Management Accounting Techniques Research Articles

Strategic choices and strategic management accounting in large manufacturing firms

This study examines the relationship between strategic choices and the use of strategic management accounting (SMA) techniques in large manufacturing companies and investigates whether external factors such as environmental uncertainty and competitive forces affect the SMA system. The survey results show that SMA usage does not depend on strategy type and only marginally depends on geographic orientation. These findings have been integrated using qualitative data collected in seven large companies through interviews. Although significant progress has been made over the last two decades in describing SMA practices in Europe, the contribution of this study to the accounting (SMA) literature involves both the research content and design. Having identified gaps in previous SMA research, we design a study focused on large manufacturing firms that considers different hypotheses and adopts a mixed method approach.

The Relationship between Lean Management Accounting Techniques and Decision Making in the Lean Context A Proposed Comprehensive Model

Purpose- the purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive model to provide managers with useful information for decision making purpose using the most appropriate Management accounting techniques in the lean context. Design/methodology/approach- Based on the literature, this study identifies and adapts the most appropriate management accounting techniques to provide managers with useful information for decision making purpose in the lean context and propose a comprehensive model. It also tests the perceptions of managers and management accountants of the Egyptian Pharmaceutical industry concerning the relative merits of such a model. Findings- The most significant finding in the current study that has not been investigated in previous studies is that the proposed comprehensive model which contains the proposed value stream decision making tool and feature and characteristics (F&C) technique was a better predictor of decision making of the Egyptian Pharmaceutical industry than the alternative model which contains value stream decision making tool only. Originality/value- This paper contributes to lean and management accounting literature by proposing a comprehensive model for providing managers with a useful information for decision making using the integration between the most appropriate management Accounting techniques and demonstrating how this integration provides decision makers with useful information. It contributes to strengthening the effectiveness of decision making in the Egyptian Pharmaceutical industry.

History of research performance measurement systems in the Australian higher education sector

Performance measurement systems (PMSs) are a global phenomenon emanating from new public management (NPM) reforms. While they are now prolific and entrenched, they have attracted criticism based on their design and the manner in which they are applied. The purpose of this article is to explore the history of accounting for research in the Australian higher education sector (HES). It focuses on how successive Australian governments have steered research within the sector through the introduction of PMSs, in line with NPM reforms. Relying on publicly available online policy documents and scholarly literature, the study traces the development of performance measures within the Australian HES from the mid-1980s to 2015. It contributes to literature in management accounting aspects of NPM through the means of management accounting techniques such as PMSs. It also contributes to accounting history literature through an examination of three decades of accounting for research in the Australian HES.

The Relationships Between Contextual Variables and Perceived Importance and Bene-fits of Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) Techniques

Environmental management accounting (EMA) has emerged over last decades because of increasing awareness of the impacts of companies on their environment. There was a limited attention directed to the importance attached to EMA's techniques and the importance of benefits derived from EMA's techniques. Drawing off the contingency theory literature, the current study examined the relationship between the size, intensity of competition, type of industry, cost structure, and the importance attached to EMA's techniques and the importance of benefits derived from these techniques. Data was collected using a sample of 100 accountants in Bahrain. Replies were received from 36 accountants. The results indicated that there were significant relationships between size, type of industry, cost structure, and the importance attached to EMA's techniques. With regards to the benefits derived from EMA's techniques, the results indicated that the type of industry and cost structure was significantly influencing the importance of benefits of EMA's techniques. The study determined many potentials for future research including understanding factors influencing the allocation of environmental costs to products/services, and using other contextual variables to gain a better understanding of EMA in less developing countries.

관리회계기법들의 활용도에 관한 실태조사

관리회계기법들의 활용도에 관한 실태조사

Enhancing Management Accounting Practices in Manufacturing Companies: A Special Reference to Top-level Management

Management accounting facilitates efficient business operation deploying different techniques that deal with the competitive edge. Organizations are facing new challenges regularly. To survive and expand business management always focus on different traditional and contemporary managerial techniques including. The management accounting techniques incorporate standard costing and variance analysis, traditional budgeting and cost volume profit analysis are commonly applied by managers which are now considered to be less useful in the competitive manufacturing environment. In order to achieve organizational goal and succeed in this present dynamic business environment, new techniques or strategies such as Just-In-Time (JIT), Activity Based Costing (ABC), Total Quality Management (TQM), process re-engineering, life cycle assessment and target costing would accelerate the capability of organizations by overcoming the acute global competition. This paper is an empirical study on manufacturing companies. Overall, the evidence reveals that most of the top-level management rely on so-called traditional techniques in their day to day activities than that of contemporary management accounting tools. However, new tools could accelerate business operations faster. Therefore, it is vivid that application of traditional management accounting techniques holds a strong position in the manufacturing arena. However, there is a good sign that some third generation businesses are trying to utilize new techniques slowly. Moreover, there exists some areas where proper attention is required to ensure best practice and utilization of management accounting mechanism. According to the findings, this paper provides some recommendations that might be useful to enhance the effectiveness and competitiveness of the top-level management and thus helpful in ensuring the practice of more sophisticated techniques in regular business operation.

