Account Of Role Research Articles

Understanding developments in the management information value chain from a structuration theory framework

The last few decades has seen increasing focus in the transformation of the role of accountants from traditional control to strategic decision making. This transformation, expressed in terms of the management information value chain (MIVC), depicts the role of the corporate accountant as a “partner” in providing value-added information. Walther et al. [Walther T, Johansson H, Dunleavy J, Hjelm E. Reinventing the CFO: Moving from Financial Management to Strategic Management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.] provide a detailed illustration of this transformative role of the accountant (i.e., the CFO) as the agent in shaping the value chain while operating within the constraints of organizational factors that influence changes in the institution. However, due to an inadequate integration of the agent and organizational factors involved in the change, Walther et al. fail to systemically interpret the complexity involved in such a transformation. This paper illustrates how integrates the elements and processes involved in the interaction between agents and institutions, thereby providing a framework for understanding changes in the management information value chain, and specifically, interpreting the Walther text emphasizing the accountant's instrumental role as the agent in interacting with institutional structures in initiating that change.

Mobilising accounting in the radical media during the First World War and its aftermath: The case of Forward in the context of Red Clydeside

It remains the case that surprisingly little research has been done into the mobilising of accounting in media such as newspapers. Moreover, one can still argue that there is, again surprisingly, a paucity of research into accounting's emancipatory dimensions, actual as well as potential. And this is in spite of the scope for such work and the apparent significance of such topics for the critical social analysis of accounting. We seek here to add to and build upon the work that has been done in these areas [see, Gallhofer S, Haslam J. The aura of accounting in the context of a crisis: Germany and the First World War. Acc Organ Soc 1991; 16(5/6):487–520; Gallhofer S, Haslam J. Accounting/art and the emancipatory project: some reflections. Acc Audit Accountability J 1996;9(5):23–44; Gallhofer S, Haslam J. Accounting and emancipation: some critical interventions. London: Routledge; 2003; see also, for instance, Lehman C, Tinker T. The ‘real’ cultural significance of accounts. Acc Organ Soc 1987;12(5);503–22; Lehman C. Accounting's changing role in social conflict. New York: Markus Wiener; 1992; Beard V. Popular culture and professional identity: accountants in the movies. Acc Organ Soc 1994;19(3):304–18; Bougen P. Joking apart: the serious side to the accountant stereotype. Acc Organ Soc 1994;19(3):319–35; Broadbent J, Ciancanelli P, Gallhofer S, Haslam J. Enabling accounting: the way forward? Acc Audit Accountability J 1997;10(3):265–75; Lehman G, Tinker T. Environmental accounting: accounting as instrumental or emancipatory discourse. In: Proceedings of the interdisciplinary perspectives on accounting conference, July; 1997; Shearer T. Ethics and accountability: from the for-itself to the for-the-other. Acc Organ Soc 2002;27(6):541–73]. We elaborate a critical historical analysis of accounting's mobilisation in the radical media in the crisis context of the First World War and its aftermath. We focus upon the way in which accounting is mobilised in Forward, an important radical weekly newspaper of the key context of politically charged ‘Red Clydeside’ during this crisis period. Our general concern here is to further bring out and articulate the political character of accounting and its potential in the context of seeking to transform accounting and society. In our focus, we explore a number of ways in which accounting is mobilised to support a socialistic rhetoric that is disturbing for hegemonic forces. Our study contributes to an understanding of radical accounting functioning in the early twentieth century, adding to previous insights. We thus aim here to further encourage engaged action towards emancipatory development in and through accounting.

Perspectives on language, accountability and critical accounting: An interpretative perspective

This paper explores the utility of Habermas's A Theory of Communicative Action (vols. 1 and 2) and his Between Facts and Norms . Habermas's work has influenced a series of reforms for accounting as advanced by some critical accounting researchers writing about critical and public sector accountability models. This paper considers accounting's role in the public sphere and examines the Habermasian strain running through critical accounting. A different language model is introduced to the accounting community which is based on the work of H.G. Gadamer and Charles Taylor. In this paper, language is used to escape the instrumental limitations of accounting.

The Image of the Accountant in a German Context

This study introduces content analysis as a method of examining the accountant's role. The empirical study is based on 73 advertisements, which are directed primarily at employees who are affected by the management accountant's work. The findings of the study indicate that the subject of accountancy is used particularly in connection with promises of “cost reduction.” Consequently, the majority of advertisements use the accountant stereotype of “savings personified.” In a professional context, the work ethic of the management accountant is given particular emphasis in the advertisements. He/she identifies him/herself with his/her task to the maximum degree, is regarded as loyal to his/her company and, for the most part, is well organized in his/her work. However, the characterization of the management accountant as a well disciplined company-person conflicts with the negative portrayal of his/her professional qualities. In advertisements, the management accountant is portrayed as a rather inflexible, passive, and uncreative specialist who, as a result of these qualities, often demotivates others. The personal characteristics of the management accountant are shown in a negative light. This gives him/her the unappealing image of a humorless, envious, dissociated, and ascetic corporate-person.

