Management Accounting & Control Scales Handbook

I owe the idea of creating this scales handbook to Klaus Brockhoff. At the Vallendarer Controlling-Tagung 2002 and with reference to German-language controlling research, he rightly pointed out that methodological approaches aim – among other things – at establishing the intersubjective comparability of research questions. Therefore, differing, unrelated definitions of latent constructs do a disservice to comparative research and cumulative discovery processes. This is where scales handbooks offer a concrete benefit: a quick and concise overview of the relevant constructs and their use in previous studies. Not surprisingly, scales handbooks have existed for quite some time in marketing and other disciplines. Most controlling researchers, however, have traditionally been rather hesitant to engage in rigorous empirical research and to connect to the international scientific community in management accounting. As a consequence, a handbook of management accounting and control-related constructs does not yet exist. However, we were able to build on a smaller compilation of scales which was collected and published by Jürgen Weber, Bianca Willauer and myself in 2003. Against this background, the collection of scales in this book aims at promoting empirical research in controlling by giving researchers a quick and – to the extent possible – concise overview of relevant constructs and their use in previous studies. A significant number of the constructs presented in this collection are based on data sampled in Germany, and have not been translated into English. However, the names of constructs, their descriptions and all the goodness-of-fit measures are given in English.

Prof. Dr. Utz Schäffer ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Controlling und Unternehmenssteuerung an der WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar.