Management Accounting Change
Approaches and perspectives
Danture Wickramasinghe and Chandana Alawattage
First published 2007 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Danture Wickramasinghe and Chandana Alawattage
Typeset in Perpetua by Keystroke, 28 High Street, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Wickramasinghe, Danture.
Management accounting change : approaches and perspectives / Danture Wickramasinghe and Chandana Alawattage. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Managerial accounting. I. Alawattage, Chandana. II. Title.
HF5657.4.W522 2007
658.15′11—dc22
2006039487
ISBN10: 0–415–39331–0 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–39332–9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39331–7 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39332–4 (pbk)
To our families
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
1Learning management accounting change 1
A starting point: the relevance lost1
Setting the scene 2
What is management accounting? 4
Why ‘change’?10
What has changed in management accounting? 11
MACh as a movement from one approach to another12
Perspectives on MACh15
Have you understood the chapter? 22
Beyond the chapter22
Further reading 23
2Towards mass production and bureaucracy
A starting point: the challenge of a potter 27
Setting the scene 27
A brief note on method of historical dialectics30
Marxist understanding of production 32
Pre-modern modes of production 32
Characteristics of craft production34
Crisis of craft production37
Transformation to mass production38
Alternative theoretical explanations for emergence of cost accounting47
Have you understood the chapter?50
Beyond the chapter 50
Further reading50
3Towards product costing 51
A starting point: costing for economic depression 51
Setting the scene51
What is costing?53
Historical developments in costing56
Categories of cost and their meanings60
Cost categorization practices64
Calculative practices of product costing66
Contributions to mechanistic approach78
Have you understood the chapter?79
Beyond the chapter80
Further reading80
4Towards profit planning through budgeting 81
A starting point: corporate budgeting is a joke! 81
Setting the scene 81
Origin of budgeting and standard costing 84
Link between standard costing and budgeting91
Profit planning through budgets: procedures and calculations95
Budgetary configuration of mechanistic organizations113
Different approaches to budgeting118
Have you understood the chapter? 121
Beyond the chapter 121
Further reading 122
5Towards management control through budgeting 123
A starting point: management control in a students’ surgery 123
Setting the scene 124
On the notion of control 125
Management control 126
What do we do with these frameworks? 132
Budgetary control: techniques and procedures 133
Standard costing – analysis of variances140
Sales variances152
Legitimated budgets in the mechanistic form156
Have you understood the chapter?157
Beyond the chapter 158
Further reading 158
6Towards economic models of decision-making 159
A starting point: economic men in an economic world 159
Setting the scene 159
Neoclassical economic model of the firm and management accounting 164
Profit maximization in the long run: economics of capital budgeting 190
Economic modelling of the firm200
The other perspective: accounting as the meta-theory of economics?203
Have you understood the chapter?203
Beyond the chapter204
Further reading204
Part IIPost-mechanistic approaches to management accounting205
7Towards customer orientation and flexible manufacturing 207
A starting point: encountering Japanese 207
Setting the scene 207
Post-mechanistic change – understanding the complexity and totality210
Changing context: from local to global213
Changing organizational intents: from financial to strategic216
From mass to flexible manufacturing 218
Summing up: post-mechanistic organizations and management accounting232
Have you understood the chapter? 236
Beyond the chapter 236
Further reading237
8 Towards strategic management accounting 238
A starting point: accounting’s challenge in the new world 238
Setting the scene 239
What is SMA? 242
Directions in SMA250
Accounting for corporate strategy250
Business-level strategies: accounting for competitive market positioning261
Performance measurement systems: from conventional to strategic 266
The BSC as an integrative/strategic PMS 271
Critical views of the BSC274
Have you understood the chapter?279
Beyond the chapter280
Further reading 280
9Towards cost management 281
A starting point: the cost of cost cutting 281
Setting the scene 282
Cost management revisited 285
ABC as a powerful programme of cost management288
Deficiencies and misconceptions of traditional costing 290
What is ABC? 292
Activity-based management 305
ABC implementation: researchers’ views308
Summing up: alignment with the post-mechanistic form313
Have you understood the chapter?315
Beyond the chapter315
Further reading315
10Towards new management control and governance in new organizations
A starting point: governing by relations 316
Setting the scene 316
A typology of organizational transformation319
Management control and governance under bureaucracy320