Globalization and Its New Spaces for (Alternative) Accounting Research

This paper explores the idea of globalization and considers accounting's role in that process in order to develop new spaces for accounting research. Adopting an ‘alternative’ view of accounting—one that sees accounting as social and transformative, that pays heed to those voices arguing for greater social and environmental justice, and that draws attention to the role of accounting researchers in the process of globalization—the paper defines globalization and explores some of its material and symbolic, and consumptive and productive, practices. The paper further lays out a number of points attendant with a ‘global economic redesign’, again with the aim of expanding the globalization and accounting research agenda.

Efficient contracting and accounting

AbstractThis paper examines the role of accounting in an efficient contracting perspective of the firm. The firm is an alternative to the market when the costs of using the market become excessive. When a firm replaces the market, authority substitutes for the price mechanism in determining how decisions are made. This paper examines accounting's role in controlling the firm to ensure resources are put to their highest‐value use. Accounting, together with employment contracts, compensation arrangements, debt contracts, internal and external auditors, and the board of directors including its audit and compensation committees comprise a package of mechanisms that have evolved to govern the firm. These institutional devices become the firm's efficient contracting technology. As accounting is part of that contracting technology, the accounting controls and systems that evolve and get implemented are efficient and the accounting methods that are used in calculating the numbers that form part of the firm's contractual arrangements are, likewise, efficient.

Making it all add up - choosing and using an accountant

HISTORICALLY, veterinary practices have been provided with only fairly basic accountancy services, which could broadly be described as ‘Here are your accounts, this is your tax liability, and here is...

From moral evaluation to rationalization: accounting and the shifting technologies of credit

The purpose of this essay is to stimulate an examination of the nature of consumer credit and accounting's role in its techniques of operation. The site of this examination is the US department store of the 1920/1930s. Our study, informed by Foucauldian concepts of disciplinary power and governmentality, reveals that a new mode of record keeping played a decisive role in the creation of an alternative to local knowledge in the granting of credit. This manifested itself in new accounting techniques, particularly, the analysis of age-based accounts receivable.

Ethics Control Mechanisms: A Comparative Observation of Hong Kong Companies

Managers with different cultural backgrounds and under different circumstances have different views on what is acceptable ethical behaviour. This study attempts to determine whether major companies in Hong Kong share the same views as North American academics on what management ethical standards ought to be, and if so, whether any control mechanisms have been established to instill ethical behaviour within their organizations. Notable differences between the practice in these companies and those from a similar survey conducted in North America are identified and explained. The management accountant's role in the development and implementation of such mechanisms is investigated.

ACCOUNTING AND THE COLD WAR: THE TRANSFORMATION OF WASTE INTO RICHES

This paper argues that contrary to mainstream accounting's portrayal of managerial controls as benefitting society by helping to ensure that resources are employed in the most efficient manner, in at least one arena@8iU.S. national defense@8imanagerial control systems have simply served as a means to mask the transformation of waste into riches. Since World War II, the defense budget has been one of the primary mechanisms by which the U.S. government has maintained the status-quo distribution of wealth and power in this country through the production of waste. Because such a strategy required a militarized concept of security and a nuclear arms race which threatened the existence of life on this planet, the history of the Cold War has been one of internal contradiction and social conflict. This paper demonstrates how managerial control systems were employed by various components of the military-industrial-complex to maintain or extend their decision making power and to re-rationalize defense spending during periods of social crises, not to promote the efficient use of national resources. By documenting a history of the control systems used for defense acquisition during the first phase of the Cold War, the period 1950 to 1972, this paper implicates accounting's role in producing social inefficiencies and waste.

The management accountant's role in quality management: A Queensland perspective

The successful implementation of quality management (QM) requires a change in both an organization's culture and structure. Consequently, as management accountants are organizational members their roles and systems will need to change to provide support for this QM implementation. This study found that although the majority of management accountants are involved in the implementation of quality concepts into the accounting area of the firm, there has been little modification of cost determination methods and limited development and use of quality related performance measures. Nevertheless, the overall results of this research imply that the role of the management accountant has altered due to the implementation of QM practices, but not to the degree indicated in the literature.

Analysis of expected queueing delays for decision making in production planning

Concepts such as Time Based Competition and criticism of traditional cost accounting's role as a basis for decision making in production planning have emphasized the need for operational measures as indicators of manufacturing performance. One such measure is the expected queueing delay at a production facility. In this paper a typical bottleneck work center is considered where semi-manufactured products are processed in batches. The expected queueing delay depends on the batch sizes used at the work center. Emphasis is placed on the derivation of analytical expressions of (bounds on) the minimal expected queueing delay that can be achieved by an optimal batching decision. The analytical expressions can be applied easily to support managerial decisions on reduction of setup time and on expansion of capacity.

