The use of project management in the financial environment of small entities is investigated in this research. To reach the goal of this research, project management in general was researched from the literature and applied to small accounting projects. The meaning of small enterprises was determined from literature and different types of entities were described. The accounting environment as a whole was described to focus on the financial accounting environment of small entities whose financial statements are not strictly regulated by law. Project management was theoretically applied to the financial accounting environment of a small enterprise. Empirical research was used to determine the current use or not of project management by accountants. The questionnaire, distributed according to the snowball method, was set in such a way that it assumed the respondent do not use project management. The research results were grouped to elucidate information in different focus areas of project management. It was very clear from the respondent’s responses, that: Project management is intuitively used without being identified as such; There does nor exist any basic or formal numeration structure for financial assistance of small entities; and Risks could be uniformly addressed to the benefit of both accounting officers and clients should it be more consciously applied. Because it was difficult to identify the population and the snowball method was used to issue the questionnaires, it was decided to use focus group interviews to discuss the outcomes received from the respondents. The results from these interviews were very helpful: not only was project management positively accepted as financial management tool, but suggestions were made to motivate for the use of project management by accountants. These suggestions, as well as a draft project model was send as a secondary questionaire to accountants to test the researched results. Although a limited reaction was received the acceptance of the research outcome was positive. The impact of this discussion can also be found in chapter seven. It can be concluded that the conscious use of project management can be to the advantage of both the accountant and client. The application of project management as a process can be utilised advantageously and without significant additional administrative costs to streamline financial accounting activities. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Operational Research))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/7257 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Möller, Anelia |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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