Management accounting system application in banks in the State of Qatar

Abstract

The importance of management accounting systems (MAS) in measuring the non-financial performance is increasing, especially in the service sector. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to investigate the nature of MAS in service sector, mainly in banks as this sector is critical for future economy of the State of Qatar. This study surveyed the top management team in finance and accounting departments in banks about their prospective of MAS usefulness, the critical driving or resisting factors, and the financial and non-financial indicators that are affecting the implementation of the MAS in their banks. Surveys were distributed to 16 banks operating in Qatar. In addition, interviews were conducted with individual senior management and executive managers. The results of this study demonstrate that the highest demographic factor affecting the critical driver factors in implementing MAS is the experience of the employee in the organisation, because each experience category had different view in the importance of these factors which would eventually affect the design and the implementation of MAS in their banks. In addition, interviews conducted found that most of the participating banks were paying more attention to improvement and measurement financial performance rather than non-financial performance. © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.