Inner Struggle or Identity Fit? An Analysis of Management Accountant’s Role Change in Family and Non-Family Firms

This study investigates which institutional level, and which interpersonal level mechanisms support the identity fit of a management accountant (MA) in the changing management accounting occupation. Management accounting research just started to use role and identity theory to investigate MA’s role expectations, conflicts, and coping strategies. We plan to employ a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to indicate all possible configurations of present, absent, or negative conditions among different mechanisms that externally legitimize and internally encourage MAs towards their desired identity in two firm clusters of family managed and non-family managed firms. Our analysis is based on the results of a cross-sectional survey of 277 MAs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. We contribute to research on MA’s identity change by identifying which combinations of multilevel conditions support the MA identity fit.