Has management accounting research been critical?

This paper examines the contributions Management Accounting Research (MAR) has (and has not) made to social and critical analyses of management accounting in the twenty-five years since its launch. It commences with a personalised account of the first named author’s experiences of behavioural, social and critical accounting in the twenty-five years before MAR appeared. This covers events in the UK, especially the Management Control Workshop, Management Accounting Research conferences at Aston, the Inter-disciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conferences; key departments and professors; and elsewhere the formation of pan-European networks, and reflections on a years’ visit to the USA. Papers published by MAR are analysed according to year of publication, country of author and research site, research method, research subject (type of organization or subject studied), data analysis method, topic, and theory. This revealed, after initial domination by UK academics, increasing Continental European influence; increasing use of qualitative methods over a wide range of topics, especially new costing methods, control system design, change and implementation, public sector transformation, and more recently risk management and creativity. Theoretical approaches have been diverse, often multi-disciplinary, and have employed surprisingly few economic theories relative to behavioural and social theories. The research spans mainly large public and private sector organisations especially in Europe. Seven themes perceived as of interest to a social and critical theory analysis are evaluated, namely: the search for ‘Relevance Lost’ and new costing; management control, the environment and the search for ‘fits’; reconstituting the public sector; change and institutional theory; post-structural, constructivist and critical contributions; social and environmental accounting; and the changing geography of time and space between European and American research. The paper concludes by assessing the contributions of MAR against the aspirations of groups identified in the opening personal historiography, which have been largely met. MAR has made substantial contributions to social and critical accounting (broadly defined) but not in critical areas endeavouring to give greater voice and influence to marginalised sectors of society worldwide. Third Sector organisations, politics, civil society involvement, development and developing countries, labour, the public interest, political economy, and until recently social and environmental accounting have been neglected

Funding Indigenous organisations: improving governance performance through innovations in public finance management in remote Australia

This review explains the context and past experience of public finance reform and its effects on governance in remote Indigenous communities. Preamble The poor development standards experienced by Indigenous Australians, especially in places remote from urban areas, are regularly characterised in public and academic discourse as a crisis, with calls for ‘new approaches, new thinking and new commitment’. This paper focuses on the modalities used to manage the conversion of public financing of Indigenous organisations into activities designed to impact on these standards. By modalities we mean the policies and instruments that structure and govern how funding is delivered and aligned with government priorities, including administrative, financing and accountability mechanisms. In this review, block funding was identified for its potential to reform the public finance system to create enabling conditions for enhanced Indigenous governance. Building a devolved accountability framework around the organisation, rather than the centralised grant program, is a sensible alternative to multiple grants and ineffective cycles of grant risk management and attendant accountability measures. As block funding has never been explicitly trialled in Australia, there is a lack of evaluations and other evidence for its efficacy in remote Indigenous contexts. In comparison, the international development literature documents a wealth of experience of the success and shortcoming of generically similar financing modalities. The paper therefore considers the circumstances under which block funding could be usefully adapted to the unique context of remote Indigenous communities in Australia. This review examines the literature and evidence from two principal sources. First and foremost, lessons are distilled and the context defined from a wide array of experience over the past two decades across remote Australia. This is then compared with the evidence from similar contexts abroad; that is, countries and regions that are remote from centres of economic wealth and political power, where populations are generally relatively isolated, scattered and highly diverse. These are often poorly served by administrative and service delivery arrangements due to the impost of great distances and high costs. In these settings, whether abroad or in Australia, local authorities are often referred to as being ‘fragile’ and ‘weak’. Two quite different approaches to handling public finances can be found in these contexts: One is to centralise responsibilities to govern public finances and to institute a host of compliance and reporting obligations on local authorities to manage perceived risks to fiduciary standards. This approach can be an effective way to respond to crises in the short term, but over time, this response tends to corrode local capability and introduce perverse incentives to ‘break the rules’ and ‘game the system’ to respond to local needs and demands. A second, contending approach has developed, particularly in the past decade. This approach shifts responsibility in the direction of local authorities and organisations for a specific range of services and functions. It also negotiates mutually acceptable agreements about the conditions under which public monies can be used and how performance will be jointly assessed. This paper synthesises Australian and international experiences, then suggests avenues for future engagement, including both new experimentation and upscaling of already promising precedents

