STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING LITERATURE

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING LITERATURE

Strategic management is explained as wide variety, outward and futuristic approach which will also try to cope with latest internal issues in the organization and might also comprise of non-financial measures. It is a possibility that strategic management accounting ideas has been developed as a way to answer the popular discussion, ‘crisis’, of management accounting. Strategic management accounting has been defined as the preparation and evaluation of the financial information and its affect on the company’s product markets and the cost structures and competitors’ cost and examining the company’s and its competitors’ strategies in the market over a time period.


This sort of strategic cost analysis i.e. profit or/and revenue, has been suggested by a number of experts. Porter, despite having a non-accounting scientific background, should be considered as one of the major contribution in this field. Some of the main development issues include, life cycle costing, target costing, activity based cost and balanced business scorecard and these issues can carry potential of strategic kind, strategic investment appraisals, different product and competitor and customer evaluation.


Normative ideas are not the only similarity between management account and strategic accounting. In management accounting, promoting different perspectives in reporting as well as synchronizing complexity are equally important in the global competition. A main characteristic of management accounting of the international companies is the global value chain. Strategic management and management accounting are a part of similar control and management processes (for example, short and long term planning of profit in the preparation of budget). Strategic managements is fit for strategic level and management accounting is best handled at the tactical level however the relationship is not as simple as is implied by the classical planning model. Apart from controlling current strategies, management control systems, if used interactively, can also be used to establish new strategies. Additionally the process of budgeting is strategic by calculating and assessing strategic plans; accounting has a huge influence of the firm’s utilization capacity as it is an instrument for implementing and motivating or promoting values in the organization.



Traditionally, management accounting and strategic planning have been thought of as different parts of the management process as strategy is external and management accounting is internal for a firm. Management accounting is historic, calculable and short term whereas strategy is futuristic, qualitative and long term oriented. Management accounting splits company into different department whereas strategy looks into the whole firm and value chain and creates synergy therefore the disciplines for developing strategic management accounting can largely be found here: it should have these characteristics, should be futuristic, focus external issues as well as total value chain and should be long term oriented and include non-financial measures. Next, the outline of strategic management accounting will be examined issue by issue in a manner of theoretical literature review.
THE AGENDA OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

The activity based costing (ABC) endorsed by Cooper and Kaplan has collected most of the exposure of the strategic oriented management accounting advancements. Given that ABC has developed into general management process that is called activity based cost management (ABCM or ABM). The spirit of ABM cannot be found in just the costing but the whole process of cost management. ABC has also encouraged porter’s value chain thinking regardless of their conceptual differences.

The ABC can be also be used in analyzing and reconfiguration of the company’s value chain and the famous business process management also theoretically suits well the ABC. The potential for more precise product information is the first place where strategic significance of the activity based cost management can be found which may facilitate in leading towards better pricing, product mix decisions and profitability secondly it may also be functional in customer and profitability analysis with respect to its segments. Thirdly central strategic essentials of the ABCM are a close association among the reengineering of the value chain, activity chain or the process of the firm. This idea can be put forward that this kind of strategic benefits and momentum of change from activity based approach can be increased well through the preliminary activity analysis phase and for this utilization of any scheduled activity based costing is not required.

The supporters of the practice of strategic cost analysis or management were Shank and Govindrajan that put down the porter’s suggestion. With their accordance SCM involves three major steps that are identification of value chain, the diagnosis if its cost drivers and development of sustainable competitive advantage. These three steps are connected to the broader strategic cost management that is fretful with the value chain. The relationship of group of activities that create value and extended from raw materials to the finished products and their availability to consumers is called the value chain.

In SCM there are so many strategic issues for instance, the management accountant’s bad education and also the managements’ lack of knowledge make them reluctant to use management accounting information and people, impractical informational requirements, load of the schedule reporting needs and finally the overhead nature of the management accounting function has proved to be the barrier in the advancement of strategic management accounting.


It has also asked to the accounting managers whether they should have involvement in generating the strategic information at all or it should only be tackled by the other functions in an appropriate way enough? The company is required to recognize the place of their supporters in the total value chain and bring development in the management accounting information with respect to their advocates. The importance is given to the interaction with supplier and customer association. The most wide ranging single framework for strategic management information has been perhaps created by shank and Govindrajan. Although the confirmed experimental significance has been so far quite narrow and very little accounting data has been evaluated by the value chain.
Japan has also come up with the major contribution to SMA in the form of target costing(TC) and this need to be look as a brad idea not just a method to set target costs. This could be seen as a method to put together and organize the corporate activities which flows the information in a flexible manner among the market and market research, product research and design, production and accounting. With this they are intensely linked into the strategic planning and management progressions. The target costing process divide into three main activities that are future pricing protuberance, profit forecast and developing experience.


The TC process is divided into price driven costing, product level target costing and component level target costing. Target costs in practical world are practiced in product planning phase during value engineering and when the product is in the production phase it is achieved through continuous improvement. T cost management is one of the disciplines of strategic management accounting and its uniqueness is defined through culture bounded ness. The attributes which are to be mentioned are its customer oriented background, cross functional orientation and importance of organizational learning and the Japanese method of carrying it out systematically. Motivation and achievements are emphasized and cannot be just control activities.



