The common denominator of corporate management is implementing value-creating
strategies by defining the scale and scope of companies and coordinating
their activities [13]. To do so, corporate management relies on formal instruments,
such as reporting ‘‘to monitor decisions throughout the organization […] to
increase the chances that a company’s objectives, including organizational performance,
will be achieved’’ [14].
Focusing on organizational performance, the resource-based view (RBV) offers
a concept for our work. According to Barney [15], the RBV predicts whether a
certain company will outperform another and for what reasons. Every company
consists of a bundle of individual resources1 that account for how well it performs
in a competitive environment. We assume that proper corporate management and
its associated EIS support are such resources, especially in an increasingly
dynamic environment. Taken from Marx [16] and Marx et al. [17], we compile a
brief historical overview to cluster major developments in corporate management,
followed by literature research on shortcomings of EIS.
The purpose of financial accounting is to provide the organization’s internal
and external stakeholders with reliable, traceable information on the company and
its legal entities. Therefore, financial accounting covers quantitative, predominantly
financial information about organizational activities using standardized
procedures that follow to accounting standards (e.g. IFRS [18]). Financial
accounting provides stakeholders with insights in standardized forms, such as
balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow statements.
Management accounting—the 1960s: Complementing financial accounting,
management accounting focuses on internal requirements such as cost control,
pricing, and investment calculation. It provides greater transparency by considering
not only legal entities, but also management units, customers, and products.
Typical management accounting output are contribution margins and results of
cost or profit centers [19].
Strategic management accounting—the 1980s: Companies began using strategic
management accounting to outline strategic instruments needed to implement
successful strategies [20]. In doing so, the focus shifts to more qualitative, nonfinancial
information such quality, time to market, and flexibility, as well as
structured information about customers, markets, and competitors. Examples are
target costing, life cycle costing, activity-based costing, and benchmarking [21]. A
most prominent example is the ‘‘balanced scorecard’’ by Kaplan and Norton [22].
Corporate and value orientation—the 1990s: Corporate control brought a
second wave of research about corporate strategies and shareholder value [23].
The most prominent voice was Rappaport [24]. In his arguments about