PurposeJob advertisements are important means of communicating role expectations for management accountants to the labor market. They provide information about which roles are sought and expected. However, which roles are communicated in job advertisements is unknown so far.Design/methodology/approachWith a text-mining approach on a large sample of 889 job ads, the authors extract information on roles, type of firm and hierarchical position of the management accountant sought.FindingsThe results indicate an apparent mix of different role types with a strong focus on a classic watchdog role. However, the business partner role is more often sought for leadership positions or in family businesses and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME).Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation is the lack of an agreed-upon measurement instrument for roles in job offers. The study results imply that corporate practice is not as theory-driven as is postulated and communicated in the management accounting community. This indicates the existence of a research-practice gap and tensions between different actors in the management accounting field.Practical implicationsThe results challenge the current role discussion of professional organizations for management accountants as business partners.Originality/value The authors contribute the first study, which explicitly analyzes the communication of roles in job offers for management accountants. It indicates a discrepancy between scholarly discussion on roles and management accountants' work from an employer's perspective.

The ongoing discussion on roles of management accountants (MAs) leads often to perceive the business partner (BP) role as the role of choice. Yet, many scholars and practitioners seem to assume that this role is clear to managers and MAs, that it makes sense for them and that all managers and MAs agree on it and implement it. Inconsistencies between actual roles, perceived, and expected roles might cause identity and role conflicts. However, we lack evidence of whether managers and MAs perceive, expect and act in the BP role and if tensions and conflicts might exist. This paper is based on a quantitative empirical study of a large German high-tech firm in 2019 whose top management decided to implement the BP role. We found several areas of tension in this role discussion and contribute to the literature on MAs’ roles with a more nuanced view of the interaction between managers and MAs regarding MAs’ roles. The study shows that there are mainly differences in business managers’ expectations of MAs to the role of the BP, which the MAs do not know exactly how to fulfill