A tool of strategic analysis is life cycle thinking and its application is being done in management accounting in the form of life cycle cost analysis. Product life cycle has not got a time frame defined and its activities are carried from the starting point which is initial research and development to the ending point where sales and support to costumers are provided, on the other hand in accounting a fixed time frame is used which is usually calendar based. The Product life cycle costing (PLCC) monitors all the costs which are associated to the product from the initial development and research to the customer services which are provided to the consumer and this is also used for life cycle budgeting which estimates those costs. Pricing decision can be made on the basis of information and data provided by Life cycle accounting budgeting, furthermore it helps in knowing all the costs which are estimated or accounted in different facets of life cycle. Without question it points out all the early, usual costs commitments and makes easier to find out the connections between value chain and the product life cycle.
Also, competitive advantage and strategic positioning are related ideas and utilizing these has necessitated management accounting information of strategic level for the companies themselves and also for their competitors. This type of information is also required to find out about the share in the market and competitors’ pricing, volume, and cost issues. It has also been suggested that this information should be incorporated in the reports on management accounting. Over the years various researchers have suggested different forms of competitor accounting. The information on competitors is obtained through openly available sources like press, annual reports, statistics and official institutions, in addition to informal sources such as sales persons and other customers, business functions, other suppliers and competitors, analyzing products of competitors or other shared financial sources, physical observation, consultants, industry specialists, trade centers, old employees belonging to competitors, etc. However, some have questioned the reliability of competitor accounting.
A much broader theory of benchmarking is very similar to competitor accounting, however, it usually relies on cooperation between organizations. Competitor accounting may also be defined as a particular form of strategic level benchmarking based on accounting, in which the cooperation with the entity of this comparison activity is not included.
A very important consideration for the companies in successful launch of new products in the markets is the right time with the right price and rational profit margin. The decisions dealing with new products are a crucial part of long term strategies and plans. Accounting has generally supported product mix and pricing decisions in the perspective of product strategies and it is considered as a relevant approach in full costing. Therefore, analysis of product life cycle, costing based on activity and target costing are very helpful approaches in this situation. Additionally, some researchers have suggested another product called attribute costing. All of the activities by a company and all of the utilized resources should provide advantage to the customers for which they are prepared to pay in this approach. Therefore, the company should try to find the costs related to enterprise resources and activities to these advantages and not simply to products as followed by traditional approach, with the purpose of comparing the profits generated by these advantages with their costs. As a result, each product may be seen as a package of features being offered to the consumer for which the customer is ready to pay. Derived demands are demands of goods for their fundamental features. The importance used in this type of analysis is based on the strategic approach by the company. The costs were categorised into activity, product-volume, capacity and costs related to decision, whereas the benefits were divided into outlet, product and other benefits in the research.
The concept of pricing based on value also employs very similar thinking as it is also based on the benefits obtained by the consumer in utilising the product in a special way. This technique is primarily used in business-to-business marketing and watchful analysis of the benefits to the consumer is required in this approach. This is because of the reason that different consumers or segments could assess the benefits in a various ways. Also, different compositions of the product can produce varying benefits. Some researchers have segregated the value based pricing into four different phases which are: understanding the total use condition of the customer, define and analyze the factors that decide the benefits to the customer in this use, define and analyze the factors that decide the costs of the customer in use of this product and lastly determine the tradeoffs in cost/benefit in use by the customer.
Inside strategic positioning, one of the crucial issues is the selection of targeted customers. The customers can be classified into various segments for instance by their geographical locations, by the services supplied or the by the channel of distribution carried. Activity-based costing can be utilized successfully for analyzing sales and other overheads including administration as compared to traditional cost accounting methods. Traditional methodology advocates the allocation of all the cost are into customers and the total cost of a firm equates the aggregated sum of customer costs. Hierarchical activity-based costing is another approach to divide the activities into different dimensions such as market, customer, channel, enterprises, parts and orders. Whereas, profitability and costs related to direct-material could be classified into market and aggregate profitability, channel, contribution of segment or customer profitability and gross margin.
Customer focus, quality, learning, innovation, time and education are the crucial success variables on which success and competitiveness of the company depends because management accounting and financial aspect is just one part of management control and management control system respectively.
Activities of a business show results usually due to financial measures rather than activities. The employment regarding nonfinancial measures in performance management and control has been the part of discussion in recent time and it is expected to draw sound measurement results of processes and business activities which could be developed and controlled in a better way. Customer satisfaction, manufacturing excellence, quality, on time deliveries, technology, marketplace leadership etc are important success factors for implementing such actions. Applied strategies and performances are linked together by concrete measures and they are defined accordingly and their connection has been beneficial for non financial measures. Financial measures and non-financial measures posses contradictions in results and on comparison basis, their implications are considered as negative.
The performance measures of financial and non-financial measures are brought together by a special balanced scorecard .similar thoughts have brought earlier under the title of “tableu de board” in France suggesting the idea regarding control panel .Later Performance Pyramid System was introduced and developed which utilizes ideas similar to the former system. Balanced scorecard uses operative and physical measures out of four areas such as customer, internal, innovation and financial which are now removed from corporate strategies and vision.
However, balanced score card is viewed as organized approach for performance measurement of firm and provides rationale for the satisfaction of its financial need. In the long run, customer’s need should be satisfied along with such organization with the help of sound value chain. Also, the non-financial measures indicate strategic and operational changes and appraised benefits and costs include the linkage between management, strategy, non-financial measures and accounting.
Evident links could be found between strategies, management accounting and capital budgeting decisions which have quite an impact on the company’s long term performance. Net present value which is derived from the discounted cash flows, are a reliable measure to determine and evaluate the method of capital investments. According to this, a company should invest in any venture that gives a positive return and net present value. However the link between the applied strategy and capital budget is very important. It also has a limited impact in the traditional budgeting literature. Certain issues may come up where investment is justified by the DCF method and measured by accounting methods later. Investment areas such as manufacturing technology needs very careful management and conceiving because the drawbacks of such an investment can be hard to predict and calculate later on. Thus, strategic management accounting agenda can be linked to show an insight of the customers, markets, future products and capital investment decisions.


The Western firms are blamed for causing a fall in the global competition because they are late in adopting modern manufacturing technologies. One reason why this is so is because of the lack of usage of investment appraisal methods as described above. It is suggested to carefully analyze the results of the possible advantages of the investments before actually carrying them out. The technological decisions have been connected to the strategic analysis of investments and it is preferable to carry out extra cautious appraisal methods, along with the monetary and non monetary evaluation of the judgment. The benefits that cannot easily be analyzed statistically were also analyzed by some managers. Strategic positioning and cost driver analysis are also two types of appraisal methods to help in the process of investment appraisal. A systematic formal analysis has been deviced for investment decisions which links the different aspects of strategic management accounting. Under this analysis are three other aspects as well. Those being market & competitor analysis, value chain analysis and cost driver analysis. Time still remains one of the key factors affecting investment decisions and this has been analyzed by the break even time analysis (BET). This analysis covers some of the ideas from that of DCF, payback period and life cycle analysis. Studies have also been conducted on how to achieve alignment between individual unit strategies and the corporate strategies by the management control systems.

CONTINGENCY AND SUBJESTIVIST APPROACHES TO STRATEGY
AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING


Contingency and subjectivist approaches have also been taken up to study strategic management from a different perspective, along with the other analytical and usual approaches which have been used before. The contingency theory can also be classifies as a normal approach but it cans still be considered as different from SMA, which focuses more on the strategic decision making, Studies that are associated with the contingency approach focus on evaluating and describing the process of the accounting systems, how they should be built so as to be aligned with the decision making process. While studying the meaning of management accounting in the process of decision making, for instance, it is said that the management uses more of a qualitative, general, oral and an extrinsic approach to derive the issues that come up as well as the quantitative and in depth information in the process of implementation.


