THE RHETORIC OF TEACHING FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING ON THE CORPORATE WEB: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF CONTENT AND METAPHOR IN IBM'S INTERNET WEBPAGEGUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING FINANCIALS

This paper analyses IBM's teaching of financial accounting via the Internet. The seductive nature of the hyperreal pedagogy in IBM's @9pGuide to Understanding Financials@2p is explored in two stages: first, by means of a technical critique; and second, by examining the @9pGuide's@2p rhetorical features. Particular focus is given to IBM's use of pictorial metaphors as visual rhetoric. We conclude that the curriculum of IBM's web-based financial accounting teaching contains much more than is apparent upon superficial examination. IBM's website paraphernalia constructs beliefs and shapes public discourse. Like all curriculum, IBM's @9pGuide@2p is contestable social construction.     

Anticipating the Impact of IFRS on the Management of German Manufacturing Companies: Some Observations from a British Perspective

The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2005 marked a significant departure from Germany's traditional financial accounting practices. This paper questions whether this change may have consequential effects on the distinctive traditional management accounting practices in the field of Controlling. We examine the possible impact on manufacturing companies drawing upon perceptions and expectations of managers in three Bavarian companies and two management consultancy firms. We consider whether financial accounting will assume an increased importance within firms, and whether this may lead to abandonment of some traditional management accounting practices and the adoption of different techniques in internal reporting compatible with the new IFRS regime for external reporting. This prompts consideration of whether such changes would lead to financial accounting domination of management accounting in Germany analogous to that argued by Johnson and Kaplan in 1987 in their ‘Relevance Lost’ thesis. We conclude that, at this juncture in the development of their information systems, German managers face an important choice between integrating external and internal reporting in ways that might fundamentally change established Controlling practices, or of continuing to operate dual accounting systems in much the same way as in the past so that adoption of IFRS is restricted to external reporting.     

Contingencies influencing the management accounting practices of Estonian manufacturing companies

Having regained independence in 1991, Estonia has undergone fundamental political and structural changes over the last decade, which have also affected the operation of its companies. This paper examines the management accounting practices of Estonian manufacturing companies, exploring the main impacts on them within a contingency theory framework. The methodology comprises an analysis of 62 responses to a postal questionnaire survey carried out among the largest Estonian manufacturing companies. It is comparatively infrequently that Estonian manufacturing companies have made improvements in their cost accounting methods, although the majority of respondents appear to acknowledge the importance of these practices in finding and lowering real product costs and modernizing the cost accounting systems. The effectiveness of an accounting systems’ design depends on its ability to adapt to changes both in external circumstances and internal factors. We have found some evidence that changes in cost and management accounting practices are associated with shifts in the business and accounting environment as external contingencies, and with those in technology and organizational aspects as internal contingencies. This research aims on the one hand to confirm earlier findings related to the ‘contingent factors’ that influence management accounting and on the other, to identify possible new factors, such as, for example, the legal accounting environment and shortage of properly qualified accountants.     

Back to the Future: The Broadening Accounting Trajectory

Contemporary accounting practice has shown signs of a broadening scope of activities being undertaken both from within and as a service provided to organizations. Based upon a historiographic linking of past and present, this paper examines the past 100 years of broadening professional practice in the discipline as a basis for offering a presentist examination and critique of contemporary accounting education and research opportunities. The scope of what constitutes accounting work is found to have been expanding for over 100 years, becoming increasingly at variance with accountants’ traditional beancounter image. Recent professional accounting association investigations reveal an array of contemporary environmental factors that have accelerated this broadening of the profession’s scope into financial planning, assurance services, strategic, risk, knowledge and change management, and management advisory services. This has called for an expanded accounting skills base which has gained momentum towards the end of the 20^th century. The elements of some of these developing areas of professional work and their implications for contemporary and future education and research are examined.     

A CRITIQUE ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING: TOWARDS A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CLASSIFICATION—THE SEARCH FOR OWNERSHIP

This paper is a critique on contemporary accounting¹classification studies. It suggests that such studies have thus far provided an inadequate assessment of and explanation for extant international contemporary accounting diversity. This paper locates the discussion within a neo Marxian political economy, and explores how notions of structure and hierarchy central to the institutional traditions of economic liberalism and the social priorities of capital have increasingly invaded the classification and understanding of contemporary accounting diversity. It contends that such classification studies are a product of capitalist desires to import and assimilate increasingly distant realms of business life into the capital@8alabour value relation/contemporary accounting@8icapital relation. Furthermore, this paper suggests that such classification studies fail to recognise the impact of such social, political and economic arrangements as they are increasingly reupholstered and redistributed by the changing priorities of capital, resulting in a limited appreciation of the constitutive power of capital and its influence on contemporary accounting.     

Management Accounting's Diminishing Post-Industrial Relevance: Johnson and Kaplan Revisited

Johnson and Kaplan (1987) claim that management accounting's minimal post 1925 development reduces the relevance of traditional techniques to today's giant corporations. Their argument does not draw on the structural and micro-economic consequences of technological change this century. An alternative explanation of technical stagnation lies in the rising dominance of small service firms. Economic exchanges through the market place have increased relative to the volume of exchanges within large hierarchies. The conventional focus of management accounting research and teaching is problematic because of a fundamental misconception of the location and nature of accounting and other work.     

MEETING THE CHALLENGE: ACCOUNTING FOR CHANGE

This paper examines the challenge mounted against long established management accounting practices by Kaplan (1983) and Johnson and Kaplan (1987) from a public sector perspective. It seeks to determine the extent to which this challenge to the private sector - of a lack of innovation in management accounting practice in the face of a rapidly changing environment - holds true for public sector organisations. Furthermore, by drawing on substantive studies of management change in both the private sector and the public sector, this paper assesses (a) the tsunsfeubilitv of ideas and practices from the private to the: public sector (b) the need to study process of change and (c) the potential role of strategic management accounting as an innovative practice in addressing the agenda for change which confronts the public sector.     

Management accounting: Are new techniques making in-roads with practitioners?

Despite numerous criticisms and the examples of specific companies changing to a particular technique, there are few empirical studies providing evidence of the status of management accounting practice. The primary purpose of this study was to examine trends in the adoption of the new managerial accounting techniques by manufacturing firms. Evidence of changes in the direction of managerial accounting would have significant future implication regarding the direction of management accounting education and of accounting theory. The results of this study indicate that new techniques are being adopted while traditional systems are being maintained, suggesting that a broadening of innovations in management accounting may require the development of a new and separate course dealing strictly with these innovative techniques in the transition to world-class manufacturing.     

Impact of Automation on Cost Accounting

Although production methods have been highly developed and now make use of very advanced technologies, management accounting systems have lagged behind. Before introducing new cost accounting systems, however, it is necessary to have a clear view of practice. The empirical results described in this paper constitute the output of a large scale research project into manufacturing companies located in Belgium. Extensive data on cost accounting systems were gathered through the use of a questionnaire. There is an indication that technological change has an impact on both cost composition and cost structure. The widespread hypothesis that the proportion of direct labour cost within total costs is lower in companies with automated production process is confirmed. As to the traceability of costs, there is a shift from indirect costs towards direct costs in companies with automated production. However, it appears that only a few companies are concerned about the efficiency of their cost calculation on a permanent basis. Moreover, no differences could be detected in the use of cost accounting in decision making between companies with automated production and those with mechanical production.     

Towards a political economy of accounting: An empirical illustration of the cambridge controversies

For over a century economics has been dominated by two theoretical positions: classical political economy and the neo-classical economics of marginalism. From these two paradigms have come the major theories of value: the labor theory and the marginalists theory of value. Until recently marginalism has held the center of the stage, however since the Cambridge Controversies and Piero Sraffa's critique of marginalism there has been a revival of interest in classical political economy. One outcome is clear from the Cambridge debates: in so far as accounting relies on marginalism for its theoretical foundations then those foundations are fallacious. This paper reviews some of the controversies and illustrates how accounting ideas are affected by the critique of marginalism. An alternative approach to accounting (based on ideas from political economy) is then explored using evidence from an empirical study of a multinational enterprise.     

Management accounting within world class manufacturing: a case study

This is a case study of a U.K. chemical company implementing World Class Manufacturing (WCM). In the late 1980s the company encountered serious problems due to the rapid contraction of major customers. It embarked on a programme of improving manufacturing introducing, inter alia, new quality programmes and computerized production controls including MRPII. Whilst these programmes were successful they failed to produce the turnaround sought. Faced with impending extinction, the managers sought external advice from consultants during a WCM workshop organized by government development agencies. Following this the company embarked on a benchmarking and strategic assessment exercise which diagnosed the company as unduly manufacturing oriented, poor on new product development and marketing, and insufficiently responsive to consumer needs. They adopted WCM principles embracing six broad objectives: customer responsiveness, employee involvement, quality, reduced lead-times, continuous improvement, and shop floor training for flexibility and problem solving skills. The implementation of WCM was successful: there was objective recorded evidence of improved performance against targets set in the WCM programme. Management accounting superficially appeared unaffected by WCM. The budgetary control system run by the accounting department remained intact. Product costing systems were not changed to incorporate Activity-Based drivers, as predicted in the literature. However, there was a marked decline in the influence of the accounting department, partly due to the cost module within MRPII. The accountant became dependent on production for cost data. Whilst his responsibilities continued to include the preparation of financial accounts and periodic budgets, cost management in terms of cost reduction, target setting, diagnosis and problem-solving came to lie with production. The suggestion of the case is that financial improvement may lie more with programmes of employee development and involvement, making the company more quality conscious, flexible and adaptive rather than in any redesign of costing systems. The implications of the research upon management accounting change debates are discussed in the concluding section.     

成本粘性研究:来自中国上市公司的经验证据

成本粘性是指当成本随着业务量的变动而变动时,其业务量增加时的成本增加量大于业务量等额减少时的成本减少量,这与大多数管理会计教材中传统的成本性态模型认为成本的变动率和业务量变动的对称性是矛盾的。本文通过对我国927家A股上市公司的2001—2005年的数据测试发现:(1)我国上市公司存在着成本粘性;(2)时间范围越长,成本粘性水平越小;(3)成本粘性与业务量的变化幅度有关,随着收入的大幅下降,成本粘性变小;(4)各个行业和公司属性也影响成本粘性水平,资本密集型和劳动密集型公司成本粘性水平较高。     

作业成本法在卷烟制造业成本核算中的应用研究

通过充分的调研,论文在对卷烟制造业现行成本核算方法存在的问题进行分析的基础上,论述了卷烟制造业运用作业成本法的必要性和可行性,提出了作业成本法运用于卷烟制造业的程序、成本计算模型,并对运用结果进行测试和分析,总结出：卷烟制造业在运用作业成本法进行成本核算时,应合理确定资源成本动因和作业成本动因；应合理摊配剩余作业成本；应注重作业成本法中成本标的的层次性,以及作业成本在完工产品与在产品之间的合理分配。只有这样,才能使卷烟制造业的成本核算合理、科学,为成本管理提供相关、可靠信息。     

Getting management accounting off the ground: post-colonial neoliberalism in healthcare budgets

Taking Modell's [(2014) The societal relevance of management accounting: an introduction to the special issue. Accounting and Business Research, 44 (2), 83–103] ‘societal relevance of management accounting’ agenda forward, and based on a cost accounting initiative in a Sri Lankan hospital, this paper examines how management accounting is implicated in societal relevance. It reports on a post-colonial neoliberal state's use of cost-saving experiments and the resultant emancipation of the individuals involved. It conducts a bottom-up analysis, from micro events in the hospital to policymaking at the level of the Provincial Council. This analysis suggests that cost accounting acts as a mediating instrument: it begins to loosen the old Keynesian post-colonial bureaucratic budget confinements, creates a social space for individuals to consider cost-saving experiments, and addresses wider policy concerns about hospital resource management. The story is illuminated by Gilles Deleuze's and Zigmund Bauman's ideas on post-panoptic societies: old confinements are being problematised and new flexible, ‘liquid’ spaces created, in which individuals are emancipated in terms of their ability to influence resource management within and beyond the organisational constituency.     

论以知识为核心生产要素的成本管理

知识经济以知识为核心生产要素的特征，冲击了传统成本管理的根基，必须转变传统成本管理重物轻人，重有形资产轻无形资产，成本管理时间上滞后，空间上狭小、构成上不合理的缺陷，建立以人为本的成本管理观念，得塑全面成本管理的时空，扩展产品成本核算的内容。     

劳动力成本与利润差异对制造业升级的影响研究

引入单位劳动力成本和人均利润,考量劳动力成本与利润影响制造业升级的效应。结果表明：样本期间内虽然劳动力成本快速上涨,但劳动生产率增速更快,制造业整体单位劳动力成本没有上升,且有小幅下降,劳动密集型制造业仍有一定综合成本优势,但其人均利润低于制造业整体水平,比重总体下降,发展后劲不足,须转型升级;资本密集型虽然利润率相对较低,但人均利润为最高,比重不断上升,仍应是当前发展的重点;技术密集型比较优势不明显,急需突破核心技术,提高综合国际竞争力。     

The structure and progressivity of accounting research: the crisis in the academy revisited

Doubts were raised within the accounting research program in the United States in the late 1980s about its progress and future potential. In this paper, we develop criteria for “good” scientific conversation, which leads to progress (defined as innovation and relevance). The key to this process is critical evaluation of background assumptions. The structure of scientific conversation in accounting and economics, whose theories and practices accountants adopted, are examined. We conclude that structural barriers result in a lack of adequate transformative critique, which contributes to the lack of progress in the accounting research program.     

Beyond the ticket and the brand: imagining an accounting research future

This paper presents a reflective critique of the current university environment and the state of accounting research with a view to envisaging the latter’s forward trajectory, particularly in terms of emerging subject areas, theoretical perspectives and methodological traditions. It considers the contemporary fixation upon research performance indicators and warns of their associated impact on the role and orientation of academic researchers. The emergence of specialist interdisciplinary and qualitative research communities within the accounting discipline are presented as opportunities for the invigoration of the accounting project. Nonetheless, the pursuit of research esteem indicators is argued to risk disengaging researchers from policy and practice concerns. Future roles, responsibilities and intentions of scholars are visited in the light of these observations.