Performance measurement systems (PMSs) play a crucial role for multinational companies (MNCs). In fact, MNCs’ head offices implement PMSs at their subsidiaries not only to receive performance information that allows well-informed decision-making, but also to influence the subsidiaries’ decisions.
Despite the importance of PMSs in practice, the management accounting literature has
not adequately addressed these systems. In particular, the existing literature lacks a detailed description how MNCs’ head offices design PMSs. Furthermore, and even more important, there are several calls to analyze in depth how PMSs are adopted by MNCs’ subsidiaries.
Consequently, Henrik Schirmacher investigates both the design of PMSs at head office
level and the adoption of these systems at subsidiary level. The empirical analysis is based
on interviews with management accountants of five German MNCs. Besides interviewing experts at the MNCs’ head offices, Henrik Schirmacher held interviews with ten
subsidiaries stemming from three continents and nine countries.