Crisis in the bureaucratic form of management control and governance324
Changes in intra-organizational control and governance332
Changes in inter-organizational control and governance337
Summing up344
Have you understood the chapter?344
Beyond the chapter 345
Further reading345
A starting point: market versus hierarchy 349
Setting the scene 350
The agency problem 354
Theory of principal and agent356
Transaction cost economics 365
TCE and management accounting research373
Have you understood the chapter?379
Beyond the chapter379
Further reading380
12Towards contingency theory of management accounting
A starting point: generalized contingencies 381
Setting the scene 382
Contingency theory as a perspective 384
Contingency theory: classical studies in organization theory 385
In management accounting: modelling and reviewing of contingencies390
A small flood of accounting research394
Is contingency theory a panacea for accounting research?398
Contingency theory revisited402
Summing up406
Have you understood the chapter?406
Beyond the chapter 407
Further reading407
x
SETTING THE SCENE
What you have seen above is a non-changing nature of management accounting in a changing environment. It summarizes why management accounting has not been responding to this change. In response to this, several new techniques of management accounting have been developed in the last two decades. In this book, we categorize these techniques under three major titles: cost management, strategic management and management accounting in new organizations. This development is now commonly known as management accounting change (hereafter MACh). To learn about MACh, some would tend to concentrate only on these new developments. Does this make sense of MACh? Were there any early changes in management accounting at all? What is management accounting in the first place? How do we learn about MACh in a sensible manner? Is there only one way of learning about change? These questions have motivated us to write this chapter. Let us first talk about your previous management accounting courses.
MACh can be reflected in recent developments in three major areas: cost management, strategic management and management accounting in new organizations.
Basic questions which motivated us:
Does this make sense of MACh?
Were there any early changes in management accounting at all?
What is management accounting in the first place?
How do we learn about MACh in a sensible manner?
Is there only one way of learning about change?
The introductory management accounting cour ses thatyou have taken emphasized the technical aspects of management accounting They introduced you to various management accounting techniques. They also guided you to rehearse and practise those techniques through examples and chapter-end exercises. Moreover, from advanced management accounting texts, you learned about new developments in those techniques. Thereby, you may believe that MACh means those additions to the existing stock of techniques. Further, you might tend to think that these techniques emerge on their own. This is partly correct, in that changes in management accounting are reflected in the emergence of new techniques. However, you inadvertently neglect external factors which underlie such developments. To capture the total picture of change, we believe, one should understand not only those technical developments but also their underlying socio-economic factors. One of the main themes around which this book is organized is that technical developments in management accounting take place in correspondence with evolutions in socio-economic systems as a whole. That said, management accounting evolves to serve certain managerial rationales in evolving socioeconomic systems.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework which aligns technical developments in management accounting with the major phases in the evolution of socio-economic systems.
To begin with, we will first define management accounting in terms of three different views: technical–managerial, pragmatic–interpretive and critical–socio-economic. These views tell us that the definitions of management accounting can be an interpretive and ideological project rather than an ultimate conclusion of a ‘science of management accounting’. This will also point to an interesting comparison between the three views which blur the widespread conception that management accounting belongs to a single world view dominated by a global project of professionalization.
To define management accounting in terms of three views: technical–managerial, pragmatic–interpretive and critical–socio-economic
To compare and contrast the three views which may blur the conception that management accounting belongs to one single world view
The second set of learning objectives has been specified for the examination of the notion of MACh. After raising the issue of understanding this term, a section will define MACh as a movement from mechanistic to post-mechanistic forms of management accounting. In this, references will be given to respective chapters to specify the working definitions of the terms ‘mechanistic’ and ‘post-mechanistic’.