Change of Management Accounting Practices

Currently, the use of traditional management accounting techniques such as traditional product costing is not meeting user needs for a variety of reasons. It has been claimed that traditional management accounting techniques are unable to satisfy the users of such techniques in terms of providing them with timely and detailed information. The use of management accounting techniques to support business processes, enabling competitive advantage and creating value is highly relevant for most businesses today. It also encourages the provision of capabilities to reduce cost and improve product quality, process flexibility, and build relationships supplier-customer and ultimately improve performance. The research has been done by investigating the contribution of the ease of use and usefulness to accept a change in the hospital management accounting system. All the hospitals (37 hospitals) in Jakarta constituted our population. A sample for this research used 23 management accounting system changes. Our research shows that hospital management accounting system changes are acceptable. The disagreement is related with the functional issues required to support the new system. Previous researchers argue that the delegation of decision rights (decentralization) can reduce the potential for resistance of management accounting innovation implemented in two ways: (a) by creating the environment which allows managers to ensure that their subunits are able to adapt to the new signals provided by accounting innovations and (b) by enabling subunit managers to become involved in the design of these systems.

The Effect of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty on the Use and Perceived Usefulness of Strategic Management Accounting: Some Empirical Evidence

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) affects the use and the perceived usefulness of strategic management accounting (SMA). The study takes the perspective that SMA can be regarded as a set of strategically oriented management accounting techniques and makes the research hypothesis that as PEU increases the use and perceived usefulness of SMA techniques also increase. To test the hypothesis, the responses of 55 CFOS to a questionnaire survey were analysed. The survey considered a cross-section of large manufacturing companies in Italy. The regression-based analysis mainly shows: (1) a positive relationship between PEU and the use of strategic pricing as SMA technique supporting product pricing decisions; (2) a positive relationship between PEU and the use of balanced scorecard; (3) a positive association between PEU and the perceived usefulness of all the SMA techniques included in the study

The Impact of Strategic Management Accounting Techniques in Taking Investment Decisions in the Jordanian Industrial Companies

This research aimed to identify the impact of strategic management accounting techniques in taking investment decisions in the Jordanian industrial companies. The population of the study included all the Jordanian industrial companies while the sample consisted of (93) respondents from the investors and financial mediators in Amman stock market. The research revealed the presence of an effect of the strategic management accounting techniques with its variables (target costing, balanced scorecard, just in time production system) in taking investment decisions in the Jordanian industrial companies. In the light of the results, the researcher presented a number of recommendations, most prominently: using the strategic management accounting techniques by the Jordanian industrial companies and caring for its different fields to be able to interact and respond to the environmental, social and economic variables.

Effect of IFRS Adoption on Corporate Performance Measurement: Analysis of Japanese Manufacturing Companies

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are becoming the leading principles and a special driver for the convergence of financial and management accounting in over 130 countries including the voluntary adoption. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the adoption of IFRS on management accounting. More specifically, this study investigates the differences in the importance of strategy goals, and financial and nonfinancial measures that have changed after its adoption. The results of a questionnaire survey conducted on Japanese manufacturing companies indicate that the effects of respondent firms provide with management accounting practices and techniques before and after the adoption of IFRS. My findings suggest that there seem to be considerable differences in the importance of strategy goals, and financial and nonfinancial measures before and after IFRS adoption.

Russian Central Government Budgeting and Public Sector Reform Discourses: Paradigms, Hybrids, and a “Third Way”

ABSTRACTThis study explores how public sector reform discourses are reflected in Russian central government budgeting. Through the lenses of institutional logics, Russian central government budgeting is considered to be a social institution that is influenced by rivaling reform paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State, and New Public Governance. Although NPM has dominated the agenda during the last decade, all four have been presented in “talks” and “decisions” regarding government budgeting. The empirical evidence illustrates that the implementation of management accounting techniques in the Russian public sector has coincided with and contradicted the construction of the Russian version of bureaucratic governance, which is referred to as the vertical of power. Having been accompanied by participatory mechanisms and a re-evaluation of the Soviet legacy, the reforms have created prerequisites for various outcomes at the level of budgeting practices: conflicts, as in the UK, and hybridization, as in Finland.

