies appears not to be strongly driven by strategy-related variables such as competitors and customers, but by coercive institutional factors. Organisations that want to survive happenings in the contemporary business environment are implored to entrench customer- and competitor- consideration in their management accounting activities. Considering that modern management accounting techniques focused on competitors’ activities, customers’ tastes and market sentiments are externally-orientated, organisations may have to set up functions that will take up the responsibilities of continuous environmental scanning, intelligence gathering, and market research.