Employers' Expectations on Today's Accounting Profession: A Malaysian Case‐Study

The accountant's role today has been dramatically expanded, that is, from being the steward of assets and preparer of financial statements to a more challenging one, namely, one who is involved in various areas of management. Hence in response to the changing needs of the business environment, potential employers of accounting graduates now seek additional qualities from the graduates, besides them being technically competent. Some of these qualities include possessing qualitative skills such as being more effective communicators, possessing strong leadership skills and being able to think logically and critically. An attempt is made in this research to determine the current scenario of potential employers of Malaysian accounting graduates, notably with respect to their requirements of qualitative skills. This is determined from an analysis of a sample of 500 classified advertisements from a major local daily, spanning a period of 12 months, namely July 1995 till July 1996. From this research, it was evident that besides seeking academic qualification, computer literacy and relevant working experience, the majority of potential employers required the accounting graduates to possess additional qualities such as leadership, motivation, innovative skills, being independent and able to work under pressure.

FOCUS: Aspects of Accountancy The Ethics of Accounting Regulation ‐ An International Perspective

In all the literature about ethical dilemmas facing the accounting practitioner little attention has been paid to those which arise from the accountant's role in the process of accounting regulation. This treatment explores that role in the light of differing national modes of accounting regulation, economic impact issues in accounting regulation, some ethical principles and a number of different national illustrations. John Blake is Professor of Accounting in the Department of Accounting and Financial Services at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, in which Catherine Gowthorpe is Principal Lecturer, while Julia Clarke is a member of the Department of Business Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH.

Ideology, Hegemony and Accounting Discourse: A Case Study of the National Union of Journalists

This paper is concerned with accounting's role in the maintenance of an advanced capitalist state. Using a broadly cultural Marxist perspective, it is concerned with the uses to which accounting is put and how the use of accounting can obscure other more politically fruitful ways of seeing. The paper then considers possible historical and material explanations for accounting's relationship with the state. Finally it considers the workings of accounting in a political struggle inside the National Union of Journalist and the possibility that with a powerful hegemonic leadership, accounting may be used to highlight important material conditions without obscuring other issues. "To understand ideologies is to understand both the past and the present more deeply; and such an understanding contributes to our liberations" (Eagleton, 1976, p viii).

Effect of Risk on the Use of Performance‐Contingent Compensation

The separation of ownership from control in large public corporations and the resulting conflict of interest between shareholders and managers is a fundamental problem in corporate governance. From the shareholders' perspective, an effective compensation contract is one that aligns the manager's incentives with shareholder interests. Numerous studies have investigated the use of performance‐contingent compensation to achieve this linkage, as well as the use of alternative control mechanisms. This study extends this research by examining the effect of risk on the use of performance‐contingent compensation. The effect of risk on compensation contracts is of interest to accountants because of accounting's stewardship role in the organization. In particular, because significant accounting resources are directed toward corporate control, it is of interest to accountants to know when firms are likely to place more or less emphasis on performance‐contingent compensation.

Squaring Accounts: Commercial Bookkeeping Methods and Capitalist Rationalism in Late Qing and Republican China

Accounting has been defined as “the art of classifying, recording, and reporting significant financial events to facilitate effective economic activity” (Davidson 1968:14). The description, terse as it is, evokes the image of accounting's role as overseer in the global formation of mercantile and industrial capitalism. According to the historical sociologists Werner Sombart and Max Weber, methodical accounting methods were basic attributes of the development of modern capitalism in the West, and in the West alone. Yet, as Gary Hamilton observes, “uniqueness is a comparative claim, as well as a presumption underlying much historical research” (1985:66–67). In other words, claims of singularity should be redocumented by sound historical comparisons, rather than continually inferred on the basis of conventional wisdom.

A rejoinder

Tinker's reply reveals a striking difference between us over the nature and purpose of accounting. He sees accountants as participants in social conflicts; I see them as providers of information to the participants. His rejection of the very possibility of faithful representation is self-defeating. He confuses the accountant's role as information provider with his/her (sometime) role as manager. Though purporting to offer alternatives to market values, he fails to do so. He inveighs against evils that have nothing to do with accounting, drawing attention away from representational failures that we both deplore.

Stapylton: strategic management accounting to gain competitive advantage

The case examined in this article considers management accounting's role in a company's response to the threat to its market position posed by a competitor's action. Its special contribution is that it illustrates a management accounting approach which adopts a strategic perspective. Among the features of the company's approach there are three of note. First, is the use of market intelligence, giving recognition to the significance of the external environment and how the competitor might be expected to respond to company market action. Second is the use of a net present value model in the evaluation of potential strategies over an extended horizon. Finally, the case gives insight into the manner in which the management accountant was able to make use of his central position to capture information from marketing personnel. His role is seen to extend beyond the routine provision of accounting information to include the preparation of special reports that make him a dominant member of the decision-making team.

Occupational role dimensions: The profession of management accounting

This paper reports the results of a survey of the occupational roles of management accountants. The study investigates the major components of accountants' roles as perceived by themselves and by others, using the task typology of score-keeping, attention-directing, and problem-solving (Simon, Guetzkow, Kozmetzky & Tyndall, Decentralization in Organizing the Controller's Department). The results of 134 questionnaires suggests that the traditional task of score-keeping is the most important dimension of an accountant's role. The results also show that as accountants progress to senior positions within an enterprise, they evolve dual roles: first, they continue their role as score-keeper and second, they are active in determining management information needs.