Innovative management accounting practices for sustainability of manufacturing small and medium enterprises

Abstract

The environment in which manufacturing small and medium enterprises operate has become very complex, and therefore manufacturing SME’s owners need to be aware of the impact their decisions have on the environment and society. The aim of the research was to identify which innovative management accounting practices can be integrated into manufacturing SMEs’ strategies to overcome the challenge of being blamed by stakeholders as contributors to social and environmental problems. Published articles were sourced from the University of South Africa’s online library using keywords. A systematic literature review was employed to discover themes and concepts during secondary data gathering to detect traditional and innovative MAPs in management accounting literature all over the globe. The qualitative data analysis and research software, Atlas.ti was used to synthesise the data. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate the occurrence of words, phrases, themes, metaphors, and the construction of concepts in MAPs literature. During the analysis, seven innovative MAPs (activity base costing/budgeting; product life cycle costing; total quality management; environmental costing; target costing; kaizen costing and value analysis) were identified. It is recommended that manufacturing SMEs integrate these innovative MAPs into their strategies to impact their environmental, social, supply chain management and recycling policies to promote operational efficiency to achieve sustainability. Further research to identify influencing factors; strategic procedures; and the environmental and social benefits of integrating these identified innovative MAPs into manufacturing SMEs to achieve sustainability, should be undertaken.