From Strategic Planning to Accounting Governance Capability: How SMART-Based Strategic Governance Enhances Accounting Quality and Financial Accountability in Emerging Economies

Abstract

This study advances contemporary accounting scholarship by examining SMART-based strategic governance as an accounting governance capability that enhances accounting quality, financial accountability, and reporting discipline in emerging economies. Integrating agency theory, goal-setting theory, institutional theory, and the Resource-Based View (RBV), the study reconceptualizes SMART analysis as a board- and audit committee-driven governance mechanism embedded within accounting oversight processes. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was adopted. Quantitative data were collected from senior accountants, finance managers, internal auditors, and audit committee members across multiple sectors in Nigeria and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Qualitative interviews with chief financial officers and audit committee chairs were conducted to contextualise the statistical results. The findings demonstrate that SMART-based strategic governance significantly improves accounting leadership efficiency, accounting quality, timeliness of financial reporting, and internal control effectiveness. Accounting leadership efficiency partially mediates the relationship between SMART-based governance and accounting quality, while audit committee competence strengthens the effectiveness of SMART governance practices. By repositioning SMART analysis from a managerial planning technique to an accounting governance capability, the study contributes theoretically, methodologically, and practically to accounting and corporate governance research in emerging institutional contexts.