Antecedents to management accounting change: a structural equation approach

This paper reports on a survey of manufacturing companies, and uses structural equation modeling to examine the relationships between the changing competitive environment, and a range of organizational variables as antecedents to management accounting change. The results indicate that an increasingly competitive environment has resulted in an increased focus on differentiation strategies. This, in turn, has influenced changes in organizational design, advanced manufacturing technology and advanced management accounting practices. These three changes have led to a greater reliance on non-financial accounting information which has led to improved organizational performance.     

The role of budgets in organizations facing strategic change: an exploratory study

Recent attention in the general management literature has focused on mechanisms and processes used by organizations to respond and adapt to changes in their operating environment. There is, however, very little broad-based empirical research examining the role that management accounting control systems can play in shaping organizational change. Much of the empirical research to date has focused on the role of accounting as a diagnostic tool for assessing and rewarding managerial performance despite the recognition that accounting can serve as a dialogue, learning and idea creation machine (Burchell et al., 1980. Accounting Organisations and Society 5,5–27). The purpose of this study is to explore how accounting can serve this alternative role. We use (Simons, R. 1990.) Accounting Organisations and Society 15, 127–143). interactive/diagnostic classification of management control systems to capture how accounting can be used as a learning machine in the formulation and implementation of strategic change. A theoretical model is developed to examine the relationship between strategic change, style of budget use and performance. It is argued that an interactive style of budget use can mitigate the disruptive performance effects of the strategic change process. The data, collected from Chief Executive Officers in 63 public hospitals, provide results that are consistent with our expectations.     

Transforming frameworks of accountability: The case of water privatization

The U.K. Government's belief in the innate inefficiency of traditional public sector provision of goods and services has inspired a number of initiatives which have resulted in management of public sector enterprises being confronted by an increasingly commercial environment, tighter financial controls, increased competition, and in some cases transfer to the private sector through privatization. This paper is concerned with investigating the ways in which accounting and accounting information has contributed to and shaped processes of organizational change in one area of the public sector, the ten Regional Water Authorities of England and Wales. In the early 1980s, the Water Authorities were subject to pressures from new Government financial controls and performance aims to become more efficient. These pressures intensified when the Government announced its intention to privatize them in 1986, and continued up to 1989 when privatization took effect. Since privatization the Water Authorities have been subject to “yardstick” competition under a new regulatory framework, and comparative judgements by the financial markets. In considering these changes, the paper examines the constitutive role of accounting in articulating changing organizational priorities, and in promoting first a vocabulary of costs and subsequently a vocabulary of profits as languages of organizational motive.     

Management accounting systems change and departmental performance: the influence of managerial information and task uncertainty

Despite the proliferation of new management accounting techniques amidst pressures of organizational and global change, the issue of changes in firm-wide management accounting and control systems (MACSs) has largely been ignored in the research literature. This study explores the indirect effect of MACSs change on departmental performance for a cross-sectional sample of 232 medium-sized Singaporean firms. It is hypothesized that MACSs change affects performance but not directly. Instead, this relationship is mediated by managerial-relevant information (MRI) that is impacted by MACSs change, which, in turn, enhances performance. Task uncertainty is expected to moderate the intervening linkages; specifically, the latter are anticipated to strengthen under conditions of more task variability and task difficulty and, thus, augment the indirect effect of MACSs change on performance. The results offer support for the positive indirect effect of improving departmental performance from more MRI, triggered by MACSs change. Although not large, the indirect effect is strengthened when task variability and task difficulty are high. Overall, the findings are consistent with the stated purposes of management accounting that are embedded in normative definitions, and which are relied upon to motivate the framework for analysis.     

Organisational change, outsourcing and the impact on management accounting

New empirical evidence is presented on organisational change, outsourcing and the impact on management accounting in three types of organisations: private sector companies, the National Health Service and Local Authorities. Spearman rank correlations are used to examine three propositions: that (i) change in organisational form exists and may be related to an increased use of outsourcing or subcontracting; (ii) outsourcing is expected to improve organisational flexibility and/or the service of an activity, to lead to cost savings, or to allow the organisation to focus more clearly on its core business; and (iii) outsourcing promotes change in management accounting. Statistical support is found for each of our three propositions. This is further supported by reference to three illustrative case studies. Overall, we conclude that organisational change, as effected by the use of outsourcing, is related to specific changes in the organisations' management accounting systems.     

Management accounting systems and the economics of internal organization

The role, function and design of management accounting and control systems (MACS) are subjects that are being given considerable attention in the accounting literature. The theme of this paper is that recent developments in the economics of internal organization provide a useful framework for bringing economic choice problems associated with MACS into clearer focus. General themes already present in the managerial accounting literature (e.g. performance evaluation and control, participation, responsibility accounting and transfer pricing) gain in vitality when rooted in a more substancial theoretical base than is presently the case.     

