Doing Business in Russia: Lessons for Management Accounting

Abstract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is on the transition from a command economy to a market system. Having undergone fundamental political and economic changes in the last 20 years, Russia is considered to be a significant player in the world economy and an attractive location for foreign direct investments. As a result, Russia is also an important trading partner for Austrian companies that often maintain a Russian sales office, branch or subsidiary. It is widely acknowledged and empirically tested that leadership and management theories developed in one culture cannot be easily exported to other cultures. This applies also to management accounting that contributes to the achievement of the company’s objectives and thus takes on an important role in managing the organization. Since people react to situations and interpret information differently depending on the norms of their native culture, cultural differences impact management accounting activities. Despite the growing interest in management accounting in transition economies in general and in Russia in particular, there is still a significant lack of research concerning the influence of cultural factors on management accounting. Drawing on interviews with Austrian companies operating on the Russian market, this paper investigates the influence of cultural differences between Austria and Russia on management accounting. Our study does not only aim to enhance the understanding of the needs and particularities of doing business in Russia but also places a particular focus on the context of management accounting by exploring how cultural differences impact management accounting functions such as information supply, planning and control.Our results reveal that the access to management accounting information as well as the readiness to provide data is significantly lower in Russia than in Austria. Moreover, Austrian employees participate more actively in the planning process, develop more detailed and precise plans and are able to accept objective criticism to a greater extent than their Russian counterparts. Consequently, the study provides evidence that culture differences have a considerable effect on management accounting. This implies that companies entering or already serving the Russian market have to consider these differences in order to design an effective management accounting system.