INTRODUCTION
It
will be my contention today that much management accounting research has lost
its way. In particular, I will argue that it has concentrated too much on
accounting and not enough on management. One of the consequences of this
misplaced emphasis is that much management accounting research has become
detached from real issues and problems facing managers in organizations. For
management accounting research to regain its relevance, I will propose that it
should widen its boundaries and become concerned once again with the issues
involved in designing and operating systems of managing performance. In short,
the sub-title of this address might well be ‘putting the management back into
management accounting’.
MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING PRACTICE
So, where shall we begin? I will first consider the
practice of management accounting and go back to the mid-1980s when it was
becoming recognized that the practice of management accounting, even within
those Anglo–American organizations where it had taken deepest root, was in decline.
There had been little by way of new developments in management accounting
practices for decades. Not only was it argued that management accounting was
therefore becoming irrelevant to contemporary organizations, but worse that it
was often actually counter-productive to good management decision-making. By
using inadequate management
