Management accounting in a learning environment

Emerald - Tập 6 Số 1 - Trang 123-148 - 2010
StefanSchiller1
1Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

Tóm tắt

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the findings of a study designed to understand how management accounting changes when an organization evolves in a more network‐oriented direction, informed by an experiential or integrated approach to learning.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on a longitudinal case study initiated by the findings from a previous action research study at a manufacturing plant, the Volvo Floby factory.FindingsBy introducing and elaborating on the concept of local management accounting system (LMAS), this paper contributes to the debate about how management accounting reacts to new organizational forms and technologies. Two types of management accounting information are identified: one corresponds to the accountability aspect of accounting – Type 1 information, while Type 2 information refers to problem solving and control. A LMAS is supportive of both local accountability, which draws on valuing skills, and of local problem solving, which relies on decision skills.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the research implications of this study is that a LMAS may function as an important mechanism for innovation by explicitly integrating the holistic and the analytic dimensions of experiential learning.Practical implicationsThe reported case illustrates how management accounting may facilitate process innovation in a practical setting.Originality/valueBy adopting an experiential learning methodology to develop new knowledge, the production plant studied has succeeded in creating an environment characterized by continuous innovation.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Abernethy, M.A. and Lillis, A.M. (1995), “The impact of manufacturing flexibility on management control system design”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 241‐58.

Adams, C.A. and McNicholas, P. (2007), “Making a difference: sustainability reporting, accountability and organisational change”, Accountability, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 382‐402.

Alasuutari, P. (1995), Researching Culture: Qualitative Method and Cultural Studies, Sage, London.

Andon, P., Baxter, J. and Chua, W.F. (2007), “Accounting change as relational drifting: a field study of experiments with performance measurement”, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 18, pp. 273‐308.

Baker, C.R. (2000), “Towards the increased use of action research in accounting information systems”, Accounting Forum, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 379‐90.

Banker, R.D., Potter, G. and Schroeder, R.G. (1993), “Reporting manufacturing performance measures to workers: an empirical study”, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 5, pp. 33‐49.

Berggren, C. (1994), “NUMMI vs. Uddevalla”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 37‐49.

Bhimani, A. and Roberts, H. (2004), “Management accounting and knowledge management: in search of intelligibility”, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 1‐4.

Bogen, J.E. (1969), “The other side of the brain”, Bulletin of the Los Angeles Neurological Society, Vol. 34, pp. 73‐105.

Bromwich, M. and Bhimani, A. (1989), Management Accounting: Evolution Not Revolution, CIMA, London.

Bromwich, M. and Bhimani, A. (1994), Management Accounting: Pathways to Progress, CIMA, London.

Chenhall, R. and Langfield‐Smith, K. (1998), “Factors influencing the role of management accounting in the development of performance measures within organizational change programs”, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 9, pp. 361‐86.

Cobb, I. (1993), JIT and the Management Accountant: A Study of Current UK Practice, CIMA, London.

Cooper, R. (1996), “The changing practice of management accounting”, Management Accounting, Vol. 74, pp. 26‐35.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997), Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, HarperCollins, New York, NY.

Drury, C. (1996), Management and Cost Accounting, 4th ed., Chapman & Hall, London.

Ellegård, K., Engström, T., Johansson, B. and Nilsson, L. (1993), Reforming Industrial Work: Principles and Realities in the Planning of Volvo's Car Assembly Plant in Uddevalla, The Swedish Work Environment Fund, Stockholm.

Fitzgerald, L., Johnston, R., Brignall, T.J., Silvestro, R. and Voss, C. (1991), Performance Measurement in Service Businesses, CIMA, London.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006), “Five misunderstandings about case study research”, Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 219‐45.

Foster, G. and Horngren, C.T. (1987), “JIT: cost accounting and cost management issues”, Management Accounting, Vol. 68 No. 12, pp. 19‐25.

Foster, G. and Horngren, C.T. (1988), “Cost accounting and cost management in a JIT environment”, Journal of Cost Management, Winter, pp. 4‐14.

Foster, G. and Young, S.M. (1997), “Frontiers of management accounting research”, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 9, pp. 63‐77.

