Management accounting and integrated information systems: A literature review

In order to further advance research within management accounting and integrated information systems (IIS), an understanding of what research has already been done and what research is needed is of particular importance. The purpose of this paper is to uncover, classify and interpret current research within management accounting and IIS. This is done partly to identify research gaps and propose directions for future research and partly to guide researchers and practitioners investigating and making decisions on how to better synthesise the two areas. Based on the strengths of existing frameworks covering elements of management accounting and IIS a new and more comprehensive theoretical framework is developed. This is used as a basis for classifying and presentation of the reviewed literature in structured form. The outcome of the review is an identification of research gaps and a proposal of research opportunities within different research paradigms and with the use of different methods.     

Management accounting as normal social science

The publication of “Management accounting change: Approaches and perspectives” (Wickramasinghe, D., & Alawattage, C. (2007). Management accounting change: Approaches and perspectives. London, New York: Routledge) provides an occasion for considering the extent to which management accounting has become a normal social science. This review essay argues that management accounting is a social science defined by a pluralism of approaches, and it identifies the generalization of social perspectives on management accounting, and particularly their ability to transcend technical and economic aspects of accounting practice, as crucial components in reproducing this specific form of expertise. Contrary to Kuhnian expectations, this social science hosts a multiplicity of paradigms, and its scientists are not exclusively concerned with the subtlest and most esoteric aspects of the phenomena under study. Instead, as social scientists management accountants are generalists as much as they are specialists.     

Straddling between paradigms: A naturalistic philosophical case study on interpretive research in management accounting

This paper analyses interpretive research in management accounting from the perspective of naturalistic philosophy of science. We focus on the relation of interpretive research to the subjective/objective dichotomy appearing in the methodological literature of the social sciences. In management accounting research, it is often routinely assumed that interpretive studies, following the reasoning by Burrell and Morgan [Burrell, G., & Morgan. G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis. London: Heinemann], are based on subjectivism only. The major purpose of this paper is to give flesh to the existing debates around the nature of interpretive research with the help of in depth analysis of one example of such research in management accounting. Since abstract and general philosophical arguments are often used merely to cloud more relevant case specific issues concerning the focus of explanation and the nature of empirical evidence offered, our analysis aims at providing conceptual tools for articulating with greater precision what is being asserted in a given study. The specific target of the examination is the interpretive study by Dent [Dent, J. F. (1991). Accounting and organisational cultures: A field study of the emergence of a new organisational reality. Accounting, Organisations and Society, 16, 693–703], which is one of the highly appreciated and extensively quoted pieces of research picked from the interpretive management accounting literature. Our analysis indicates that though there certainly are, and needs to be, unique subjectivist features in interpretive studies as compared to more ‘objectivist’ approaches, there are also important similarities, and that the view of sociological paradigms as necessarily mutually exclusive does not hold water. Hence interpretive research straddles between paradigms. As we argue that interpretive studies, in addition to including subjectivist elements, also encompass objectivist features, we invert the typical social theory critique of ‘scientific’ (management) accounting research that it cannot be an objective ‘mirror of reality’ by claiming that interpretive studies cannot be exclusively subjectivist and still they remain theoretically relevant. Our philosophically tuned analysis explicates how concepts from different paradigms, such as interpretations, understanding meanings, and causality, can successfully co-exist and co-operate within a single study.     

The roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research

This paper discusses the roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research in general, and management accounting research in particular. In addition, it forms an introduction to the Special Section of this issue of Management Accounting Research on “Paradigms in Accounting Research”. The paper takes an issue of the notable narrowness of accounting research of today, regarding it as forming a threat to scholarly developments in the field. It argues for the importance of keeping paradigm debates alive in order to foster multi-dimensional openness and true scholarship in accounting research.     