To examine the phenomenon of MACh
To view MACh as a movement from mechanistic to post-mechanistic forms
The last section of the chapter will define the notion of perspectives, the second theme of the book. Two perspectives will be teased out: rational–economic and critical–social. As will be shown, the per spectives provide not only a meaning system for understanding MACh, but also a guide for evaluating alternative research paradigms which have been debated in management accounting research.
To define the notion of perspectives by dividing them into rational–economic and critical–social
To highlight the academic significance of understanding alternative perspectives on MACh
WHAT IS MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING?
This question has been repeatedly asked by almost all management accounting texts. They rely largely on some popular definitions developed by accounting professional bodies. Accordingly, the commonly held view is that management accounting is a unitary and universal practice, independent of the time and space in which it operates. For this, management accounting has a specific set of functions based on perfectly defined techniques which have been developed from both theory and practice. It is hoped that wherever and whenever these techniques are used, the same outcomes are expected, and their fullest original forms are adopted. While this view has to be respected, we can move beyond this point, to study the subject broadly and realistically.
The commonly held view is that management accounting is a unitary and universal practice, but we move beyond this point, to study the subject broadly and realistically.
Instead of providing a firm definition of what management accounting is, it might be better to look at different world views of the subject. In some sense,we can consider three different views of management accounting, and sets of its functions. The first set is related to the technical–managerial view, which is widely held by practising management accountants and most textbook writers. The second set is related to the pragmatic–interpretive view, which is promoted by a group of accounting researchers who attempt to understand management accounting practice. The third set is related to a critical–socio-economic view, which offers critical evaluations of the functioning of management accounting within its broader socio-economic context. A brief account of those views is presented below.
There can be three world views of management accounting:
technical–managerial view
pragmatic–interpretive view
critical–socio-economic view
Technical–managerial view
According to the technical–managerial view, management accounting is:
1.A set of calculative practices. In support of decision-making and control, management accountants use various techniques, such as product costing, budgeting, variance analysis, cost–volume–profit analysis, investment appraisal and so on. All these calculative practices are collectively known as management accounting.
2. A manager ial function or a sub-system of the overall organizational information system. In an organization, there are certain managerial functions, such as production, marketing, HRM,
R&D, etc. Management accounting, which is often under the purview of finance, is such a managerial function. The role of that management accounting function is to support decisionmaking and control by providing financial and non-financial information.
According to the technical–managerial view, management accounting constitutes a set of calculative practices and a managerial function or a sub-system of the overall organizational information system.
To maintain management accounting as a set of calculative practices and a distinct managerial function within organizations, the necessary infrastructure is provided by professional bodies and academia. They develop, disseminate and diffuse management accounting knowledge and techniques, and they train and qualify necessary personnel to practise management accounting. Box 1.1 shows two definitions of management accounting from two professional bodies.
BOX 1.1VIEWS OF PRACTITIONERS
American Accounting Association, 1958
The application of appropriate concepts and techniques in processing the historical and projected economic data of an entity to assist management in establishing plans for reasonable economic objectives and in the making of rational decisions with a view toward achieving these objectives.
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK), 2000
Management accounting is an integral part of management. It requires the identification, generation, presentation, interpretation and use of information relevant to:
formulating business strategy;
planning and controlling activities;
decision-making;
efficient resource usage;
performance improvement and value enhancement.
The technical–managerial view represents the conventional wisdom of management accounting whic h is presented in most textbooks. Students using these textbooks reproduce the underlying tec hniques in the for m of calculative and prescr iptive answers to their exam questions. Graduates and professionals, those who have passed these exams, reproduce the management accounting techniques as part of management accounting practices within organizations. Consultants who
believe that these techniques provide solutions to managerial problems reproduce those techniques as applicable models. In this way, the conventional wisdom of management accounting is sustained generation after generation, with some modifications and changes offered by textbooks, universities, professionals and consultants. Being a powerful organizational practice, this conventional view has now succeeded in influencing the daily programmes of organizational and individual lives: we cannot find any organization which avoids the use of accounting information for a variety of purposes. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 introduce this sustained wisdom of the subject matter of management accounting.
The technical–managerial view represents the conventional wisdom of management accounting, with some modifications and changes offered by textbooks, universities, professionals and consultants. This has now become a powerful organizational practice.
Pragmatic–interpretive view
The pragmatic–interpretive view is concerned with management accounting practice. By ‘practice’, we mean the ways in which it is applied and the organizational consequences of such applications. These concerns are usually raised by researchers rather than practitioners. However, as research efforts in this regard are fragmented, it is difficult to synthesize these concerns into a single phrase. Some researchers – for example, Robert Kaplan and his followers – provide descriptive accounts of practices, identify prevailing problems and formulate solutions. Other researchers – for example, Birkett and Poullaos (2001) – study practices, identify changing features and define the subject in more pragmatic terms. Some interpretive researchers – for example, Rober t Scapens – studythe practice more closely and explain the same theoretically.Abr ief sketch of the contributions of Kaplan, Birkett and Poullaos and Scapens is presented below.
Some researchers provide descriptive accounts of practices, identify prevailing problems and formulate solutions. Others study practices, identify changing features and define the subject in more pragmatic terms. A third group study the practice more closely and explain it theoretically.
According to Johnson and Kaplan (see p. 1 above), management accounting is a corporate information system that is subservient to external financial reporting rather than providing useful and timely information for product costing and managerial performance. Thus, it is important, as implied by Johnson and Kaplan, to develop more appropriate management accounting systems for better decision-making and management control. Following this recognition of ‘irrelevance’, Harvard Business School academics led by Robert Kaplan developed/introduced more ‘relevant’ management accounting techniques suc h as the balanced scorecard (BSC) and activity-based costing (ABC). The former argued for a connection of management accounting with strategy and the role of non-financial performance. The latter introduced an alternative cost allocation method
along with a methodology for ‘activity-based management’. Chapters 8 and 9 will explore these two developments and their managerial consequences. The chapters highlight that, despite these consequences, the ‘new’ techniques tend to be popular and influential.
To Johnson and Kaplan, today’s management accounting is irrelevant to today’s environment. The balanced scorecard (BSC) and activity-based costing (ABC) have been introduced as more ‘relevant’ techniques. Chapters 8 and 9 will explore these developments.
According to Birkett and Poullaos (2001), the current state of management accounting is an outcome of a historical evolution from the 1950s. In that decade, the emphasis was on the term ‘management accounting’ in which costing and budgeting techniques became the central subject matter. (This existed even earlier as separated organizational practice.) From the mid-1960s, management accounting was a support or staff role which concentrated on planning and control, while early budgeting and costing became organizational routines. From the mid-1980s, it was about ‘resource management’, which invaded the ‘provinces’ of others, such as waste management, continuous improvement and business process re-engineering (BPR). From the 1990s, the ‘resource management’ perspective on management accounting became more focused on risk management and value creation. Consequently, Birkett defines management accounting in more pragmatic terms:
Management accounting is part of the management process which is focused on organizational resource use. Thus, it refers to managerial processes and technologies that are focused on adding values to organisations by attaining the effective use of resources, in dynamic and competitive context.
(IMPAS1, section 28, cited in Baxter and Chua, 2006)
To Birkett and Poullaos, management accounting is an outcome of a historical evolution: in the 1950s it was conventional ‘management accounting’; from the mid-1960s, it was a support or staff role; from the mid-1980s, it was about ‘resource management’; from the 1990s, the ‘resource management’ perspective became more focused on risk management and value creation.
