پژوهش بین المللی حسابداری مدیریتی : چارچوب قرارداد و فرصت ها

The objective of this paper is to provide an international managerial accounting contracting-based framework that organizes a broad sample of published research and (based on that sample) identifies research opportunities. Organizations that operate in cross-border markets constantly face contracting challenges that arise because of different factor and product market characteristics. Accounting has a role in defining, implementing, monitoring, and negotiating the implicit and explicit contracts firms use in these markets. Thus, a useful framework for considering international managerial accounting research would incorporate different international market characteristics that impact the contracting role of firms. Using such a theoretical framework, this paper examines the role of managerial accounting by focusing on operating and strategic decisions that require knowledge transfer, decision-rights assignment, and decision-rights control within international organizations.

Although the growth in international managerial accounting research over the last decade has been significant, there are no frameworks to organize this literature and help researchers identify opportunities to add to this body of knowledge. The objective of this paper is to create a framework based on contracting theory useful for organizing published research and identifying opportunities for research in international managerial accounting. Consistent with Gray, Salter, and Radebaugh (2001), we distinguish in our analyses between comparative international management accounting and management accounting at the multinational level of analysis. We focus here on the latter by examining research that investigates how accounting is used when multinational enterprises (MNEs) resolve problems that are unique to operating across borders (Gray et al., 2001, p. 46). We do not consider the descriptive literature that focuses on international comparisons of particular management accounting techniques such as transfer pricing, costing procedures, or performance evaluation without considering why these differences exist. Previous reviews of international managerial accounting research have been broad including both comparative and multinational cross-border operational research. These reviews have generally lacked an integrative theory that points toward opportunities for future research. This paper proposes a framework that allows multiple uses of accounting information and procedures in contracting efforts that assign and partition decision rights, aid in decision making, and implement decision control. The contracting framework provides researchers with a means of understanding and studying many of the roles of managerial accounting in international organizations. In particular, we provide a categorization of research across international operating and strategic decision levels that are affected by the function of managerial accounting through partitioning decision rights and implementing decision control. The impact of key environmental factors on contracting and the resulting international operating and strategic decisions is an essential element in the general integrative framework. Finally, the proposed contracting-based framework points toward opportunities for research in international managerial accounting. A framework for organizing management accounting literature could be based on a variety of existing paradigms. For example, scientific management (Taylor), the bureaucratic school (Weber), human resource theory (Maslow, Rickert, and Argyris), the decision-making school (Simon) and the political science school (Sleznick) provide alternative paradigms for considering management accounting issues (for overviews, see Narayanan & Nath, 1993 and Perrow, 1986). Because managerial accounting spans both behavioral and organizational issues, any of these or other paradigms will provide insights about potential research opportunities (for a critical review of each of these frameworks, including a critique of economic theories, see Perrow, 1986). No single paradigm or theory is likely to be complex or rich enough to provide an overview of the entire international management accounting research literature. However, compared to other potential paradigms, economic-based contracting theory provides a useful and widely accepted paradigm for predicting and explaining variation in the multiple roles and interrelatedness of accounting information across MNEs and time. We believe that contracting theory provides an effective perspective from which to develop a theoretical framework for organizing and understanding existing published research and for identifying opportunities for future research. Based on the earlier works of Coase (1937), Hayek (1945), and Williamson (1975), Jensen and Meckling (1992) develop a theory concerning the economic determination of decision rights within the firm. They suggest that an important objective of the firm is to align decision-making rights with those who possess the best information to make the decision. However, because the decision maker's self-interest may not be congruent with the welfare of the firm, the economic framework calls for implementing decision controls via implicit and explicit contracts. Contracting theory implies that managerial accounting plays an important role not only in providing information for decision making, but also both in the assignment of decision-making rights and in the subsequent process of controlling such decision rights Fama & Jensen, 1983a and Fama & Jensen, 1983b. Empirical evidence also suggests that various managerial accounting mechanisms help in the decision-rights assignment and control process. For example, Shields and Young (1993) used survey results to show that superiors use participative budgeting to reduce information asymmetries and allocate resources (i.e., decision rights). Merchant and Manzoni (1989, p. 549) interviewed profit-center managers and found that budget targets were used as a mechanism to allocate decision rights to effective managers. This contracting framework of providing information, partitioning decision rights, controlling decision rights, and evaluating and rewarding the subsequent decisions is embedded in environmental factors (e.g., economic, political, and cultural) and used to examine how managerial accounting is used in MNEs. The contracting framework is employed within the context of diverse international (1) operating decisions (e.g., management control systems (MCSs), transfer pricing, and budgeting) and (2) strategic decisions (e.g., market choice, market mode of entry). The paper proceeds as follows: the prevalence of decentralized decision rights within MNEs is examined in Section 2. Contracting theory, which serves as the economic theory on which this paper's framework is developed, is described in Section 3. Also discussed in Section 3 is the sampling technique employed to create a representative sample of published international managerial accounting research. The interrelatedness of key international environmental factors, implicit and explicit contracts, and resulting implications for future research are discussed in Section 4. Section 5 relates these contracts to common international operating and strategic decisions and identifies opportunities for future research. Finally, a conclusion follows in Section 6.