Stakeholder pressure on carbon emissions: strategies and the use of management accounting

ABSTRACTPrior research finds corporate environmental behaviour to be a function of stakeholder pressure, which significantly impacts on organisational strategies and internal management practices relating to environmental issues. Applying Freeman’s propositions on stakeholder management and corporate strategies, this study explains the relationship among stakeholder pressure, companies’ climate change risk management strategies and management accounting practices. Evidence provided through interviews with 39 managers responsible for carbon emissions management within 18 large listed Australian companies is used to investigate these relationships. This study finds that the sample companies used different strategies in accordance with relative cooperative potential and the relative competitive threat posed by stakeholders in managing carbon emissions issues. It is also seen that companies use management accounting techniques as a risk management tool in supporting their climate change strategies.

Popularizing a Management Accounting Idea: The Case of the Balanced Scorecard

AbstractWe explore how the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as a management accounting technique, was developed and marketed as a general management practice. Drawing on actor network theory (ANT), we analyze interviews with key actors associated with theBSC, insights gained from attendingBSCtraining workshops, and other documentary evidence to construct a history of theBSC. Our historical analysis offers theoretical tools to understand how the various features of the accounting technique were translated and transformed, that is, shaped and solidified. This translation entailed processes of modification, labelling, framing, and specification of abstract categories and cause‐effect relations. We also examine the networks and associations that both shape the form of theBSCand mobilize the interests of various constituencies around it to produce what can be regarded as a global management technology. Finally, we highlight the strategies and actions used to maintain control of this technique through its continuous reinvention, and, by doing so, we emphasize the idea of strategic agency.

The Role of ERP in Advanced Managerial Accounting Techniques: A Conceptual Framework

1.IntroductionToday's business environment has made inevitable for firms to have comprehensive, daily and detailed information of both market and their own operational processes. In other words, to be obtained by using emerging technologies holistic comprehensive, flexible and real-time financial and operational information is indispensable for firms high performance. ERP is precisely one of the information technologies for this purpose.As an enterprise information technology, ERP demonstrated the rapid spread and development across the World from the 1990s to now. In this process, the system that meets the specific needs of different users (in particular to increase the effectiveness and profitability of resources) and has become a complex set of computer application which integrates all processes and functions in the company and offers a holistic and integrated view by using a common database sharing.Because ERP makes data sharing in to an accurate and real-time form, operational processes are also automated in whole business. In this context, the nature of the accounting practices in this context has changed radically. With the change, the operational coordination between departments has got easier, and thus efficiency has obtained in areas such as strategic planning and management control. Efficiency is observed as increased flexibility in providing information, increased integration in accounting practices, and increased quality of financial status report and also seen as quick decision-making process, the harmonization of conflicting objectives and to standardize business processes (Colmenares, 2009: 5-6); and finally seen in areas such as an increased efficiency in commercial enterprises, facilitating the access to information, increased quality of information and supporting temporary reporting (Booth, 2000: 2).With these features the ERP can offer important contributions to Managerial Accounting Systems (MAS). Thanks to ERP, MAS facilitate budgeting applications and tracking responsibility on prepared reports. So, in our opinion, MAS effectiveness has increased dramatically by ensuring interdepartmental integration. This article examines how management accounting applications become effective and productive with the support of an ERP system and how this interaction increases firm performance.2.Literature ReviewThe problem of determining cost and cross-functional data reliably and quickly, particularly in manufacturing enterprises (Lea and Min, 2003: 2880), hampers the effectiveness and credibility of both traditional and modern managerial accounting (MA) applications. To eliminate this obstacle, enterprises increasingly adopt ERP systems. The integrated, flexible and real-time financial and operational data offered by ERP systems, which could be defined 'a change agent', extend the usefulness of managerial accounting techniques (Granlund and Malmi, 2002: 305). In this article, we show that how ERP and advanced managerial accounting methods are highly complementary systems based on literature review. In this regard we will explain how ERP system interact with total quality/quality cost, just in time production, activity based costing, balanced scorecard, business process reengineering, benchmarking, product life cycle costing, value engineering and costing.2.1.ERP SystemERP was developed to establish control over complicated operations, increase efficiency and productivity within enterprises, decrease production and transaction costs (Davenport, 1998: 123-124) and build full and flexible information systems for all of these processes. ERP becomes a milestone of the use of effective, fast and comprehensive information by integrating enterprises' inside and outside operational processes.ERP is a software system aimed at corporate resource planning. This system is based on establishing effective control and coordination of resources in different geographic regions in parallel with companies' strategic goals, purposes and customer needs. …

Disrupting the Discourse of P3 Value

This paper examines how a legislative auditor inserted the audit function into the accountability framework governing Public Private Partnerships (PPP, 3P) in the education sector in a small Canadian province. By examining two separate case studies of public private partnerships separated by 13 years, this research offers a rare chance to track the evolution of both the Auditor General’s audit practices and of the management accounting techniques employed inside the government. The findings of the Auditor General in both instances challenged the credibility government’s VFM assertions, thereby disrupting the government’s ongoing discourse of the value of public private partnerships to the public purse. In doing so, the Auditor General cast serious doubt on the government’s notion that P3s are value-creating.

