Authors: Stella Zounta, Markella Kosma

Title: An investigation of Greek Managers’ Perceptions on the Usefulness of Strategic Management Accounting Techniques in Listed Companies

Abstract

In the light of the on-going economic crisis in Greece, we aimed to investigate managers’ perceptions on the usefulness of 4 Strategic Management Accounting Techniques (Value Chain, Activity-Based Costing (ABC), Continuous Improvements Methods and Balanced Scorecards). We sent questionnaires to all 213 Greek Listed Companies and received 54 completed questionnaires by top executives (thus reaching a 25,35% response rate). We calculated the descriptive statistics measures and conducted Cluster Analysis (k-means) which identified two clusters, one consisting of managers that perceived the use of these techniques as very important and important and a second consisting of managers who are rather Neutral, have no knowledge or no opinion on the usefulness of Strategic Management Accounting.

Overall, first evidence indicate that Greek Listed companies try to integrate these techniques in their operations. Managers need timely and accurate information in order to be able to deal with and (maybe) overcome short and long-term problems in their operations. Strategic Management Accounting may provide them with the necessary tools and techniques to plan, monitor, evaluate and measure their present and future performance