Although management accounting innovations such as Activity-Based Costing, the Balanced Scorecard and benchmarking have received much academic interest in recent years, our understanding of why some organizations adopt and implement such new management accounting systems (MAS) and others do not, is still underdeveloped. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the role of the CFO in MAS innovation. We hypothesize that individual differences between CFOs are predictive of organizations' use of innovative MAS. In addition, we propose that CFO characteristics moderate the extent to which organizations rationally adapt to (environmental) contingencies. To examine this second prediction we compare the effects of strategy and historical performance on the adoption of innovative MAS for organizations with different types of CFOs. We test our hypotheses using a combination of archival and survey data from the public health care sector in Spain. Our results are generally supportive of our hypotheses.

In this paper we investigate the effects of superiors’ performance evaluation behaviors on subordinates’ work-related attitudes. In response to critique on the multidimensional nature of the ‘supervisory style’ construct in the RAPM literature, we argue that the two dominant dimensions underlying this construct are leadership style and performance measure use. We develop and test a path model that allows us to disentangle the effects of leadership style (initiating structure and consideration) and performance measure use (objective and subjective measures) on managerial work-related attitudes (goal clarity and evaluation fairness). We test our hypotheses using survey data from 196 middle-level managers in 11 organizations. Results show that an initiating structure leadership style affects subordinates’ work-related attitudes through the use of objective performance measures. Consideration leadership behavior instead only has a direct impact on work-related attitudes. These findings have important implications for management accounting research on superiors’ use of performance measures, and provide an explanation of some of the problematic findings in the literature.

This study analyzes how Management Accounting and Control Systems (MACS) facilitate the appropriation of the benefits of sustainable innovations in organizations. In particular, this paper examines the moderating role of different types of MACS in the relationships between sustainable innovation and international performance at an organizational level. We collected survey data from 123 Spanish and Portuguese organizations. Partial Least Square was used to analyze the data. Results show that the effect of sustainable innovations on international performance is enhanced by contemporary rather than traditional types of MACS. Overall our findings show that MACS can help managers to develop and monitor organizational activities (e.g., costumer services and distribution activities), which support the appropriation of the potential benefits from sustainable innovation. This paper responds to recent calls for in-depth studies about the organizational mechanism that may enhance the success of sustainable innovation.

This paper simultaneously examines how the design of management control systems and top management team composition help organizations to implement environmental sustainability policies successfully. It also analyzes the effect of those policies on both short-term and long-term performance. A questionnaire was sent to every member of top management teams in 231 public hospitals in Spain. It obtained 457 useful responses from TMT members, allowing us to collect data on 81 full top management teams (35.06%). The partial least squares statistical technique was used to test the causal research model. It was found that the implementation of environmental sustainability policies has a negative effect on short-term organizational performance and a positive effect on long-term performance. The results show that management control systems and top management team diversity have a complementary effect on implementing policies focused on environmental sustainability. A broad design of management control systems helps organizations adopt sustainability policies to achieve long-term performance. It was also found that top management team diversity mitigates the negative effect of adopting environmental sustainability policies on short-term organizational performance.