The control mechanisms are greatly affected by the intense competition that is there. The rapid and steady changes that occur in the environment encourage frequent future reporting. The growing complexity of the organization also leads to expanding the accounting system though the addition of new components, while the environment any discontinuities in the environment would call for a changed and new method of accounting. There has also been research conducted on the links between various strategies and measures to determine the incentive plans. Long run subjective measures were considered to be appropriate to devise strategies and the short term statistical measures were used to harvest the strategies. To build the strategy, budgeting is useful to plan for the short run but not for purposes of surveillance control. The managers of the unit play a vital role to prepare and review the budgets. The strategic planning is also an important aspect due to the conditions that depend on the growth conditions of uncertainty. Lastly, the decisions of capital budgeting are dependent on the qualitative and subjective issues. The harvest mission and management control attributes were compared to get a result which showed contrast between them.


Link between the factors such as differentiation and cost leadership of Porters generic strategies and the OST management were highlighted. In this, the methods of cost accounting such as standard costing and costing of the product was linked to the cost leadership and marketing cost analysis and other issues that can be related to this differentiation. There were certain connections and relationships highlighted between the various archetypes and these were linked to their respective control of management. The estimated information, the determination of strategic planning, scheduled and usual budget revisions were all normal for prosecutors and other archetypes and the control of the cost and the oriented planning techniques for the opposite archetype. Different styles of strategic management of huge firms were devised along with strategic planning, control of the finances, strategic control style, which was also responsible for a huge impact of the management control system present in the archetypes.



The literature of strategic management literature is composed of the normative and technical strategy analysis data. Hence it is quite mechanical and objectivist by nature. In this way, the interpretative and incremental strategy perspective can be seen with a more detailed insight and can actually add to the understanding of strategic management accounting. Certain studies have been conducted to evaluate the extent of usefulness of this system. In the theories that take a subjective approach, accounting is used for the purpose of strategy implementation, in instances such as coal mining or where the attention is to be directed towards the strategically related issues or to offer language and help for permission when negotiations take place in firms. Considering this view, it can be argue that strategic management account could help stabilize the learning in organization and the change procedures that promote the value through the various languages offered.







THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS
There are certain avenues and fields which have a significant position in the strategic management accounting literature. Some of these are value chain, cost driver and product attribute analysis, target cost management, balanced scorecard, competitor accounting and strategic investment appraisal. Studies have shown that there is proof about the increasing company adoptions of strategies such as activity-based cost management, target cost management and customer profitability analysis. Methods such as implementation of competitor accounting, strategic investment appraisal, value chain, cost driver and product attribute analysis and life cycle accounting are said to come across a lot of problems because they are generally different from the practices and systems already present.

The profitability of consumer analysis and ABC appear to be closely linked to the practices of management of traditional accounting and these practices could be easily applied in both technical and psychological way. On the other hand if balanced score is compared with the profitability analysis, this might need more changes to respond to the modern traditional customs related to management, thinking, accounting etc. the reason behind this are certain aspects other than finance. Some of the organizations might have previously involved in collecting the information that is required for balanced score card. Therefore from the accountant’s perspective this might be an obvious question of collecting the data and then reporting it



In respect to the literature review that was conducted, we could say that the strategy of management accounting is entirely different from nature. It rather includes various different avenues. Sometimes these avenues are very close leading to overlapping. In 70’s and 80’s the strategic decisions that were taken mainly relied on the literature of the strategies of management accounting. From a particular perspective this was strongly criticized. Another reason behind this was variations in competitive environment.



The nature of decision making and management is very complex, thus, management accounting which supports accounting of strategic management could be framed to have a more realistic view not to mention that the complexity of the nature has to be taken into consideration. Strategic management actually includes planning and it involves uncertainty as well as act as hindrance in achieving objectives, in this case the rational factor would be the actions that are taken by the organization or the individuals all the relevant and appropriate information is not provided to the people who are responsible for decision making. The information is either abrupt or not presented in a suitable manner. Other concepts have been gradually given importance such as values, objectives, commitment of individuals etc. all of these are given consideration and relative importance in literature of strategic management. As mentioned earlier the force of this strategy is indirectly related to the nature. The effects of strategic management can be noticed such as shared values, promotion or stopping of strategies, in creation and other intended as well as unintended issues. A change in the factor of contingency could guide the practitioners of accounting management and academics to the importance of seeking as well as attractive developments. It is noticed that to change the systems that are institutionalized are very difficult. Such as change in the accounting systems of particular organization. Reasons might be economical of how to change system in a different way. The external factors also influence the organization through anticipated or unanticipated processes

CASE FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS
ENVIRONMENT, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, CULTURE, MANAGEMENT
PHILOSOPHIES AND ORGANIZATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS
After the late 90’s the industries expanded widely leading to many challenges as well as opportunities. The industry got a chance to get restricted. With the help of deregulation, a new environment was created and advance technologies and services entered the industry. The need for Target Company then emerged and its competitors would not only be involved in supplying products for current customers but for the potential customers. The suppliers are to supply the entire systems along with the services. This successful strategy has led to higher growth, increasing profitability but at the same time uncertainty. Growth would not only mean increase in the sales but globalization world wide and international marketing along with high productivity, investment in research and development etc. this type of growth will lead to further strong challenges for practices as well as control systems. This site would be thus operating under high uncertainty which would lead to great institutional isomorphism.
Nonetheless, engineers were differentiate as precise people and number oriented, a subject thought to be a fine thing meant for accounting, which makes desired precise calculations with the intention of generating order in doubtful world of target company. Innovative traditions of responding were usually permissible and promoted in accounting and as well in the customs of target company. With respect to planning issues the firm was thought to be exemplary and imaginative. A very main attribute of target company was cross functional teamwork. It is endorsed by management, matrix organization structure and character of the business also makes it a necessity.
The company under discussion stressed a lot on both cost strategies and differentiation, although there is a much governing role of differentiation. Thus the study showed that case site was based on differentiation strategy, however it was trying to increase its operational competence concurrently. By concentrating, the company was reformed into its core competitors and was using these core competencies as a base to build the infra structure of a global organization and hence it could be perceive as containing a global organization. Although new developments and leadership based on modern technology are the bases of accomplishment but customer's voice is a very importance and vital factor. In this regard the strategy resembles so as to the plan of prospector. The target firm can easily be classified into build strategy. Thinking of Global core competence makes one realize the increasing significance of interconnected business rather than that of solitary units. This stress can be appreciated in various sections of this paper. There is a vast and clear system of annual planning which includes budgeting, and strategic planning in target company. The managing practice can be global organization epitomes and strategic planning. Planning is done with extensive participation and obligation to the plan is sturdily accentuated, which rings a bell to strongly ethnicity or crescive reproduction, differentiation and prospector prototypes.

