The level of sophistication of management accounting practices in the Jordanian financial sector
This thesis aims to identify the status of management accounting practices in the Jordanian financial sector in terms of both its usage and sophistication level and to examine the contingency factors that influence that status. The main objectives of the research are: to obtain a broad overview of management accounting practices in general, including the extent of usage of management accounting practices; examine the sophistication level of management accounting practices and at which phase, based on the IF AC model, the Jordanian financial sector is currently placed; investigate the effect of the contingent variables upon both the extent of usage and the sophistication level of management accounting practices. To attain these objectives, a combination of research methods has been conducted, namely, questionnaire and semi-structured interview; 64 valid questionnaires were returned, giving a 67.3% response rate, followed by 14 interviews. Several statistical analyses were used to analyse the responses, namely, descriptive analysis, bivariate correlation analysis (Kendall's tau test and Kruskal-Wallis test), and multivariate statistical tests. The results of the life cycle stages revealed that 67.2% of the respondent companies are located in the first two stages. In terms of the usage of management accounting practices, the research reported that traditional practices are still widespread and highly used, rarely using the more sophisticated or advanced practices, and that there is a diversity of practices used in the financial sector context. In general, the research revealed that budgeting practices and financial measures are heavily used, and there is a lack of usage of decision making practices and strategic analysis practices. Concerning the sophistication level of management accounting practices, the research revealed that almost all of the Jordanian financial sector companies are located in the first stage by 64.1% and 29.7% of companies in the second stage based on the IF AC model, thus indicating the simplicity of information that they require. This, in turn, reflects the simplicity of practices that are used in the Jordanian financial sector. In terms of the association between each contingency variables and the extent of usage of management accounting practices, the research reveals that the age of the company (number of years since establishment), net sale growth, number of employees, sophistication of operations, professional certificates, life cycle stages, and business type have a significant impact on the extent of usage of management accounting practices. In addition, it reveals that the age of the company, sophistication of operations, attendance of training courses, professional certificates, life cycle stages, and business type are the main contingency variables that influence the sophistication level of management accounting practices. The research's findings provide a broad overview of management accounting practices in the Jordanian financial sector. This overview is vital in improving the understanding of management accounting practices, particularly contemporary practices within the Jordanian financial sector in order to encourage practitioners to adopt contemporary practices of management accounting. In addition, the research informs practitioners of the main variables that influence the usage and sophistication level of management accounting practices and of those variables that need to be taken into account when planning the adoption or development of management accounting systems. Finally, the research's findings attempt to fill the gap between theory and practice in management accounting in Jordan.
Cost accounting, Islamic countries, Managerial accounting, finance
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