In this paper published in the European Accounting Review, we investigate whether the sophistication of management accounting information systems (MAIS) enhances controllers’ involvement in strategy development. Prior research offers inconclusive and largely qualitative evidence on this relationship: while some studies suggest that more advanced systems enable a stronger strategic role for controllers, others report limited or no such effect. Against this mixed empirical backdrop, we develop and test a role-theoretical model that links MAIS sophistication to controllers’ strategic participation and examine whether this relationship differs in family firms.
We argue that more sophisticated MAIS should enable controllers to contribute more meaningfully to strategic decision-making by providing higher-quality and more integrated information. However, we expect family control to attenuate this relationship because strategic authority in such firms often remains concentrated within the owning family.
Using survey data from German Mittelstand firms, we find a positive association between MAIS sophistication and controllers’ involvement in strategy development. Additional analyses indicate that this effect is primarily driven by improvements in information quality and analytical support rather than by time savings from automation. We also unpack the moderating role of family control and show that it weakens—but does not eliminate—the positive MAIS–strategy involvement relationship.
Overall, we contribute to the management accounting and family business literatures by providing large-sample quantitative evidence that MAIS sophistication is an important enabler of controllers’ strategic role, while also demonstrating that ownership structures shape the extent to which this potential is realized.
Reference:
Hiebl, M. R. W., Thaller, J., Dohmen, C. J., & Papiorek, K. L. (2026). Management accounting information systems sophistication, family control, and controller involvement in strategy development. European Accounting Review, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638180.2026.2619581
