Essays on the role and impact of accountants in Mittelstand firms

German Mittelstand firms seem to have fascinated practitioners and researchers around the world for quite some time. Despite their success, Mittelstand firms do, however, frequently struggle with resource constraints resulting from their often-times smaller firm size. These constraints have been linked to a variety of problems for Mittelstand firms. Among those problems are difficulties regarding access to finance and other resources (e.g., highly skilled human resources), a lack of formalized planning, difficulties to provide resources to innovative, yet risky investments, and – in the case of family-owned Mittelstand firms – challenges resulting from succession processes. This dissertation has the purpose to analyse the role and impact of accountants in Mittelstand firms and to examine how accountants can help Mittelstand firms to overcome such difficulties. Building on three scientific articles, this dissertation provides the first systematic literature review on the roles and impact of accountants in small- and medium-sized enterprises, and two empirical quantitative papers analysing the impact of financial managers on the effectiveness of management control systems and the level of organizational ambidexterity in Mittelstand firms.