Mitarbeiterbezogene Anreizsysteme und Personalführung in kleinenund mittelständischen Steuerkanzleien in Deutschland

This doctoral thesis concentrates on analysing incentive systems and human resources management in small and medium-sized tax consultant offices in Germany. Whereby the work follows the classification of small and medium-sized enterprises based on the guidelines of the European Commission.
The focus of this study is to examine the different types of behaviours of tax accountants towards incentive systems and human resources management as these two key aspects cannot be construed autonomously. The issues communication, fairness and motivation are closely connected to the key aspects because of the dependency between the different items. For this reason, these elements represent the foundation of this doctoral research.
It is found that a detailed review of the literature is not providing answers to incentive systems and human resources management in small and medium-sized tax offices. This industry cannot be compared to other economic sectors in Germany or other countries. Thus, the extraordinary circumstances in the field of research require a detailed examination. A prosperous business situation characterises the tax consulting industry with a very low insolvency rate compared to other industry segments. This economic state is expressed through high economic stability and security of the market participants. In addition to that, the industrial sector represents high entry barriers and low market dynamics. Furthermore, the legal situation is causing a protected market. Only authorised tax consultants are allowed to build a tax consultant office in Germany. In spite of this affluent situation, it is one of the main challenges of the market participants to face the skilled labour shortage. For this reason, it is mandatory to study the dependencies to answer the research questions. In this field of study, a qualitative method was utilised to achieve the research objective, with the so-called Grounded Theory building the framework of the empirical part. The interviews of 24 tax accountants generate the substructure of the research results.
The key findings demonstrate that the interviewed tax consultants have a multifarious understanding of personnel management and they mostly do not illustrate a strategic incentive system in their company. This thesis presents a new understanding of the already mentioned foundation of this research.