Moreover, Birkett (as a single author) articulated that management accounting practice is a product of four inter related factors: social institutions (e.g., professions and the state), organizational context, technologies and research contributions. By configuring these factors, Birkett believed, the ‘resource-based perspective’ on management accounting can be furthered by establishing cer tain organizational practices, such as ‘direction setting’, ‘structuring’, ‘commitment’, ‘change’ and ‘control’. Management accounting (that is, accountants) is a facilitator in mater ializing these practices. Birkett also highlighted the fact that, as a distinct professional practice, management accounting is under ‘threat’, as its current trend is to invade ‘other provinces’ of organizational
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Oxystomus, 528.
P.
P a a r d e n , merkwaardige trekken uit het leven van — , 150.
Pachydermata, II 304.
Pacochoerus aethiopicus, II 259.
P a e d o g e n e s i s , 312.
Pagellus erythrinus, 300; mormyrus, 310.
P a i n t e l , over het geweten bij wilden, 260.
P a l a e o l i t h i s c h e tijdvak, 319; oudste volksverhuizingen in het , 400; periode, 44.
Palaeotheria, 290.
P a l e n q u é , ruïnen van , 262.
P a n g e n e n , 314.
P a n s f l u i t , 229.
P a n t e r , zwarte — , II 147.
P a p e , over het bewaren der Cicaden in Spanje, 571.
P a p e g a a i die de taal van een uitgestorven Indianenstam sprak, 227.
P a p e g a a i e n , II 174; hun geestvermogens, II 152 v.v.
P a p e i t i , scherpe reukzin van een bewoner van , 102.
Papilio Machaon, venkelgeur van , 609.
P a p o e a r a s , 379, 380.
P a p o e a ’s, 318, 381; inhoud van den schedel der , 107; haar der — , 370; grenslijn tusschen — en Maleiers, 375; uitsterven der , 387; familietrek tusschen de en de Hottentotten, 387; wijken terug voor de blanken, 387; metopisme bij de , 109; familietaal bij de , 175.
Paradisiadae, II 95.
P a r a d i j s v o g e l s , zie Paradisiadae.
P a r a h y b a , tunnel onder de — door mieren gegraven.
P a r a l l e l c i r k e l s , verhuizing in de richting der — niet de oorspronkelijke, 409.
P a r a s i t i s m e , 298.
Pardalotus, II 174.
Paridae, II 95, 174.
P a r k e n , omheind, opdat de wilde runderen er zouden kunnen blijven voortleven, 258.
P a r k e r , over het dooden van bastaarden in Australië, 377.
P a r i j s , verhouding der seksen bij wettige en onwettige geboorten te , 505.
P a r i j s c h e kerkhoven en schedels, 108.
P a r i j z e n a a r s , uit armengraven, gemiddelde schedelinhoud der , 107; uit de 12de eeuw, gemiddelde schedelinhoud der , 107; uit eigen graven der 19de eeuw, gemiddelde schedelinhoud der , 107; uit de 19de eeuw, gemiddelde schedelinhoud der , 107.
P a s g e b o r e n e n , hersengewicht van , 156.
P a s t e u r , zijn proeven over generatio spontanea, 314.
Pediculati, II 35.
P e l a g i s c h e Fauna der Glasdieren, 528. [520]
P é l i s s o n , over den smaak eener spin voor muziek, 529.
Percidae, 310.
P e r e z , J., over geluiden van insekten, 570.
P é r i g o r d , oude grotbewoners van , 44.
P e r i o d e , palaeolithische , 44; neolithische — , 44.
P e r i o d e n , geologische — van de organische geschiedenis der aarde, 319.
Perissodactyla, 290.
P e r m i s c h e periode, 319.
Peronaeus longus, 44.
P e r u a n e n , gemiddelde schedelinhoud der oude — , 407; landbouw der tijdens de ontdekking van Amerika, 261.
P e s c h e l , over de verscheidenheid van talen in Amerika, 175.
Petromyzontes, 349.
P e u l , 379.
P e u l v r u c h t e n , familie der , 218.
P f e i f f e r , Mevr., over den scherpen reuk der wilden, 102.
P f i t s n e r , W., over den kleinen teen bij den mensch, 34.
Phaëton, II 224.