Target company was distinguish as a corporation with engineer’s culture. The latest bunch in the cooperation consists of Engineers. Thus, production, products and the technology have conventionally been measured as very significant in target company, on the other hand the financial and commercial factors have played negligible parts. Nonetheless, engineers were differentiate as precise people and number oriented, a subject thought to be a fine thing meant for accounting, which makes desired precise calculations with the intention of generating order in doubtful world of target company. Innovative traditions of responding were usually permissible and promoted in accounting and as well in the customs of target company. With respect to planning issues the firm was thought to be exemplary and imaginative. A very main attribute of target company was cross functional teamwork. It is endorsed by management, matrix organization structure and character of the business also makes it a necessity.


In target company, suggestions of process management, continuous improvement and complete quality management, customer focus and value management were applied. As a result, the business culture of target company has the back of an innovative type of acting and thinking process, which works for the management accounting too, but the engineer’s culture was governing and problems related to finance were not judged as they should have been while decision making. The corporate thinking process appeared to emphasize on the general necessity for the management accounting towards product processes and customers. In recent years, the philosophy of orientation towards customers has been profoundly encouraged by leading management. This design is an integral piece of an attempt made extensively corporate wide, to generate a tradition for constant improvement. The corporate values were four in number: continuous learning, customer satisfaction, achievement and respect for individual. It was anticipated from the organization to get re-engineered so as to generate more value, furthermore, the strategies and corporate values should be maintained by the performance management. One part of this plan is also the business process based management philosophy. Finance & control function has also got an implication in the process of development of general business. Besides the traditional process of support it was affirmed that finance & control function must contribute in the processes of customers and products. People have cynic feelings about innovative managerial technologies, like activity based costing and management process. Nevertheless, the corporate values which were endorsed were generally well appreciated and understood. Diffusion of the philosophy of customer orientation had hitherto arrived at the higher level of corporation. The former thought processes which were based on technology were still sturdy in the subordinate levels of organization. Customer orientation also, was a rational result of innovative business stage in which liberalization of market had made numerous new clients challenging against each other via discriminating themselves in the course of their services.

The institutional theory suggested that new response outlines could be used because of style, competitors or generally to manage uncertainty. Without inquiring about the sagacity of execution in target company, it can be concluded that innovative managerial technologies are only observed as empty trends and mottos in target company particularly, in finance & control function. The real organizational reaction models changed gradually which was never in a fashion. From the dissimilarity between cultures of real and promoted organizations convincing proof can be found.
The aimed organization was prearranged as a matrix arrangement and in addition, it was evidently taken to global association sort. Problems started to appear and being reported as the management accounting system was not supporting the quickly varying matrix structure and also due to the huge regular actions of reporting. As it was growing harder to sustain them all with a single system and clean stress in between dimensions exist, for e.g. in the form of separate local reporting systems, all because of the variations in the requirements of the associations. In line to promote these various viewpoints in world wide aim firm exists, the need was getting bigger. With the help of general administration accounting methods, it was getting harder to support complicated and varying associational structure. On the other hand, the crosses functional joint effort is lead to be activated by association, and a perception of being psychologically as little and supple was developed about the associational structure.
MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING AND STRATEGY
The one that was proposed in the document is very dissimilar to the aimed organization’s tactically oriented growth and performance of management accounting. It was noticed that the formal tactical arrangement procedure was not of a dynamic type as contributed by the management accounting, it was on an unimportant stage instead. When the bigger strategies were converted to bigger yielding plans, it happened particularly in that duration. Symbols of tactical management accounting may have been apparent, in wider terms, at the time when management accounting was utilized in quantifying the tactical strategies and alternatives, as well as the upcoming clients and business. It was accounted to be very hard and tiring to create extended range computations due to the enormous amount of doubtfulness, environmental variation and commercial expansion, although upcoming orientation was considered as very significant. In strategic decision making, the major indispensable matter were the leading logic of the top administration (individual and interpersonal familiarity, untainted determination, strong hallucinations of the upcoming age, technology and business circumstances), consequently, it was difficult for the accounting calculations to support it.
Most of the important strategic challenges faced by management accounting of the case site could at last be listed down, basically there is need of one of the such well structured strategic management system, for example sharing and defining products according to strategies about sales and related issues.
A strategy is required which should support business which at a time does several analyzing issues and multiple possibilities which involve financial as well as non financial matters. The strategy which enhances purposes and assurance, as well as considers the profit of the organization, with possible accomplishment of goals and targets .which has the powers and characteristics of dealing with reservations related to strategies. These deals in manipulative and organize their global value chain, able to completely and accurately distribute the resources for better implementing supporting strategies, which focused on products and customer related issue’s organization. .
Strategy planning is something should be done formal and long process as the results are to be seen in long run, which are important according to group views as well as for core management. The above mention statement is agreed upon by different writers. Basically budgeting was considered as planning and cooperating tool, but it isn’t for managing performance and operations. Strategic planning is a tool for controlling mechanism and systems, build-mission, and global organization type. Future forecasting is better managed when you study latest periodical research in way you study monthly and quarterly reports and statement gathered from management accounting. This focuses on importance and benefits of judging the available data, updating the budget during a year. This was previously said to be traditional for strategic management and implementation of expectation and estimations



In addition to implementing and controlling existing strategies, the formal management control system can be used by the management to develop new strategies by driving the organizational attention towards strategic uncertainties. Therefore managements who have a clear vision of their business effectively utilize control systems as they use only a single control system to interact and other systems are used for diagnostic purposes and the interactive control systems can also develop new strategies.