Adaptive Management in SDC: Challenges and Opportunities

Adaptive management (AM) is a programme management approach that helps international development organisations to become more learning-oriented and more effective in addressing complex development challenges. AM practices have been applied for decades within other sectors as varied as logistics, manufacturing, product design, military strategy, software development and lean enterprise. At its core, AM is not much more than common sense, as it essentially recognises that the solutions to complex and dynamic problems cannot be identified at the outset of a programme but need to emerge throughout the process of implementation as a result of systematic and intentional monitoring and learning. The generic AM process typically involves an iterative cycle of design, implementation, reflection and adaptation activities, supported both by system monitoring and stakeholder involvement to obtain a better understanding of the evolving system and improve how the intervention is managed. A favourable context for AM in development. During recent decades, the international development sector has aimed to increase its results and impact orientation. As a result, a growing number of development organisations and governments have become increasingly aware of the limitations of traditional ‘linear and prescriptive’ programming approaches. They are now recognising the need to handle complexity better, and have begun to adapt their policies and practices to facilitate adaptive approaches. The World Bank, for example, now acknowledges that aid agencies need to increase flexibility of implementation, tolerate greater risk and ambiguity, devolve power from aid providers to aid partners, and avoid simplistic linear schemes for measuring results. Multilateral and bilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are currently experimenting with adaptive approaches. A multitude of adaptive approaches and communities of practice have emerged that aim to improve the effectiveness of aid, including Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting, Thinking and Working Politically, Doing Development Differently, Market Systems Development, Conflict-Sensitive Programme Management, and Science of Delivery. Since generic AM approaches have existed for decades in other sectors, AM has the potential to act as a neutral ‘bridge language’ that facilitates exchange and learning among the different communities and donors. This report is the result of a learning partnership between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). It assesses the relevance of AM to SDC, how it relates to working practices across SDC, and the key challenges and opportunities for SDC. Its process of elaboration involved a literature review on AM, an exploration of AM approaches from several bilateral donors, a series of 6 interviews with SDC staff and partners working in different countries and thematic domains, and a learning workshop at SDC headquarters (HQ), where staff from several SDC divisions reflected on AM and on how to advance the organisation’s capacity for adaptive programming and learning

RIO Country Report 2015: Poland

The 2015 series of RIO Country Reports analyse and assess the policy and the national research and innovation system developments in relation to national policy priorities and the EU policy agenda with special focus on ERA and Innovation Union. The executive summaries of these reports put forward the main challenges of the research and innovation systems.JRC.J.6-Innovation Systems Analysi

The evolution of management control system in the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of the thesis is to go deep into the management contro system and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on it. The first chapter provides an overview of management control system, its functions, its responsible subjects and its techniques, highlighting its different types. In the second chapter is presented the role of management control system in the COVID-19 emergency. A focus is done on the impact of remote working, the role of budgeting and the consequent employee stress during pandemic. The third and fourth chapter are about my case study of a firm in which I try to investigate, with a small questionaire with open and close question, the impact of management control system in the pandemic. To conclude, are provided some insights and final observations.The purpose of the thesis is to go deep into the management contro system and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on it. The first chapter provides an overview of management control system, its functions, its responsible subjects and its techniques, highlighting its different types. In the second chapter is presented the role of management control system in the COVID-19 emergency. A focus is done on the impact of remote working, the role of budgeting and the consequent employee stress during pandemic. The third and fourth chapter are about my case study of a firm in which I try to investigate, with a small questionaire with open and close question, the impact of management control system in the pandemic. To conclude, are provided some insights and final observations

Management accounting changes and the interaction effect of management accounting practices and integrated information systems on organisational performance : evidence from Thailand

PhD ThesisThe overall objective of this research was to examine phenomenon of management accounting changes in the context of Thailand, through exploring changes of management accounting practices (MAPs) and examining underlying influential factors with the use of contingency theory and diffusion of innovations theory. Furthermore this study aims to shed some light on the interaction effect of MAPs and integrated information systems (IISs) on organisational performance. A mixed method research strategy was adopted including questionnaires survey and one-to-one interviews. The study includes five findings: three mains and two ancillaries. First, MAPs have remained relatively unchanged over the period of 2001-2012, in particular conventional MAPs are still dominant, but there are signs of diffusion of advanced MAPs (i.e. Activity-based Costing (ABC) and Balanced Scorecards (BSC)). Second, using binary logistic regression analyses, results indicate that environmental uncertainty, differentiation strategy and IIS implementation promote MAP adoption whereas a decentralised structure and organisational culture are barriers. Third, MAPs and IISs do not have any interaction effect on organisational performance; however, individually they do have positive direct impacts on organisational performance. Additionally, the considered reasons for adoption or rejection of advanced MAP are unveiled as external consultants, following other Thai lead organisations, a lack of knowledge and resources, and a lack of top management support. Finally, organisational outlook of the top manager groups (culture perspective) influenced the advanced MAP usages. Organisations with top managers reflecting flexibility values tend to use more advanced MAPs than those reflecting control values. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of MAP changes by adding Thai organisational and cultural dimensions. This study also contributes to the inspiration for academics and practitioners to be concerned about the interaction effect of MAP adoption and IIS implementation on organisational performance (including financial and non-financial performance).Naresuan University, Thailand Funds for Women Graduates trading name of BFWG Charitable Foundation for an emergency grant giving me an opportunity to complete this study in the U