'Presenting' the past: perspectives on time for accounting and management history

Concepts of time in accounting and management historiography have only previously been considered as partial subsets of other methodological issues. This paper investigates our concepts of historical time with a view to offering alternative foundations to the unidirectional linear concept of chronological time employed in historical research project design and execution. Its analytical approach is pluralist in that it draws upon the historiographic writings of historians and historical theorists of traditional and post-modern persuasions, both within and beyond the accounting and management history fields. It addresses teleological, historicist and narrativist temporal underpinnings and considers historical practice in relation to assumptions about and interpretations of continuity and discontinuity. Time is extended beyond its conventional accounting and management chronology to include consideration of co-present, cyclical, relativist, structuralist and spatial time. Intrinsic and reflexive relationships between past, present and future are explored. The paper argues for a postmodern pluralisation of our historiographic approaches to time and their informing revisitations of historical accounting and management subjects with a view to better understanding that which we thought we already knew.     

Understanding management accounting practices: A personal journey

This paper reviews the changes which have taken place in management accounting research over the last 35 years. It traces the author's personal journey as a management accounting researcher and emphasises the shift which has taken place in what it means to understand management accounting practices. It argues that to make sense of diversity in management accounting practices we need to understand the complex mish-mash of inter-related influences which shape practices in individual organisations. It outlines the contribution which institutional theories can make to understanding this mish-mash of complexity. In particular, it reviews the achievements of the Burns and Scapens framework (2000) for studying management accounting change and describes some of its limitations and extensions; viz., the interplay of internal and external institutions; the importance of trust in accountants; the impact of circuits of power; and the need to study the role of agency in institutional change. It concludes that research in recent years has provided a much clearer understanding of the processes which shape management accounting practices; but the challenge for the future is to use this theoretically informed understanding to provide relevant and useful insights for management accounting practitioners.     

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.     

Complexities of Productivity Policies in the Finnish Public Sector: Knowing How to Do More with Less?

This paper examines public sector productivity policies as complexities between what is ‘known’ in policy principles and what is ‘done’ in everyday policy practice. Such complexities are explored in two productivity policy cases within Finnish local government: municipal amalgamations, and the low‐threshold concept of healthcare service. Utilising quantitative and qualitative data from Finnish local government the paper demonstrates the tensions between productivity policy principles, interpretations for productivity improvement (‘knowing’) and final outcomes for actually applying (‘doing’) productivity policy. The paper argues in favour of a new understanding for the research and practice of public policy and management.     

Reflections on paradigms in action in accounting research

This paper starts by shortly summarizing some of the pros and cons of paradigms. It then provides three personal accounts on paradigms at work. The purpose is to challenge the management accounting academy to think how “healthy” its current condition is, if these experiences represent reality for those trying to do something they find valuable and believe in, but does not fit to the thinking models of the established paradigms.     

Management accounting change and stability: Loosely coupled rules and routines in action

A problematic practical situation, which had remained unsolved for a long period, was encountered in a case research project. The apparent problem of the case firm was the modest standardisation of its information systems and management accounting reporting. Though problems linked with standardisation seemed to chronically look for solutions in the firm, only few attempts to change the situation emerged. The immediate purpose of the paper is to explain why there appeared to be problems without solutions in the case firm, and, in particular, how it managed to cope with such a situation. The paper contributes to recent literature on management accounting change and stability, primarily by drawing on the framework, based on institutional theory, by Burns and Scapens [Burns, J., Scapens, R.W., 2000. Conceptualizing management accounting change: an institutional framework. Manage. Acc. Res. 11, 3–25]. The notion of loose coupling is mobilised and integrated with the framework, and thereby the many-sided relation between two of its central notions, rules and routines, is refined. Loose coupling between rules and routines was characteristic of the everyday management accounting life in the case firm: well-developed and flexible informal routines and knowledgeable actions by the organisation's participants had the capacity to smooth the frictions of the formal rule systems related to management accounting, saving them from pressure for major change. The findings support the argument of the possible coexistence of change and stability in management accounting, however pointing to the need of keeping clear what aspect of management accounting – formal or informal – we refer to in each instance. They also suggest that the legitimising relation between the formal and the informal domains of an organisation can be an inverse of that typically claimed in the new institutionalist theory.     