Strategic planning processes have been made by certain value chain analyses however they are not in management accounting’s perspective. Creating visible dependencies between different functions was one of the reasons why value chain thinking was assessed as something possibly useful. Value chain involved in a business is so complicated and the network of interdependencies is so huge that the possible usefulness of the value chain was believed as very limited. The value chain was much easier and simpler in sister businesses and such concepts also proved to be useful. The interview method did not prove to be useful in finding any evidence for activities such as strategic cost management. Strategic cost management was practiced and used in an unintentional way in the general management decisions. The thinking related to value chain thinking was left alone and distant from the finance world and people’s control when the accounting thinking was dominated by the institutionalized business unite reporting structure which included huge integrations. People who were interviewed followed value chain thinking as furor just as ABC.

The philosophy of target cost was initially instigated in this particular industry through the means of definition; cost management’s significance is increasing with the passage of time and price erosion is comprehended entirely by this industry. Target costs and prices are incorporated in corporate budgeting and planning theoretically and a few unique programs associated to cost management have been instigated. The findings of research project illuminates queries related to the prevalent cost management practice conducted by western entities as well as accentuates on the necessity of streamlining it with the practices conducted by Japanese entities. In a few instances, cost analysis associated to product life cycle has been conducted beforehand or on extemporized manner not guided by recognized reporting system in the midst of the product development phase. Nevertheless, it has been observed that profitability has escalated because the demanded volume of a product has surpassed the forecasted volume based on which production is carried out; this condition of gain is the sole reason due to which no post investigation has been conducted to explicate this unusual occurrence. Moreover, it was deemed that R&D expenditure on life cycle costing was very challenging because with the passage of time a single product becomes the basis for a product family with diverse and various products; the R&D expenditure on the initial product has to be intensified and the following products would be articulate based on that initial product’s developments which will reduce expenditures.


One significant facet associated to the life cycle philosophy is the necessity of measuring the life time profitability pertaining to the consumers. Nevertheless, this measurement is very intricate in nature because of the lengthy business association with consumers as well as the performance of an industry. Companies conducted competitor analysis due to its estimated effectiveness; it was however performed by the marketing personnel and not the accounting staff, and for this purpose information was assembled from all available resources. One of these resources was the annual reports published by competing firms from which financial data was extracted. These functions were buttressed by the presence of trade finance department of a company which acted as an essential link amidst controlling and financing necessities along with the competitor’s analysis. Seminar sessions based on competing firms along with games based on simulation were deemed as unique type of competitor’s analysis. One of the widely implemented means of analyzing competing firms was benchmarking.


Instances regarding implementation of coherent theory associated to product attribute costing were not identified in any particular case study; however, the necessity and prospect of management accountants for the evaluation of novel products and business lines was considered effective. The requirement was to assess the involved timing, threats, and economic outcomes spurred by diverse actions; therefore, management accounting acts as a buttressing information channel amidst R&D tasks and consumers so as to tackle this predicament. The decisions regarding product attributes and processes which would be taken in imminent times can be bolstered through the means of life cycle accounting of target costing. The novel product decisions were recommended to being present in the market in which this target company functioned. It was also recommended that a support of management accounting should also be necessary when undertaking to enter in novel markets and in this matter the predicaments were the ambiguity along with developing the comprehension of management accountants. Novel pricing techniques were presently under discussion in this target company, and more vigorously in software businesses. A few development based projects had been conducted on the basis of which value-based pricing technique was formulated; hence, according to which product’s usage by consumer along with the usage circumstances will dictate the prices as complementary or supplementary in contrast to the conventional cost-based prices.


The prospective development of management accounting was considered to be majorly dependent on customer analysis. The core matters in this regard were the customers, analysis regarding long term feasibility of a customer’s business, and the segmental profitability analysis. It was deemed very essential to formulate apposite global customer standing along with segmental profitability analysis in this particular target company, whilst business units being the chief element of official monthly reporting. On the basis of business units, the prevailing reporting methodology on monthly basis presented reports on transfer price-based customer (or account) profitability. On extempore basis customer profitability analysis was generated for an array of customers presented in other regions of the globe. This particular target company encountered a predicament in customer profitability analysis due to its cost structure which incorporated a major portion of R&D expenditure.


The customer analysis prominently integrates the exertions targeted towards global value chain along with underlining the business group profitability; therefore, because of this particular tendency it is an effective measure so as to accentuate on global structure and supplant the centrifugal tendencies possessed by single units.


When the markets associated to the industry encountered liberalization, then the necessity of assessing the customer’s long term feasibility aroused. Public or state owned entities were included in the old customers as many of them were highly rated. The customers after the occurrence of liberalization are not as much loyal as they were previously and a vast concentration of them is not feasible in the long run; hence, augmenting the threat. Furthermore, for this target company’s prosperous future it was crucial to comprehend the present as well as future demands of the customers’ which will certainly facilitate in taking appropriate action patterns leading to formulation of products aligned to these requirements. This notion was the prime factor due to which management accounting functions were propelled to take prominent part in analyzing and planning customers’ future business. Albeit the financial records pertaining to the customers were feasible for their analysis, but they were only helpful in case of old customers and not the new ones because there was not past record available of their business activity. A number of completely hypothetical business plans were formulated for the customers, the function of a management accountant in this case is to actively participate in the discussion on the basis of his financial expertise; moreover, the management accountant is deemed to participate in the discussion by formulating theoretical financial and cash flow statements which should be appropriately aligned to the pertinent presumptions of the customer regarding investment plans and cost structure. Another effective means for gaining favorable results from the financial and commercial bids for a customer is to formulate a business plan. Although this type of advancement for the management accounting was in initial phases but the indications were deemed as favorable.


In this instance the prime motive of the management accounting alongside value chain was to extend the functioning area outside this target company; furthermore, integrating with other similar but slightly distinctive functions which will ultimately enhance the elucidation level of the management accounting. Nevertheless, a major predicament which had the tendency of thwarting this task was the absence of an appropriate tool which could be implemented to discern the unprecedented and demanding level of job description.


In estimating operative efficiency, people involvement, and customer satisfaction of this target company non-financial performance tools were extensively implemented. These tools were implemented on group basis; furthermore, they were coalesced with the conventional financial tools. Amidst all these tools unit specific non-financial tools were also implemented.


The aim of implementing this particular scorecard was to assess the level of practices after splitting the objectives into tangible measures as well as integrating them with the present functions of this target company. The non-financial tools were deemed to be effective due to the fact that processes and functions become unambiguous and observable with the tendency of contradicting the conventional belies.


