Performance as a variable in management accounting research: a critical review

This paper aims to review how the construct performance has been assessed in prior contingency-grounded, survey-based management accounting and control systems research, to analyze the alternative approaches that have been adopted in the literature, and to provide some guidelines for enhancing the assessment of performance in future survey-based empirical research. First, the paper identifies a total of 82 survey-based, contingency-grounded papers published in top accounting journals in the period 1982-2008 where performance was used as a variable of analysis. Specifically, this study examines the problems of a) conceptualization that are reflected by misspecification and, b) problems of operationalization. The article provides insights that could assist researchers in selecting between the various available choices of performance measurement by considering their respective weaknesses and strengths.