Management accounting techniques and corporate performance of manufacturing industries

This research is to investigate that some factors that affect the new adoption in management accounting techniques on the Indonesia manufacturing industries, specifically in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi regions. The research can give a clearer portrait of how some factors can significantly affect the adoption of management accounting techniques. The research used some questioners which were sent to respondents who work in manufacturing industries as a middle level management. The methods used to distribute the questioners to respondents were by door to door, by e-mail and by media telecommunication (what’s app or close relationship) up to hundreds questioners. We obtained 45 respondents but we eliminated one respondent, because they are not suitable to the research requirements. The research model contains the two paths. The first path contains 7 variables that divided by six exogenous variables to affect one endogenous variable and the next path model is from the three variables, that are divided to the one mediating variable and the other one exogenous variables to affect one endogenous variable (like path modelling). The research result shows that high competition does not affect the new accounting adoption but the other five variables; cost system changing, technology changes, organization climate, consumer demand and size significantly affect the new accounting adoption. For the next path, the research finds that the new accounting adoption can significantly affect corporate performance and also corporate performance measurement perception.

Cost analysis of a manufacturing company encountering a failing financial situation: a pedagogical teaching case using learning activities model

The case focuses on automatic factory (AF), a small-sized manufacturing company; which produces and sells multiple construction products in the United Arab Emirates. For years, AF made operating profits, but during 2011-2013 it recorded operating losses, which the company management was anxious to have explained. AF's main concern was to acquire actionable knowledge and diffuse it throughout the company's hierarchy. To remedy the failing situation, an organisational learning activities model was adopted that would put the company on a sustainable footing and save it from dissolution. The aim of the present case study is to discuss and analyse this situation, using relevant management accounting techniques as a means of organisational learning. Participants are encouraged to discuss and analyse the AF's cost structure, breakeven analysis and sales mix, emphasising that such techniques should overlap with the learning activities undertaken by the company.

Cost analysis of a manufacturing company encountering a failing financial situation: a pedagogical teaching case using learning activities model

The case focuses on automatic factory (AF), a small-sized manufacturing company; which produces and sells multiple construction products in the United Arab Emirates. For years, AF made operating profits, but during 2011-2013 it recorded operating losses, which the company management was anxious to have explained. AF's main concern was to acquire actionable knowledge and diffuse it throughout the company's hierarchy. To remedy the failing situation, an organisational learning activities model was adopted that would put the company on a sustainable footing and save it from dissolution. The aim of the present case study is to discuss and analyse this situation, using relevant management accounting techniques as a means of organisational learning. Participants are encouraged to discuss and analyse the AF's cost structure, breakeven analysis and sales mix, emphasising that such techniques should overlap with the learning activities undertaken by the company.

Comprehensive Study on Strategic Management Accounting Techniques in Jordan Banks

There are many types of Strategic Management Accounting Techniques (SMA) that are used in many companies around the world. These techniques are ABC, COQ, SCM, VCC, BSC, EMA, benchmarking, CPA, valuation of customer assets, competitor position monitoring, competitor cost assessment, and customer lifetime value, Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Target cost, Attribute cost. In this paper, we make a comprehensive study on managements cost techniques that are used in Jordan Banks. We held our methodology by questionnaires that have been sent to one of the biggest banks in Jordan in which is the Jordan Housing bank. The results shows that 5 of 15 SMA that have the strong agree of usage, while 2 have partial agree of usage in this bank.

Strategic Management Accounting Techniques of Manufacturing Organizations of Bangladesh With Special Reference to Satisfaction Level

Different types of business strategy and a number of sophisticated strategy-based techniques have emerged to support and meet the challenges of global competition and customer satisfaction. As a manufacturing organization’s business strategies, such as strategic pattern, strategic mission, and strategic positioning are different- the satisfaction levels of various Strategic Management Accounting Techniques (SMAT) can vary accordingly. This study discussed the degree of similarity and variances of these in listed manufacturing organizations in Bangladesh. Research question of the study is whether relationships between the satisfaction levels of different SMAT and different types of strategic pattern, vision, mission and positioning in listed manufacturing organizations of Bangladesh have been prevailing? Secondary data were collected from 100 listed companies between August and October, 2016. For statistical analysis we used ANOVA test. Out of 16 types of SMAT, none of the techniques found satisfied, few of the techniques are in neutral positions, and most of these are in dissatisfic levels. Study found that the SMAT varies between countries due to economical and cultural differences. Authors found that there is no difference in satisfaction level of different types of SMA techniques identified by the authors based on a previous study. Studics also found that there is significant difference in strategic mission and strategic positioning at 95% confidence interval, respectively.