Political constraints, organization design and performance measurement in China’s state-owned enterprises

This study develops a theoretical model to test how political constraints on labor decisions mediate the effects of economic liberalization forces on aspects of organizational design such as delegation, performance measurement, and incentives in Chinese state-owned enterprises. Hypotheses tests using a large survey of divisional managers generally confirm the model: that the influence of three liberalization forces (industry level growth and foreign firm competition, joint venture experience and stock market listing) on organization design is mediated by political constraints.     

Accounting and Competitive Tendering in UK Local Government: An Institutionalist Interpretation of the New Public Management

The paper applies institutional theory to analyse the changing role of accounting and contracting in UK local government as the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) regime was extended to white-collar activities such as housing management, finance, legal services and information technology. Employing an organizational fields model, accounting changes were seen to be influenced by a combination of legal coercion, normative and competitive forces, the resistance and manipulation of the large local authorities together with the facticity of the new accounting and contracting regimes. The theoretical framework is applied to field-work carried out in a large metropolitan authority in the north of England where CCT methodologies directly affected housing management but not other services such as finance. Although resisting CCT for finance, the authority subsequently introduced a radical scheme of voluntary competitive tendering for selected finance processes. The paper examines how accounting and contracting may be adapted to emerging trends in the New Public Management associated with Best Value policies.     

Predicting change in management accounting systems: national culture and industry effects

This study replicates the model developed in Libby and Waterhouse's [Libby, T., & Waterhouse, J. H. (1996). Predicting change in management accounting systems. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 8, 137–150] exploratory study of changes in a population of 23 management accounting control systems, and the five components of planning, controlling, costing, directing, and decision making, at the organizational level in Canadian manufacturing firms. The determinants of size, organizational capacity, intensity of competition, and centralization (replacing decentralization) are used to examine a sample of manufacturing firms in Singapore. Regression results from survey data partially support the cross-national transferability of their findings. Additional analyses show consistency between manufacturing and industrial firms but not service-oriented firms, suggesting limited generalizability of the model across different economic sectors.     

Predictive analytics and centralization of authority

We examine the relation between plant-level predictive analytics use and centralization of authority for more than 25,000 manufacturing plants using proprietary US Census data. We focus on headquarters' authority over plants through delegation of decision-making and design of performance-based incentives. We find that increased predictive analytics use is associated with reduced delegation of decision-rights to local managers, increased centralization of control over data gathering and reduced plant managerial payrolls. In terms of incentives, predictive analytics use is associated with more accurate targets and tighter linkages between rewards to workers (performance-based bonuses, promotions and firings) and measured performance. Overall, our findings suggest that predictive analytics use is associated with increased centralization of authority in headquarters.     

Accounting,management and organizational change: A comparative study of local government

This is a study of management accounting in local government in the context of significant change (managerial, organizational and environmental). The study is based on four case studies: two in Scotland and two in New Zealand. The paper explores two competing theories of organizational life—the instrumental view as espoused by New Public Management proponents, and the socially constructed, as advocated by new institutional theorists. This study locates management accounting at the centre of these changes in New Zealand with a more limited role in the U.K. where there is evidence of institutional isomorphism.     

Conceptualizing management accounting change: an institutional framework

Starting from the position that management accounting systems and practices constitute organizational rules and routines, this paper describes an institutional framework for the conceptualization of management accounting change. Drawing from (old) institutional economics, the framework explores the complex and ongoing relationship between actions and institutions, and demonstrates the importance of organizational routines and institutions in shaping the processes of management accounting change. The inherent stability and continuity of organizational life is discussed, and three categorizations of institutional change are explored. The framework is offered as a starting point for researchers interested in studying management accounting change, and through such studies the framework will be extended and refined.     

Market competition,management accounting systems and business unit performance

Increasing competition in the market, due to the application of modern manufacturing technology, deregulation of economies, and privatization or corporatization of government owned enterprises, makes decision makers use of management accounting systems more important (Bromwich, 1990). There have been calls for research into the use of management accounting systems under the changing circumstances (Kaplan, 1983; Shank and Govindarajan, 1989; Bromwich, 1990; Bromwich and Bhimani, 1994).This paper reports the results of a study which offers an explanation for the relationship between intensity of market competition and business unit performance, by incorporating into the model managers use of the information provided by the management accounting system (MAS). To assess the relationship, data were collected from 61 business unit managers by way of personal interviews. The results indicate that the intensity of market competition is a determinant of the use of the information which, in turn, is a determinant of business unit performance. In other words, managers use of the information plays a mediating role in the relationship between the intensity of market competition and business unit (BU) performance. An interpretation of the results is that those organizations which use the information can effectively face competition in the market and thereby improve performance.     

