Performance Measurement and Evaluation Systems in View of Strategic Management Control: A Survey of Management Accounting Practices in Japan

Abstract

Since late in the 1980s we can find a growing interest in strategic management accounting in the literature. One focal point of those studies is the role of management accounting systems as a tool for measuring and evaluating managerial performance, which affects the managerial decision-making and organizational behavior in the process of formulating and implementing strategies. There are several empirical works that tried to find the fitness of the management control systems for the specific strategy, and they suggest that in general the different type of management control systems should be designed and used according to the specific strategy being followed. However, in these previous studies it is not so clear how accounting information is used. Furthermore, there are only a few empirical studies that investigate Japanese firms. In this paper the results of a questionnaire survey investigating performance measurement and evaluating systems of Japanese firms will be reported. This investigation was carried out in June 1999. The data collected from chief accountants in 126 Japanese firms provide some important findings of how Japanese companies design and use the management accounting systems in the process of formulating and implementing strategies. We analyze these results and discuss their implications, especially from the perspective of strategic management accounting.