Friedman, A. and Lyne, S. (1999), Success and Failure of Activity‐based Techniques: A Long‐term Perspective, CIMA Research, London.

Fullerton, R.R. and McWatters, C.S. (2002), “The role of performance measures and incentive systems in relation to the degree of JIT implementation”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 27 No. 8, pp. 711‐35.

Gardner, H. (1993), Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, Basic Books, New York, NY.

Grönlund, A. (1989), “Operations management: a field study from three production‐teams in Volvo Components Corporation”, PhD dissertation, BAS, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg.

Hendricks, J.A. (1994), “Performance measures for a JIT manufacturer”, IIE Solutions, Vol. 26, pp. 26‐36.

Hines, P., Holweg, M. and Rich, N. (2004), “Learning to evolve: a review of contemporary lean thinking”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 24 No. 10, pp. 994‐1011.

Hofstede, G. (1981), “Management control of public and not‐for‐profit activities”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 193‐211.

Hopwood, A.G. (1973), An Accounting System and Managerial Behaviour, Saxon House, Farnborough.

Ijiri, Y. (1975), “Theory of accounting measurement”, Studies in Accounting Research No. 10, American Accounting Association, Sarasota, FL.

Imai, M. (1998), “Will America's corporate theme song be ‘just in time’?”, Journal for Quality & Participation, Vol. 21, pp. 26‐8.

Jarvis, P. and Parker, S. (2005), Human Learning: An Holistic Approach, Routledge, London.

Jinhua, D. and Olsson, E. (2002), Availability Analysis through Relations between Failure Rate and Preventive Maintenance under Condition Monitoring, Department of Information Design and Product Development, Mälardalen University, Västerås.

Johnston, R., Brignall, S. and Fitzgerald, L. (2002), “The involvement of management accountants in operational process change: results from field research”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 22 No. 12, pp. 1325‐38.

Jönsson, S. (1992), “Accounting for improvement: action research on local management support”, Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, Vol. 2, pp. 99‐115.

Jönsson, S. (1996), Accounting for Improvement, Guildford and King's Lynn, Pergamon.

Jönsson, S. (1998), “Relate management accounting research to managerial work!”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 411‐34.

Jönsson, S. and Grönlund, A. (1988), “Life with a subcontractor: new technology and management accounting”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 512‐32.

Kaplan, R.S. and Cooper, R. (1998), Cost & Effect: Using Integrated Cost Systems to Drive Profitability and Performance, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P. (1992), “The balanced scorecard: measures that drive performance”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 70 No. 1, pp. 71‐9.

Karlsson, C. and Åhlström, P. (1995), “Change processes towards lean production: the role of the remuneration system”, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 15 No. 11, pp. 80‐99.

Kloot, L. (1997), “Organizational learning and management control systems: responding to environmental change”, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 47‐73.

Kolb, D.A. (1984), Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Kolb, D.A. and Osland, J. (1991), Organisational Behavior: An Experiential Approach, Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Langfield‐Smith, K. (1997), “Management control systems and strategy: a critical review”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 207‐32.

Levinthal, D.A. and March, J.G. (1993), “The myopia of learning”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 14, pp. 95‐112.

Levy, J. (1970), “Information processing and higher psychological functions in the disconnected hemispheres of commissurotomy patients”, University Microfilms No. 70‐14, 844, PhD. dissertation, California Institute of Technology, Ann Arbor, MI.

Levy, J., Trevarthen, C. and Sperry, R.W. (1972), “Perception of bilateral chimeric figures following hemispheric deconnexion”, Brain, Vol. 95 No. 1, pp. 61‐78.

Lukka, K. (1998), “Total accounting in action: reflections on Sten Jönsson's accounting for improvement”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 333‐42.

Lynch, R.L. and Cross, K.F. (1991), Measure Up! Yardsticks for Continuous Improvement, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

McNair, C.J., Mosconi, W. and Norris, T. (1988), Meeting the Technology Challenge: Cost Accounting in a JIT Environment, National Association of Accountants (NAA), Montvale, NJ.

March, J.G. and Simon, H.A. (1993), “‘Organizations’ revisited”, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 2, pp. 299‐316.