The tasks and functions of the management accountant were quite insignificant with the involvement of these particular measures. Accounting personnel stated their expertise and abilities along with mentioning their presumptions regarding the consistency of non-financial measurements.


In this target company, no adequate and standardized strategic investment evaluations were observed. The global corporate strategy and arrangement of unit investments along with it, market elements; furthermore, the dogmatic beliefs of the executives controlled the practice of strategic capital budgeting decisions which should ideally be aligned to quantitative aspects and adequate investment analysis. These particular presumptions were inspired by the literatures regarding global strategy, building strategic mission and related uncertainty, core competence, subjectivist view, and group-unit tensions.

CONCLUSIONS
The reason for electing this particular case site as a representation of the generally implemented conditions was to explicate novel strategic management accounting practice. Nevertheless, an insignificant level of confirmation regarding strategic management accounting was extracted. A few literature-based ideas were contemplated which were quite similar to the actual strategic level; however, they were dubious to be implemented in this target company in the form of management accounting (TC and product attribute analysis, SCM, strategic investment appraisal). As the tactical level of the ideas escalated, the involvement of management accounting in them was quite sure to be insubstantial (for instance BSC, competitor analysis, and SCM). Furthermore, the likelihood of implementing the proposed novel practice was bleak if it was deemed complex analogous to conventional practice by the concerned authority. Apart of few omissions, case site required minor level of strategic management accounting and unusual means were observed in presenting the pertinent accounting practices like customer interface and budgeting. It can easily be comprehended that budgeting was implemented as a tool for directing the expansion of novel strategic proposals as it possesses the strategic pertinence. The concern towards customers provided two vital elements; customer analysis and customer profitability accounting.
Relative accounting methods which can be use in inventive way comprises of strategic kind of accounting topics. Some of the uses of these methods are that profits are being forecasted interactively, the effectiveness of a whole business group was being highlighted through global customer profitability analysis and customer businesses can be scrutinized with the help of cash flow and breakeven analysis. The management accounting function has relatively weak participation in the strategy process of the target company and with very few interference of accounting management accounting impetus took place.

The companies required business and performance management-oriented management accounting rather than strategic management accounting because performance management-oriented management accounting can be used very often and it is very functioning and uncomplicated by nature. Regardless of these planned research settings, the presented normative strategic management accounting does not get as such support.
Finally some imperative strategic and prepared challenges were pointed out for the management accounting of the case site these include
1) The requirement for clear strategic control and procedures
2) Multiple perspectives all together analyzed to support the business
3) Supporting strategic target and obligation
4) Interactive scanning of strategic uncertainties
5) Resource allocation is controlled and synchronized by the global value chain
6) Strategy process linked with product and customer processes of the target company that makes them capable to give some real considerable content.

Management accounting is developed in a multifaceted way which is reflected by the environmental and strategic modifications and contemporary administrative philosophies and the organizational structure and culture and constant modifications in a target company are also influenced heavily by it. The normative agenda of strategic management accounting comprises of both likeness and differences which can be used as a structure for classifying the case findings among the practices of Target Company. Nevertheless a target company is a very successful firm and according to the literature the strategic management accounting tools recommended not to use and even not needed in the case site.


With this intelligence it can be sated that normative strategic management accounting literature is not highly supported. There were quite a few obstacle and challenges related to the submission and execution of strategic management accounting. According to the speechifying appropriate generalization, there is a significance of some of the recommended business unit or plant level SMA-tools in deliberate framework and they can inquiry about high street industry, global, core capability and separable strategy. Within this frame work improvement, managerial learning, artistic quality, employee commitment, technology and skill blending and revolution, encouragement of strategic objective, synchronization of global corporate value chain and societal lobbying all are linked to managerial concern.Same kind of thoughts regarding global challenges for management accounting was previously presented by e.g. Dent in 1996 and quite a few restrictions were set to the development of normative strategic management accounting by the one-sided nature of the strategic management.
The target company’s management accounting performance and systems were chiefly in linkage with the recommended strategic distinctiveness of the contingency theory but the instrument through which a system is controlled could be very diverse than which could be predicted from rational-based suppositions. Other thing that put pressure on management accounting that cause target market to change are environmental evolution and uncertainty.
There are also some problems and restrictions faced by management accounting system due to the organizational complications and organizational evolution but there is a high possibility through which we can enlarge the innovative ways of management accounting practices and these are the culture of the entrepreneur it self and feeling of freedom however the leading engineer culture also set and nevertheless provide a key structure to the managerial roles of accounting. Latest adapted managerial attitudes also increase the performance measurement demand. The management circumstances which are undeceive and unclear which are often faced by the companies might direct toward mimetic behavior and institutional practice in order to over these circumstances. Also the new exposure of environment with global synchronization and issues for managing, new guidelines and also new opponents-related reporting pressures are all cause because of transformation in environment and strategic choices.
The mimetic behavior or legitimization hard work can be influenced the alteration of customer direction and other executives’ viewpoints and strategy formulation can also affect it. Sometimes new trends and supported and encouraged and than implemented even though they are not accepted deeply by all workers. The institutionalized practices which are rooted deep inside can be change gradually with conflicts.
Research design and data collection

In order to collect the experiential data postal questionnaires were used through which ample information was gathered for the statistical analysis because through questionnaires the large numbers of respondents were accessed easily. There were also one on one interviews were taken to process the questionnaires to check previous mistakes and consistency of the analysis outcome of the previous post and also search for the details from some respondents. In order to erase the interruption which are raising because of the differences among industry sectors these questionnaires were studied by seven intellectuals and later decided to focus on just one sector which is the food and drinks manufacturing companies because they were appropriate for this rationale


“FAME” Financial Analysis Made Easy”) was used as a model structure to make available the widespread knowledge of public and private companies. The criterion used in selecting companies and adding in the sample was a SIC UK industry code of “15” which is for the production of food products and drinks. Being active and a free company the can employ at least 30 people.
In May 2001 secretaries of 658 companies received a letter and that letter fulfill all the criterion required to acquire names of those people who are perfect and suitable to fill these questionnaires. Out of 658 companies two letters were returned to them trough post stating that receivers have change their address and six companies asked to be detached from the survey and it remained with the potential response of 650 companies. 148 names were received in the end of June of those people who are accountable for the direction of management accounting function. Questionnaires were sent with the caption of “For the attention of The Management Accountant” to all 650 companies and were concentrated on the names found or in case not have been found.

