Our research was motivated by the increasing level of
integration of financial and management accounting for
management control purposes in German-speaking countries.
Until today, relevant research has not clearly shown
whether this has a positive impact on controllership effectiveness,
and if so, whether the underlying causal inference
relates both variables directly, i.e., in a technical fashion,
or whether they are related indirectly, i.e., via properties
of accounting as a financial language for business communication.
In sum, our survey of 149 controller-manager
dyads from German top 1500 firms indicates that there is a
significant positive impact that is not triggered by a technical
mechanism, but fully mediated by the consistency
of financial language resulting from an increased level of
accounting system integration.