Mia, L. (2000), “Just‐in‐time manufacturing: management accounting systems and profitability”, Accounting & Business Research, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 137‐51.

Milgrom, P. and Roberts, J. (1995), “Complementarities and fit: strategy, structure and organizational change in manufacturing”, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Vol. 19, pp. 179‐208.

Nanni, A.J., Dixon, J.R. and Vollmann, T.E. (1992), “Integrated performance measurement: management accounting to support the new manufacturing realities”, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 4, pp. 1‐19.

Nonaka, I. (1991), “The knowledge‐creating company”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 69 No. 6, pp. 96‐104.

Puxty, A.G. (1993), The Social & Organizational Context of Management Accounting, Academic Press, London.

Remenyi, D., Williams, B., Money, A. and Swartz, E. (1998), Doing Research in Business and Management: An Introduction to Process and Method, Sage, London.

Samuelson, L. (1990), Models of Information Systems: The Swedish Case, Chartwell‐Bratt, Bromley.

Sanchez, R. (1997), “Managing articulated knowledge in competence‐based competition”, in Heene, A. and Sanchez, R. (Eds), Competence‐based Strategic Management, Wiley, Chichester.

Schiller, S. (1999), The Intelligent Enterprise, BAS, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg.

Senge, P.M. (1990), “The leader's new work: building learning organizations”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 7‐23.

Simon, H.A., Kozmetsky, G., Guetzkow, H. and Tydall, G. (1954), Centralization vs Decentralization in Organizing the Controller's Department, The Controllership Foundation, New York, NY.

Smith, S.M., Ward, T.B. and Finke, R.A. (1995), The Creative Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Smulders, F.E. (2004), “Co‐operation in NPD: coping with different learning styles”, Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 263‐73.

Sperry, R.W., Gazzaniga, M.S. and Bogen, J.E. (1969), “Interhemispheric relationships: the neocortical commissures: syndromes of hemispheric disconnections”, in Vinken, P.J. and Bruyn, G.W. (Eds), Handbook of Clinical Neurology, North Holland Publishing, Amsterdam.

Swenson, D.W. and Cassidy, J. (1993), “The effect of JIT on management accounting”, Journal of Cost Management for the Manufacturing Industry, Winter, pp. 28‐39.

Tomkins, C. (2001), “Interdependencies, trust and information in relationships, alliances and networks”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 161‐91.

Turney, P.B.B. and Anderson, B. (1989), “Accounting for continuous improvement”, Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp. 37‐47.

Uzzi, B. (1997), “Social structure and competition in interfirm networks: the paradox of embeddedness”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 35‐67.

van der Meer‐Kooistra, J. and Scapens, R.W. (2004), “The governance of lateral relations between and within organisations”, working paper, University of Groningen, Groningen/University of Manchester, Manchester.

van der Veeken, H.J.M. and Wouters, M.J.E. (2002), “Using accounting information systems by operations managers in a project company”, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 13, pp. 345‐70.

Westin, O. (1993), “Informationsstöd för Lokal Ekonomi (“Information support for local economy”)”, PhD dissertation, BAS, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg.

Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1997), The Machine that Changed the World: Based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5 Million, 5 Year Study on the Future of the Automobile, Rawson Associates, New York, NY.

Yin, R.K. (2002), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Applied Social Research Methods Series, 3rd ed., Vol. 5, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.

Young, S.M. and Selto, F.H. (1993), “Explaining cross‐sectional workgroup performance differences in a JIT facility: a critical appraisal of a field‐based study”, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 5, pp. 300‐26.

Håkansson, H. and Lind, J. (2004), “Accounting and network coordination”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 51‐72.

Ittner, C.D. and Larcker, D.F. (1998), “Innovations in performance measurements: trends and research implications”, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 10, pp. 205‐38.

Lukka, K. and Kasanen, E. (1995), “The problem of generalizability: anecdotes and evidence in accounting research”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 71‐90.

Taylor, I. and Taylor, M.M. (1990), Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language, Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

West, P. (2000), Organisational Learning in the Automotive Sector, Routledge, London.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Emerald

Tập 6 Số 1

123-148

Thông tin tác giả