Integration of financial and management accounting systems: The mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness

Two fundamental options exist for management accounting system (MAS) design: Either financial records can be used as a database for management accounting (integrated accounting system design), or the MAS can be based upon a separate system, i.e., a third set of books beside financial and tax accounting records. Since the 1990s, many German-speaking firms have changed from the second to the first option, which has instigated a highly controversial debate.Our paper contributes to this debate by empirically analyzing (1) whether the integration of financial and management accounting has a positive impact on controllership effectiveness, and (2) what causal inferences relate both variables. We use structural equation modelling for a sample of 149 dyads surveyed from German top 1500 firms. We identify no significant effect of the technical aspects of MAS integration, but a fully mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness. Our results thus imply that consistency with financial reporting is an important property of MAS design from management's point of view.     

A Pragmatist Defence of Classical Financial Accounting Research

One reason for the disdain in which classical financial accounting research has come to held by many in the scholarly community is its allegedly insufficiently scientific nature. While many have defended classical research or provided critiques of post‐classical paradigms, the motivation for this paper is different. It offers an epistemologically robust underpinning for the approaches and methods of classical financial accounting research that restores its claim to legitimacy as a rigorous, systematic and empirically grounded means of acquiring knowledge. This underpinning is derived from classical philosophical pragmatism and, principally, from the writings of John Dewey. The objective is to show that classical approaches are capable of yielding serviceable, theoretically based solutions to problems in accounting practice.     

The validity of management accounting language games – A pragmatic constructive perspective

To support the development of a pragmatic practice-based theory for management accounting, practice theory offers valuable avenues for understanding the development, role, and effects of tools and techniques used by practitioners. Scholars have identified communication as a critical dimension for analysis, as discourse can govern the production of knowledge and power structures. However, previous research has mainly focused on the role of actors within static environments; how actors justify their actions and goals, compared with other actors; and how they are aligned with or justify new practices relative to existing practices. The pragmatic constructivist framework that underpins this special issue builds on this research but recognises that previous research has paid little attention to how people—when interacting within a dynamic environment—develop and create new types of constructive causality. Importantly, the necessary conditions for people's actions to construct what they intend to remain largely unexplored. Pragmatic constructivism is founded on the recognition that any theory of management accounting must include conceptual devices representing the notion of success, as well as techniques for evaluating the truth aptness of local practices of reality construction, such as those represented by managemen accounting. This special issue aims to theoretically and empirically explore the potential in management accounting for the measurement and governance of constructed causality. The central topic is the role of management accounting in supporting individual and collective actors to effectively construct causal chains that make organisations work. The three articles in this special issue adopt different approaches to combining the pragmatic constructivist framework with additional theoretical frameworks, as well as using different research methodologies. The papers' findings point to the importance of co-authorship in the creation of functioning organisational practices, and suggest that this might be threatened by information technology. Co-authorship involves language games in the form of dialogical interaction between the accountants and other involved actors. This process develops a shared understanding anchored in a fusion of conceptual models that is tied to individual collaborators' local practice.     

重新审视美国会计对中国会计国际化的影响

本文从会计实务、会计研究和会计教育三个方面分析了美国会计危机的现状和成因,然后讨论了在中国会计国际化进程中,如何借鉴美国会计的经验与教训,解决好中国自己的会计问题。本文认为,解决中国会计问题在根本上必须充分考虑中国的制度背景。     

Valuation-based accounting research: Implications for financial reporting and opportunities for future research

This paper discusses the relation between financial reporting research and practice, particularly standard setters. Many studies addressing financial reporting issues use a valuation approach. The paper describes alternative approaches to valuation research and summarises the findings relating to four major current issues: fair value accounting for financial, tangible, and intangible assets, cash flows versus accruals, recognition versus disclosure, and international harmonisation of accounting standards. The summaries include identifying what standard setters and others would like to learn from research, what we have learned, and what is left to learn. The paper concludes with observations about future financial reporting academic research.     

