Decoupled accounting in a non-profit context: An explanation for stable management accounting?

While extant literature on decoupling tends to focus on for-profit organizations, this paper examines the non-profit context, where donors are the most salient stakeholders and accountability to donors is paramount. Specifically, this research explores why management accounting in some non-profit contexts may be both decoupled and coupled from other accounting in the same context. Based on data from three large case study organizations, the findings indicate that donors’ demands for compliance-based financial accounting information, rather than for performance information, limits the availability and use of management accounting information; in essence, leaving it decoupled and coupled in different aspects. This is potentially to the detriment of organizational performance, and by association to beneficiaries and donors.