Like many other countries in Eastern Europe, Slovakia is currently facing a lot of social and economic changes. Slovakia has reached the highest average economic growth in the European Union from 2000 to 2010. The fact that Slovakia has a very small proportion of micro sized enterprises (Schmiemann, 2008) allows to conclude, that the structure of the Slovakian economy is highly developed. Regarding the management of small and medium sized enterprises in Slovakia, the question arises, to which extend the process of transition from a primary centrally planned economy towards an international oriented free market system is already completed.
The paper deals with the organization of management accounting and influencing context factors in small and medium sized enterprises in Slovakia. The topic has been a neglected field both in management accounting research as well as in small and medium sized enterprise research (national and international) so far. It is of great interest, how management accounting as a concept of planning and control is organized in a transition economy like Slovakia. The accounting law has been changed in Slovakia in 1993. This accounting system is based on the principle of providing appropiate information to financial managers of a company (Schroll 1995).
Following the research gap, the paper, which exclusively focuses on Slovakian small and medium sized enterprises, explores the research questions below:
1. How is the management accounting organized in Slovakian enterprises (internal/external, sub-unit for management accounting)?
2. Which operational and strategic instruments are used and to which extend are operational and strategic plans documented?
3. What are the dominating effects on the organization of management accounting: legal form, size, family firm/non family firm, internationalization?
The contingency theory (Burns/Stalker 1961, Laurence/Lorsch 1967, Thompson 1967) is used in order to explore the effect of the stratifying variables mentioned above. This theory is a very prominent approach when it comes to the investigation of management accounting practices. According to Luft and Shields (2007, p. 35) the contingency theory is the most common theoretical base for empirical studies on planning and control.
The empirical research data was collected in Slovakia by the Catholic University of Ruzomberku. This institution acted as a partner of the Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria) in this joint research project. In November and December 2010 the chief executive officers of more than 5.400 small and medium sized enterprises were contacted. The questionnaire was answered by 484 enterprises, 407 of those could be used for the survey.
Based on the empirical findings of the research, implications for the practice, in particular for the organization of management accounting in Slovakia and other transition economies, are derived. In addition, findings are discussed in detail and compared to other researches. The paper also provides directions for further research.
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14.06.2011.
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