| Abstract [eng] |
Recently, there has been a growing debate in the scientific literature on the need of research on management accounting, digitalization and maturity models in the context of SMEs. The main reasons for that are the lack of research of this kind, the importance of SMEs to the economy and the challenges they face. One of the features of a modern business environment is large-scale competition, in which information is essential to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. The prevailing view is that assessment of the current situation is important for making rational and informed decisions, and one of the ways to do this is the use of maturity models. The problem addressed in this paper is related to the assessment of management accounting and digitalization maturity level in order to enable SMEs to make purposeful decisions. The object of this paper is the assessment of management accounting and digitalization maturity level, and the purpose is to develop a model that will help to assess management accounting and digitalization maturity level in SMEs. In the first part of the paper, after research trends of management accounting, digitalization and maturity models in the primary and secondary literature presented, as well as the SMEs context in the modern business environment, assumptions have been created for the analysis of the fundamental theoretical aspects of management accounting and digitalization, their manifestations in SMEs, and the maturity models for the assessment of these concepts. In the second part of the paper, after examining the essential theoretical aspects of management accounting, digitalization concepts and maturity models presented in the literature, a model for assessing management accounting and digitalization maturity level in SMEs is developed. In the third part of the paper, after analyzing the methodologies of the authors who empirically studied the application of maturity models, research process has been selected. After analyzing the tools used by them, management accounting and digitalization maturity level assessment tool, i. e. questionnaire, and the topics used in the case study conducted by using interview method in the company UAB Atliekų tvarkymas has been selected. In the fourth part of the paper, the results of the maturity assessment of the 32 companies participating in the study are presented. The evaluation with the questionnaire revealed that management accounting maturity level of surveyed SMEs is considered to be high (the 3rd of the 4 levels of maturity model) and digitalization maturity level is considered to be medium (the 2nd of the 4 levels of maturity model). The case study of UAB Atliekų tvarkymas revealed that the level of maturity of management accounting in the company is high (the 3rd of the 4 levels of maturity model) and medium of digitalization (the 2nd of the 4 levels of maturity model). The obtained results of the qualitative research formed the basis for recommendations both for the companies that completed the questionnaire in general and for the company UAB Atliekų tvarkymas, as well as for further research. |
