Management accounting practices before and during economic crisis: Evidence from Greece

Economic crisis might affect management accounting and the use of its practices within the organizations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the Greek economic crisis in management accounting practices in the Greek industry and to examine shifts in trends in different accounting techniques' panels in usage and importance before (2008) and during (2013) the country's economic crisis. Empirical data were collected from 301 firms belonging to various Greek industries, which fully completed and returned a structured questionnaire regarding the perceived importance and actual usage of various management accounting techniques for these two periods. Sixty-two techniques were incorporated in the survey and were further subdivided into 5 panels: (a) cost accounting, (b) planning-budgeting, (c) decision support systems, (d) performance evaluation, and (e) strategic analysis. Factor analysis was employed to summarize and reduce the 62 variables into fewer factors for both surveys. The survey revealed that the importance and the usage of ABC systems, planning, strategy, and SMA techniques increased during the crisis, while at the same time the level of importance and usage of traditional cost accounting techniques was decreased. Budgeting techniques are still widely used.