Respondents were required to use [5] (MAPs) by a five point Liker-type scale (1 signifying “never” and 5 signifying “very frequently to point out the regularity and occurrence of the 38 management accounting practices they use. Respondents were also require to rate the significance of all these techniques by using a scale “not important”, “moderately important” or “important”. The 38 MAPs were classified into five groups: costing method, budgeting, performance assessment, information for decision making, and strategic examination. There were also separate questions asked to individuals regarding the messaging of management accounting information
The reason for a covering letter is to give details of the study and make sure that the information given is very confidential.




After three weeks the second copy of those questionnaires were sent to all the people who did not responded previously and by the end of September 98 responses were received from the management accountants. Further telephone calls were made to all non respondents and third copy was sent and in end of October, 122 completed functional questionnaires were received from management accountants who gave the utilizable answers that make up the rate of 18.8 % which was substantial.

Non-response bias is a possible hazard to the conclusions of a postal study. t-tests were conducted on corporation dimension calculated by revenue, fixed assets, and the number of workers for the year 2001 finishing, just for the evaluation of the probability of bias. In between the two models for each dimension calculation, no major difference was noted. Moreover, the replies to the main questions in the survey from the repliers who gave the answers just when the follow-up telephone calls were made, and the ones who gave out their opinion without the follow-up calls, were contrasted. Amid the two groups of replies, there was no major variation. The two models are originated from the same population and there is no hazard to the result from the presence of non- rejoinder bias, which is the conclusion by us.
4. Survey findings
4.1 Costing systems
From a long time, there has been criticism on the customary absorption estimation systems. The selection of suitable overhead recovery rates i.e. plant wide or further specific, and then, the argument regarding the requirement to ecover/allocate (soak up) overheads wholly, these two have been long-present matters to be solved. When SSAP 9 was taken into practice, the trivial costing against the absorption costing argument “ran out of stream” in the UK, the differentiation in between non-variable and variable costs is “very much alive” in performance, which is, however, what we look for our hope. The troubles of customary absorption were again taken into prime focus in the previous two decades.
The main critic this time is the fact that these systems cannot be relied on to measure the exact cost for decision making and activity based costing (ABC) has been made and promoted. Target costing and the “costing of quality” were promoted as tools to fight against the increasing levels of competition.

Respondents were asked to indicate how significant the seven methods of costing are to determine the level to which costing systems are used by practitioners to attain more exact information on costing for the purpose of making a decision. Their findings are shown in Panel A of Table I. It can be observed that 48 percent of the firms (29 per cent þ 19 per cent) have a high level of contrasting between variable/incremental costs and fixed/non-incremental costs for the purpose of making any decision. This contrast and difference has been pointed out by about 83 percent of the respondents who classified these as either being very important to the firm or moderately important. In contrast to this, just a few emphasized the high use of plant-wide, multiple-rate or ABC methods so as to allocate the overhead and variable costs to the objects. It was also observed that these variable overheads were not so frequent. It was derived from these two surveys that variable costing is more widely used than the numerous absorption cost techniques. Even though the ABC costing techniques have a low level of usage, being around 76% of rare usage, it is still seen as very important and about 44%, 51% and 46% of those who answered considered these three techniques very significant or moderately important.

It was surveyed that activity based costing (ABC) was executed in about 18percent in the US food sector firms and 12 percent in Holland food sector firms. Although the respondents recognize the importance of overhead variable costs, they don’t consider it so important to implement them very often. This may demonstrate that overheads are considered a part of the non routine costing and pricing strategies which are carried out less frequently. However, in the food industry, managers often classify direct and variable costs separately for ad hoc decision making. Similarly, the quality costing is seen to have a lot of significance but is not allocated very often. Lastly, it can be concluded that the mathematical ways to measure cost relationships is not seen as very important and is therefore not carried out very often.
4.2 Budgeting
A lot of emphasis has been given to the use of management accounting in the literature of management accounting. It has been considered as a key technique for the controlling and planning of the activities of an organization. The execution of the ABC techniques was followed by another technique called the activity based budgeting (ABB). Panel B of Table I shows how the people responded to the survey in which questionnaires asked people their opinion on the significance of planning and budgeting to control costs, the “what if” analysis in regard to budgeting, flexible budgeting, zero based budgeting and the budget planning for long run strategic plans.

The survey indicates that around 84 percent and 73 percent firms use budgeting either frequently or very frequently for the purpose of planning and controlling respectively. By combing the results, it can be observed that more than 90 percent of the respondents It can be stated that almost all the firms consider budgeting as an integral part of planning and control. Around 32 percent consider the use of flexible budget as often or very often and it is considered a significant part. However, on the other hand, 29 percent of the firms do not adjust their budgets. Similarly, the concept of “what if” analysis is very significant but it is not used very often.

The ABB technique was either given a lot of significance or was considered moderately important by a vast majority of the interviewees. These added up to about 63 percent. However, just 19 percent said that the use of the strategy was often or very frequent. When the usage of both, ABB and ABC techniques was compared, it was derived that the companies who had a frequent usage level of ABC also had high levels of usage for ABB. It is possible that firms initially start using ABC and then go on to use the activity analysis during the execution of ABC to prepare their budgets. It is observed that ABB is more significant and often used as compared to ABC. This gives support to the point mentioned earlier than budgeting is more important rather than costing. It is not often observed that zero based budgeting is being executed but about 58 percent of the respondents consider it insignificant. Lastly, around 83 percent considered budgeting as an integral part of long run strategic planning.




