The Effects of Intra- and Extra-Organizational Factors on Management Accounting Practices in the Privatization Processes: Evidence from Iran

The specific aim of this academic study is to investigate the possible impacts of external and internal factors in the unique process of privatization on the changes of management accounting practices in listed companies of Tehran Stock Exchange which more than 51% of this companies' shares have been transferred to the private sector. For this purpose, a theoretical framework scientifically based on the key concepts of institutional theory (new institutional sociology and old institutional economy), structural theory and dialectical perspective has been applied that provide an exhaustive explanation of organizational changes by acknowledging the conflicts of internal and external determinants and the critical role of the human factor. Totally, 60 companies which their ownership transferred to the private sector during the period from 2002 to 2017 were investigated in the current paper. To collect empirical data, a questionnaire survey was adopted; moreover the structural equation modeling approach is applied to examine the hypothesis employing Smart PLS software and Friedman rank test using SPSS software. The key findings sufficiently reveal that external factors (mainly through progressively increasing of shareholders supervision), the internal factors (mainly through increasing of management influence) and through mediating variable of organizational contradictions exert a significant effect on the management accounting practices. As a result, in the process of privatization, two factors of increasing the shareholders' supervision and increasing of management influence, receive the most primary impact on the management accounting practices change. Furthermore, apparent inconsistency typically resulting from the incompatibility of external and internal factors causes differences among the members and affords the conditions of changes in the organization's systems. The results of the current research can be valuable for the effectiveness of management accounting changes in the process of mergers and acquisitions in developing countries.