Value Creation Perceptions of Management Accountants in South Africa

Abstract

The Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism launched the Embankment Project for Inclusive Capitalism (EPIC) to tackle the challenge of communicating how value is created for the stakeholders of a company. However, discord on how stakeholder value should be measured exists. Management accountants can successfully measure the value of money in their cost control function, but it remains a challenge on how they perceive the adding or creating of value in their respective roles and if their own perceived performance. The aim of this study was to obtain an understanding study of how management accountants view and navigate through this concept of value creation in general and in their organisation, how and why they engage in value-creating activities for their organisations and its stakeholders. A qualitative approach was adopted to conduct the study and the data collection technique constituted a literature review and questionnaires distributed to 30 participants. The majority of the participants believe that they are creating value for their organisations and positioned their perceived value creation into the economic value category. Some participants believe that the value they create within their organisation cannot be measured. Overall, it is recommended that possible development of tools, models or frameworks to assist management accountants in the measuring or capturing of value should be explored that is of a more subjective nature, so that it would be easier to implement and drive value creation practices in the workplace.