4.3 Performance evaluation
Perhaps the most critical challenge faced by the companies is the selection of the measures to guide and evaluate the business units running. Management accounting is responsible for reporting all the needed information so as to determine the performance of the business unit. However a lot of criticisms have been raised against the units that use monetary measures such as profits, return on investments, standard costing and variance analysis. The basic reason for the criticism is that they measure short run costs and accounting manipulations and they do not take account of the capital costs and non monetary measures such as efficiency of the labor, innovation of the company or the satisfaction levels of the customer.
A number of “economic value” means have been employed to include the capital cost in the financial measures. The concept of Residual income was given in 1950s, however, the idea of “Economic Value Added” (EVAw) has been promoted more recently as its proprietary adaptation. EVAw is described as the difference of adjusted operating income and capital charge, and suggests that the action of the manager will add economic value when the final profits surpass the increased capital cost. This was described as key “organisational glue” in the merger of Grand Met and Guinness to form Diageo.
A group of researchers launched the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a technique for integrating non-financial and financial performance actions. In this model, it was suggested that the performance of a business unit may be gauged from four angles: customer-related, financial, learning and growth, and internal business processes. Financial actions are traditionally compared between successive performance periods to recognize if there has been an improvement or decline. The fundamental assumption that the preceding period is a suitable comparator can guide to the determination of issues and inefficiencies. The Xerox company introduced the idea of benchmarking to overcome this problem and it was made a popular tool for organisational improvement. The concept of benchmarking requires identification of a “best practice” either externally or internally and subsequently analyzing as to how it can be utilized for improving the future and present performance.
The respondents were asked to grade the importance and usage of the five measures: EVAw; financial measures; benchmarks; and non-financial measures pertaining to operations and innovation, to customers, and to employees respectively. The result is shown in Panel C of Table III.
As very much expected, majority of the respondents (78 %) have rated the financial measures as “important” and almost the same number reported that these measures were used regularly. The survey revealed that non-financial measures associated to operations and innovation and to customers are unmistakably very dominant with 87 % (42 % þ 45 % respectively) and 77% rated them as “moderately important”. The domination of non-financial performance measures related customer validates the findings of researchers. It also confirms the importance of this performance in supply chain management for companies in the food sector. The differentiation / innovation in product validates the results of several other researchers. On the other hand, a considerable minority of companies (38 % for both measures categories) show such measures as “rarely” or “never”.
The possible explanation to this exciting difference in results is that non-financial performance evaluation is regular and significant for some respondents while it is simply irregular “tokenism” for others. The absence of measures related to the employee is even further noticeable, with 41 % of the respondents responding with “never”. It was reported that 72 % of food companies in UK did not measure satisfaction of its employees. This result is not contradictory to the casualisation of the workforce in the food industry as highlighted by some researchers. The results obtained by us also indicate that neither benchmarking nor EVAw have yet become popular even though the Self-Assessment and Benchmarking Initiative have been taken as explained in Section 2 above.
4.4 Information for decision making
Out of the declared management accounting objectives in the 1970s, one was to make available related information for decision making internally. For routine or interim decisions, the management accountants can utilize various well known techniques like product analysis of profitability, analysis of cost-volume-profit (CVP), analysis of customer profitability, and models for stock control. For long term capital investment decisions, the management accountants can provide accounting rates for the payback and return periods in addition to more complex reports based on discounted cash flow. Moreover, information related to non-financial aspects, like output quality, lead-times and flexibility of processes could influence projects of capital investment. Lastly, various risk analysis methods like computer simulation, probability analyses and “what if” analysis may also be used.

Panel D shows the summary of the answers to questions regarding decision making. A huge number of companies conduct a ‘often’ or ‘very often’ customer profitability or a product profitability analysis i.e. 69% and 51% respectively. Answerers rated this analsysi as ‘important’ i.e. 72% and 59% respectively. A CVP analysis proposed for the food industry was seen as ‘moderately important’ or ‘important’ by 86% of the responders and astonishingly 44% chose ‘often’ to show that these analyses are frequently used. Stock control models are widely ‘sometime used’ or ‘moderately important’.

Decisions relating to capital investments include conventional accounting practices which are used by 44% of the responders. These accounting practices such as payback period and accounting rate of return are used to assess some of the main capital projects whereas the figure for discounted cash flow models including net present value and internal rate of return is 19%. The obvious disbelief of advanced investment appraisal is supported by the fact that 42% of the respondents said that calculating the cost of capital was ‘not important’. The low importance associated with the financial performance of a company as compared to companies in different industries was found in accordance to what many experts had said. Moreover, only 82% of the responders find non-financial factors associated to capital projects as ‘important’ or ‘moderately important’ and such factors are reported and documented ‘often’ or ‘very often’ by only 33% of the companies. The most famous technique for assessing the risky projects is the ‘what if’ analysis however it is ‘often’ or ‘very often’ used by only 22% of the responders.

4.5 Strategic analysis

Typical management accounting systems have faced criticism because their reporting focus is the internal process and they do not give very little or no attention to the external factors and also does not consider the impact of the decisions of the competitors’ on their cost structures and current and future processes of the company. Strategic management accounting is now synonymously used with the external oriented approach but there is no theoretical framework that comprises strategic management accounting. Here, in this study, we will look at the characteristics of strategic management accounting. They are: a relation between the customers and external environment; focus on the competitors; and a forward-looking, long term orientation. Respondents were given eight strategic management practices and were required to answer with respect to its importance and their usage. Results are shown in Panel E of Table III.


43% of the companies ‘often’ or ‘very often’ do long term forecasting. This followed in frequency by the strengths and weaknesses’ analysis of the competitors i.e. 21% and competitive position’s analysis i.e. 33%. It can be said that lateral competitive analysis and traditional long term planning is undertaken by the food companies than in related stakeholder, life cycle, industry or analysis of the value chain. Scoring high of Importance, usage frequency, competitive position analysis of the value chain and assessment the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses point out that the application of this practice is extensive and may become more frequent. These results are not astonishing keeping in mind the improved chain cooperation particularly in the food industry.

4.6 Communication of management accounting information

The major challenges that confront the reporting timing of management accounting are: providing timely and perfect online information to the shop floor; increasing aptness of data reporting and altering the system of information gathering to make it instantaneous and in line with the other systems. It was found out in a number of food industry interviews that even though the accountants were responding quickly to the informational marketing requests, this was not the case in the non-routine information condition.


The management accountants in order to investigate these issues were required to evaluate their business’ importance at 4 levels of ease of use of internal reports. Table II results show how ‘important’ it is to provide thorough information of management accounting on a usual, systematic and short term basis as answered by 91% of the respondents. 86% of the responders said that the capability to provide ‘detailed information immediately on request’ was ‘important’ or ‘moderately important’, however the ‘I rating’ has decreased to 37% from 91%. Only 11% rated instant updating and the stipulation of real-time information as ‘important’. Even though the real-time reporting is quite uncommon, it is well known that the organizations have made changes to modify their information dispersion channels; 48% of the responders answered that is ‘important’ that the detailed management accounting information should be reported to the line manager directly. This response verifies the unreliable evidence of management accounting’s widespread ownership which by accounting experts is becoming increasingly less subject to ‘analysis and fltering.’