Marc Wouters

intern/extern

Startups differ from established companies in many ways, and management accounting, too, is special in startups. Rather than using management accounting to support coordination and management control, startups can utilize management accounting for acquiring and managing scarce resources (such as investment funding). But more precisely, which roles does management accounting play for startups and which management accounting practices do startups employ?

We invite students for two final thesis projects:

1. A literature review on management accounting in startups. You identify and synthesize empirical studies on this topic, which may be based on a broad range of research methods. The creative and interesting challenge is to not simply summarize the studies, but to discover some interesting issues and to come up with stimulating ideas for future research.
2. A case study of management accounting in a startup. You identify one or several startups, negotiate their cooperation in research, and collect in-depth information about their management accounting practices, for example by conducting interviews and studying internal documents and information systems. We understand management accounting very broadly, so the scope of the study is not limited to textbook examples or to what the startup itself might call “management accounting” or “controlling”. Of course, we will make careful arrangements regarding confidentiality.