Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study designed to understand the extent of compliance with the goodwill accounting and reporting disclosure requirements under AASB 136 among a sample of goodwill intensive Australian firms over the first two years of their IFRS adoption. Design/methodology/approach – Examining the goodwill reporting practices adopted by…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether business strategy influences strategic management accounting (SMA) usage. Business strategy has been operationalized through strategic pattern, mission and positioning. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an internet questionnaire survey of Italian companies. Multiple regression analysis is used to test the im…
Purpose – Although many of the problems currently being faced in accounting education have also been expressed in educational debates within other professions such as medicine, law and architecture, changes in accounting education policy and practice have not been greatly influenced by comparative study of other professions. This paper aims to examine the potentiality of the comparative re…
Purpose – The 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/approach – This paper draws on a longitudinal case study initiated by the findings from a previous action …
Purpose – The literature on managing inter-organisational relationships typically suggests managing these relationships based on the formalised exchange of information across the organisational boundary with due respect to trust build-up through successive interactions. The purpose of this paper is to argue that a focus on trust reduces the flexibility and accessibility of resources and h…
Purpose – The paper seeks to explore the extent of involvement of management accounting in strategic inter-organizational decisions and control in the context of offshoring of services. Design/methodology/approach – For the present study, a multiple case study field research design was selected. A data-bank media search identified companies actually offshoring their services. In total, …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about Russian public sector accounting in times of change by exploring the emergence of a new way of accounting for Russian central government. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, accounting is viewed as a social and institutional practice. A frame of reference guided by three theoretical perspectives is elaborat…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to theorize the institutional pillars of management accounting function. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a comparative case study approach. Findings – Institutional pillars of management accounting are explored on the basis of two longitudinal case studies. Competitive/economic forces and three analytical elements of institutional …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is: to detail the importance of corporate governance to institutional investors; to describe the tension created by their desire to earn extra revenue from stock lending; and to outline the challenges to corporate governance presented by the subsequent lack of accounting for voting rights. Design/methodology/approach – Descriptive analysis, including …
Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to put forward a framework grounded in new institutional sociology (NIS) theory that examines the impact of national competition policy on the design and implementation of a balanced scorecard (BSC) in a government-owned electricity corporation in Australia. It examines the importance of the rational analytical deliberation of legitimacy as a …
Purpose – Two reasons are identified for studying the impact of capacity measurements on organizations. First, firms which make the best use of their resources can be expected to outperform their competitors. The second arises from the potential structuration effect of capacity metrics. Such an investigation makes capacity a visible, and hence an actionable, construct. This paper aims to …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine an effort by management of a private higher education institution in Indonesia to replace its informal, relationship-based performance system which relied on physical discourse – overseeing operational details that focus on physical accomplishment of tasks – and personal control by the school head, with a tight budgetary control system…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and critically evaluate the systems of accounting and accountability for the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Kenya. It suggests a new framework of accounting and accountability that places the goals and aspirations expressed in public discourse at the centre of accountability. Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical insight…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to document the types of and any changes in the budgeting and performance management practices of New Zealand primary educational organisations and explain why they occurred using an institutional theory framework. In doing so, it will provide an understanding of past budgeting and performance measurement and reporting practice, as well as consider t…
Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to merge two traditions in management accounting change – design theory and action research – to explain findings from a case study of introducing a cost leadership initiative. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is an example of action research in which design theory explains events related to the implementation of a strategic cos…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce and review papers incorporated into this special issue of the first biennial conference of the Global Accounting and Organisational Change. Design/methodology/approach – A textual analytical approach is adopted to review the selected papers. Findings – A variety of themes emerge from the subject papers, including institutionalisation…
Purpose – Relatively little research exists about the information used by owner/managers (O/Ms) in micro enterprises (less than 10 employees). The purpose of this paper is to explore the management accounting information (MAI) generated and used by O/Ms for planning, decision making and control in micro manufacturing enterprises in the Gaza Strip (GS). Design/methodology/approach – A gr…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce and review the papers contained in this special issue on accounting and organizational change in the public sector and reflects on their key themes and findings. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on general desk research and the papers in this special edition. Findings – This paper finds that there is a variety of valid …
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to trace the changes in accounting practice in UK hospitals, focussing on costing, funding and budgetary control, and to place more recent accounting changes in their historic context. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is largely chronological and draws from previous research by the author and other secondary sources, both of which are supple…
Purpose – This paper seeks to understand the role of financial accounting regulations in a less developed country in transition, Egypt. It explores the social, political as well as economic contexts that underlie the processes of setting the Egyptian Financial Accounting Regulations (EFAR) in a harmony with International Accounting Standards (IASs). Design/methodology/approach – The pap…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the accounting performance measurement (PM) change process in a Finnish city. Design/methodology/approach – Interpretive case study. Data consisted of 16 semi-structured interviews. Analysis was based on institutional theory, particularly on “new institutional sociology” (NIS) studies. Findings – Budgeting and accounting PM became…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the workings of the internal specifier/provider arrangement, a new organizational form that is not required by government mandate but has become common place in the Australian public sector. Design/methodology/approach – The case study empirics take place in a large local government water authority. Data were collected from…
