I'd do anything, but I won't do that: Job crafting in the management accounting profession

Abstract

We examine management accountants' attempts to customise their roles through job crafting behaviour. In a field survey of 284 professional management accountants, we show that role identity conflicts are associated with attempts to narrow/sideline tasks and relationships in order to achieve greater fit. We also identify two key moderators of this behaviour, namely job discretion and business involvement. Our findings contribute to discussions on how and why accountants self-initiate changes to their roles and the boundary factors that shape these actions. In doing so, we challenge current perspectives on business partnering by exposing a dark side of high business involvement.