A LONGITUDINAL CASE STUDY OF PROFITABILITY REPORTING IN A BANK

This project involved a seven-year longitudinal case study of a Bank monitoring over time the changes in profit measurement and overhead allocation, product group profitability, benchmarking, customer profitability, budgeting and profitability/performance measures such as return on risk adjusted capital. The overall finding is that the Bank’s profitability reporting (particularly its product group and customer profitability) changed considerably during this seven-year period. The main factors that accountants and managers identified as influencing such changes were four external factors and two internal factors. The four external factors were changes in technology (computers and telecommunications), regulatory change, increasingly competitive global markets and a greater difficulty in attracting customers. The two internal factors were the development of new products leading to a wider product range and a changing management accounting culture. The historical and organizational context of the Bank was also critical in this process of change, and a dynamic contingency model is proposed. This longitudinal case study indicates that more changes are occurring in management accounting practices (such as profitability reporting) than the current evidence from questionnaire surveys and ‘snapshot’ case studies reveals. An area for future research that this study highlights is that although accountants and managers talk in terms of long-term planning and control, the norm is short-term management accounting solutions and managerial reaction to new external developments.     

Debate: Society,socialism, sociology

This article investigates the implementation of benchmarking in three large acute NHS trusts. The findings concentrate on the attitudes of professional groups towards the preparation and use of management accounting information for performance measurement and comparison in NHS trusts. The problems revealed in developing appropriate costing information in this organizational context suggest difficulties lie ahead as more far-reaching organizational and financial change permeates the NHS.     

Organizational identity change: managerial regulation and member identification in an accounting firm acquisition

This study creates a framework for analysing organizational identity change and examines the process in the context of a global accounting firm's acquisition of a UK mid-market accounting practice. It identifies the parallel processes which facilitate organizational identity change: identity regulation on the part of senior management and de- and re-identification on the part of organizational members. The study explores how changes in organizational identity are inextricably connected to organizational members' changing conceptualisations of professional identity.     

Capital Allowances and the Incentive to Invest

In recent years many organisations have moved towards a total quality management (TQM) path in their quest for quality. Accounting researchers have become interested in understanding how accounting systems are implicated within a TQM environment. This paper reports on a case study of TQM adoption and changes in management accounting systems (MAS) within a New Zealand construction company. It evaluates organizational approaches to implement TQM as a strategic option and the subsequent change in MAS. The paper suggests that an organisation may initiate TQM practices to promote ‘institutional’ and ‘quality’ culture rather than for purely technical reasons. It also suggests that when an organisation adopts new management practices such as TQM, it may lead to changes in the organisation's internal control mechanisms, such as management accounting and reporting processes.     

Effects of organizational process change on responsibility accounting and managers’ revelations of private knowledge

We report the results of a nine-year field study that examines how responsibility accounting (RA) is used to manage horizontal relationships among several responsibility center (RC) managers including those who work on committees or cross-functional teams. We find theory-consistent evidence that the goal-congruent design or redesign of accounting and participation practices in general, and of RA in particular, depends on the magnitude, scope, and speed of organizational process change. When there is a change in the magnitude, scope, and speed of organizational process change, we find that the measurability of RC managers’ financial performance can change, and we also find that using RA to manage RC boundaries is an important mechanism for achieving goal-congruent behavior and avoiding dysfunctional behavior. Moreover, we show that several accounting and participation practices (e.g., activity-based costing, open book accounting, project budgeting, cross-functional teams) support RC boundary management that involves framing or reframing RC boundaries so as to influence competitive or cooperative behavior among RC managers. Finally, this study contributes by introducing a new research method to the accounting literature that is effective in structuring and interpreting longitudinal field data in relation to theoretical expectations.     

Market competition,earnings management,and persistence in accounting profitability around the world

We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, as well as earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean revert faster in countries where there is more product and capital market competition, as predicted by economic theory. Country differences in labor market competition and earnings management are also related to mean reversion in accounting returns—but the relation varies with firm performance. Country labor competition increases mean reversion when unexpected returns are positive but slows it when unexpected returns are negative. Accounting returns in countries with higher earnings management mean revert more slowly for profitable firms and more rapidly for loss firms. Thus earnings management incentives to slow or speed up mean reversion in accounting returns are accentuated in countries where there is a high propensity for earnings management. Overall, these findings suggest that country factors explain mean reversion in accounting returns and are therefore relevant for firm valuation.     

FACTORS IMPACTING ON ACCOUNTING LAG: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF RESPONDING TO TQM

The academic literature is critical of management accountants for their failure to initiate change and their inability to promote changed accounting information systems and performance measurement. The motivation for this study is provided by Kaplan (1986) who suggests that ‘when manufacturing operations change, the last and most difficult component to change is the accounting system’, and by Dunk (1989) who finds that accounting innovations lag operational innovations and that there are benefits arising from minimizing the time taken to adopt new accounting measures.The introduction of new management accounting systems to support management initiatives, provides the opportunity to investigate those factors contributing to accounting lag, and to determine those strategies which might usefully be employed to reduce accounting lag. This study examines the responses of accounting systems to TQM implementations at six diverse manufacturing sites in Adelaide, South Australia.Wolfe (1994), Rogers (1995), Gosselin (1997) and Bjornenak (1997) provide a theoretical framework for the investigation of the diffusion of accounting innovation and suggestions of the contextual factors which will influence its impact. This study suggests that industry sector, management commitment, organizational structure, participation and financial performance are all influential in the diffusion process, but in an inconsistent manner.