No premature closures of debates,please: A response to Ahrens

In this response to Ahrens [Ahrens, T. (2008). Overcoming the subjective–objective divide in interpretive management accounting research. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 33(2–3), 292–297.] we clarify both the motivation and the core points of the Kakkuri-Knuuttila et al. [Kakkuri-Knuuttila, M.-L., Lukka, K., & Kuorikoski, J. (2008). Straddling between paradigms: A naturalistic philosophical case study on interpretive research in management accounting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 33(2–3), 267–291.] paper. We remind the management accounting academia that we should be careful not to close prematurely examinations and debates on issues, which are not yet truly resolved.     

基础会计手工实验教学改革的探讨

基础会计手工实验课程是经济管理类院校会计学各专业及相关专业开设的必修课程,是在讲授完会计基础理论之后进行的实验教学环节,与传统的会计基础理论教学相比较具有一定的优势,如增强了学生对会计基础理论和基本知识的感性认识,增强了学生对会计业务的识别、阅读能力等,但在教学中也体现了一些不足,本文从改变传统教学模式、改变传统教学方法、更新教育理念三个方面提出对基础会计手工实验进行教学改革的措施。     

What does organizational change mean? Speculations on a taken for granted category

Despite widespread research on why and how organizations change, what constitutes change is often taken for granted. Its definition is avoided. Studies based on individuals’ rational choice imply that change flows from purposive actions in accordance with an objective, external reality whereas contextualism argues that change results from institutional pressures, isomorphisms and routines. But both depict change as the passage of an entity, whether an organization or accounting practices, from one identifiable and unique status to another. Despite their differences over whether reality is independent, concrete and external, or socially constructed, both assume that actors (or researchers) can identify a reality to trace the scale and direction of changes. This reflects modernist beliefs that organizational space and time are unique and linear. The paper takes issue with this and argues that ‘a-centred organizations’ and ‘drift’ should replace conventional definitions of organizations and change. The arguments are inspired by the arguments of the sociology of translation and constructivism, and insights from two case studies of Enterprise Resource Planning system implementations in large multinational organizations. The latter illustrate how defining change is problematic—as new systems gave rise to multiple spaces and times within the organizations. The paper traces the implications of this for control and accounting studies tout court.     

Accounting's Latent Classicism: Revisiting Classical Management Origins

The historical classical management roots of contemporary accounting are still embedded in theory and practice, but invariably unacknowledged. This paper revisits the discourses and philosophies of three leading management writers generally regarded as proponents of scientific and classical management: Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and the longest standing advocate, Lyndall Urwick. The paper argues that traditionally Taylor has been regarded as the dominant influential figure on early management and later accounting theory, but that this reflects an inaccurate stereotyping that ignores the greater reflections in contemporary accounting of Fayol and Urwick. Their approaches to planning, control, and coordination, as well as their accounting and financial management philosophies are revisited. This examination aims to better recognize their contributions to the latent classicism that still pervades accounting thought and practice.     

Smart work and hard work: explicating a learning orientation in strategic management accounting

This paper examines the skills and aptitudes necessary to undertake a strategic management accounting project. It argues that individuals involved in such projects are required to work both smart and hard. This argument is developed theoretically by reference to the work of educational psychologists who have identified two different types of goal orientation which people pursue in achievement situations: the learning orientation and the performance orientation. Evidence that strategic management accounting requires a learning orientation is provided by means of a case study which describes its use in a competitive tendering situation. This is followed by a discussion of the potentially symbiotic relationship of strategic management accounting and organizational learning. The discussion leads to the specification of a research agenda that may have significant implications for the practice and learning of management accounting.