The Icelandic CFO: Characteristics, environment and tasks

This article is based on a research that was conducted in 2008 and 2014 focusing e.g. on the characteristics and roles of chief financial officers (CFO) of the 300 largest firms in Iceland. In both research a response rate of over 60% was achieved, which is quite good in management studies. The resu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tímarit um viðskipti og efnahagsmál
Main Authors: Ríkharðsson, Páll, Karlsson, Þorlákur, Batt, Catherine
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: Institute of Business Research 2015
Subjects:
CFO
M12
Online Access:http://www.efnahagsmal.is/article/view/a.2015.12.1.1
https://doi.org/10.24122/tve.a.2015.12.1.1
Description
Summary:This article is based on a research that was conducted in 2008 and 2014 focusing e.g. on the characteristics and roles of chief financial officers (CFO) of the 300 largest firms in Iceland. In both research a response rate of over 60% was achieved, which is quite good in management studies. The results showed that Icelandic CFOs in general are following a similar development in their task emphasis and roles as in other countries with more emphasis on analysis, support for decision making and internal advice than on bookkeeping and financial reporting. Other results show that proportionally more women are CFOs in Icelandic companies than in the other Nordic countries, little less than half of the CFOs of the largest firms have been hired in the last five years and there is a lack of knowledge among CFOs of several management accounting methods and frameworks. Þessi grein byggist á rannsókn sem var gerð árið 2008 og aftur árið 2014 m.a. á einkennum og verkefnaáherslum fjármálastjóra í 300 stærstu fyrirtækjum á Íslandi. Báðar rannsóknirnar náðu yfir 60% svörun sem þykir mjög gott meðal stjórnenda. Niðurstöður eru m.a. þær að íslenskir fjármálastjórar fylgja almennt sömu þróun í áherslum og hlutverki og í öðrum löndum. Það er að segja meiri áhersla er lögð á greiningar, ákvarðanatökustuðning og innanhúsráðgjöf en bókhald og uppgjör. Af öðrum niðurstöðum ber að nefna að fleiri konur eru fjármálastjórar í íslenskum fyrirtækjum en á Norðurlöndunum, rétt undir helmingur fjármálastjóra stærri fyrirtækja hefur verið ráðinn á síðustu 5 árum og skortur er á þekkingu á mörgum aðferðum og stöðlum stjórnunarreikningsskila og innra eftirlits (management accounting).