This paper uses contracting theory as a guide for thinking about the role of management accounting in the international firm. Contracting theory predicts multiple uses of accounting procedures in assigning and partitioning decision rights and in implementing decision control. These rights assignment and control choices interact with the operating and strategic-level economic decisions made within the firm. Also, the interdependent relationship between these decisions and environmental factors is discussed. We use the contracting framework to organize and classify international managerial accounting research from the past 10 years. Undoubtedly, our classifications and literature reviews may have overlooked papers that should be included in this review. We hope that the review and framework of the multiple uses of managerial accounting in MNEs will identify opportunities for and spark research in international managerial accounting. In particular, the lack of research about international market choice and entry-mode decisions (see Table 1) suggests a need for research about the costs of entering and operating in different global market settings. These costs include the cost of additional or different controls necessary in some international settings as a result of cultural, economic, educational, or political risks. Choice of market-entry vehicles is impacted by the firm's desire to use geographically diverse knowledge and guard firm-specific knowledge that may provide competitive advantage. Market-entry mode has significant influence on the design and use of management accounting information in decision-rights assignment and control. Very little research has documented or identified the changes to the firm's decision-rights assignment pattern (e.g., budgeting processes) or the decision controls (e.g., performance monitoring and evaluation) resulting from these international strategic decisions. On-going international operating decisions pose additional demands on the firm's management accounting system. For example, when using internal accounting information to compare performance across international locations, foreign currency exchange issues become important. In addition, partitioning of decision rights through, for example, budgeting will be dependent on sources of local specific knowledge that can provide competitive advantage. Environmental factors, such as economic, political, educational, and cultural differences, presumably influence the effectiveness of accounting information in the firm's decision-rights and control mechanisms. Yet these interdependencies are not well understood. Interdependencies in international operations offer rich environments for studying the impact of management accounting in firm operations. As with any research, limitations to the current study need to be identified. In particular, the use of contracting theory affects how we categorize existing research and identify future research opportunities. In particular, some researchers criticize contracting theory for insufficiently incorporating behavioral effects, such as altruism and human information processing limitations, into analyses and outcome predictions (Fama & Jensen, 1983b). Therefore, our adoption of a contracting perspective for developing the framework might fail to recognize certain behavioral-related uses of accounting in MNEs. Other theoretical frameworks might better identify such uses. Also, to the extent that our sampling procedure and therefore our research sample is biased by the 10-year time frame, the selected set of journals, or by our definition of international managerial accounting, our analysis of existing published international managerial accounting research and identification of future research opportunities is similarly biased. International managerial accounting is in its research infancy and presents opportunities for understanding the international decision partitioning and decision-control features of internal accounting systems. The cultural, economic, educational, and political richness of the global economy provides settings to examine differences in accounting procedures and to relate such differences to differences in underlying global decisions. This type of research could help explain the organizational costs and benefits associated with operating in international markets.