Exploring the use of performance measurements in Arab manufacturing firms

This study focuses on two Arab developing countries following the view that scope, role, and positioning of management accounting differ across organisations and countries, and, in the same direction, the study draws on the recent literature on localisation of global management control systems. Furthermore, the study embeds the view that certain contextual variables such as country differences and organisational culture possess particular cultural characteristics, which in turn affect individuals to respond distinc-tively to Management Accounting Systems' (MAS) applications. The main objective of this study is to investigate whether or not there are significant associations between the use and levels of importance of operational non-financial performance indicators (ONFPIs) and the extent of a set of contextual variables including firms' and managers' characteristics and workforce involvement. The study reports and discusses findings of surveying manufacturing firms belonging to various industry sectors in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (SA) in mid-2005. Findings show that levels of importance of ONFPIs in Egyptians firms are higher than those in use at their Saudi peers' firms. In general, findings on significant positive associations between the levels of importance of ONFPIs and the incorporated contextual variables in the Egyptian firms seem to be in line with prior literature findings drawn from global practices. Interestingly, the effect of organisational culture seems to be witnessed in Saudi firms evident by the negative, rather than positive, associations between two variables belonging to managers' characteristics and workforce involvement and levels of importance of ONFPIs.