Purpose – The paper’s aim is to research and discuss the issue of the lack of transparency in financial reporting and how companies take advantage of accounting rules in ways that inhibit transparency. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review was carried out to see what had been written and discussed. Various legal cases were studied as well as Securities and Exchange Commiss…
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the use of costing information in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was carried out of 40 Egyptian privately held firms in four sectors (pharmaceutical, foodstuff, chemical, and packing and wrapping industries). Findings – The paper finds that the use and sophistication of costing information in Egypt is limited. No advanced account…
Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the impacts of the new public management (NPM)-oriented management accounting on political control at the Malawian local government level. The objective is to investigate the extent to which NPM-based management accounting practices have increased managerial autonomy and reduced political control. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on …
Purpose – The paper aims to examine a detailed case study of enterprise resource planning (ERP) customization failure in an Egyptian state-owned company (AML) by drawing on new institutional sociology (NIS) and its extensions. It explains how ERP customization failure is shaped by the interplay between institutionalised accounting practices, conflicting institutions, power relations and ma…
Purpose – The objective of this case study is to evaluate the change process, under the old institutional economics (OIE) approach, that had occurred within the management-accounting system of Brazilian bank. The present study examines the efficacy of the change process in management accounting, from the perspective of system users, seven years after its beginning. Design/methodology/appr…
Purpose – This paper seeks to concern itself with the determination of the effect that external factors have on the design and implementation of management accounting systems in a developing economy which has in the last decade experienced fluctuating levels of environmental uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach – This is explained through the use of a case study involving interviews…
Purpose – This paper seeks to introduce, summarise, and reflect on the key themes and findings raised by the seven papers selected for this special issue devoted to management accounting in less developed countries (LDCs). Design/methodology/approach – The conclusions are drawn from desk research generally and the articles contained in this collection. Findings – This paper finds tha…
Purpose – To benchmark the degree to which companies in Slovenia, a country that has experienced success in its transition to a market economy, apply strategic management accounting (SMA) techniques. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data collected in Slovenia has been benchmarked to survey data collected in similarly sized Australian companies. Findings – For the Slovenian sample…
Purpose – The paper investigates the operation of the trust-formal control dynamic in collaborative supply relationships. Design/methodology/approach – A case study of an Australian metal manufacturer (IronBiz) and its collaborative supply relationships is conducted. Findings – Relationships between formal controls (comprising accounting controls and contracts) and trust are develope…
Purpose – Change in the New Zealand state education system during the 1980s brought about a transfer of responsibility for school financial management from the centre to the school level. The purpose of this paper is to report an investigation of how aspects of this devolved responsibility have been operationalised and managed in a secondary school setting. Design/methodology/approach –…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify brand management accounting as a further approach to accounting for brands and to suggest a number of possible measurement metrics it might incorporate. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is discursive in nature, developing a critique of existing approaches to accounting for brands before considering a number of attributes of a new…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the process of accounting change in Indonesian local government. It sets to explore how various reform drivers with different interests and preferences compete and cooperate in the process of governmental accounting reform policy formulation in a developing country context. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative …
Purpose – Aims to examine the four different management accounting systems or sets that existed at the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) during the 1670-2005 period with Burns and Scapens’ institution-based framework of management accounting change. Design/methodology/approach – A case study was used with comprehensive archival evidence coming mainly from the Hudson’s Bay Company Archive…
Purpose – This paper aims to explore how different motives for implementing activity based-costing may affect the implementation process. It focuses on the factors that affect different stages of the implementation process. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses case studies of two different business units of the same company which approached ABC implementation with different moti…
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate creativity within the context of a more regulated accounting functional area (audit and tax) and a less regulated non-accounting functional area (consulting). Accordingly, this research aims at developing insights into how current cultural assumptions may have to change, if professional challenges requiring more creative behaviours a…
Purpose – Over the past decades, a plethora of papers have been written describing organisations’ reaction to pressure on them to change their practices regarding the natural environment. These papers can broadly be classified into two groups, those research papers interested in organisations’ activities and strategies to deal with environmental issues, and those concerned with the ext…
Abstract: Management accounting change and the changing roles of management accountants have dominated both the professional and academic accounting literature in recent years. This paper aims to contribute to these debates by providing evidence from a sample of management accountants working in both dependent (group) and independent (non-group) organizations in the U.K. One thousand (qual…
Abstract: Purpose – The paper aims at understanding the potential role of management accounting during a public hospital organisational change within a developing country in transition, Egypt. esign/methodology/approach – The paper is based on in-depth interviews, an analysis of documents, and direct observations. It uses a framework informed by institutional theory together with Giddens’…
Abstract: This paper discusses how organisational transformation is situated between design and mobilisation of management control systems. Change occurs even after implementation and design can transform organisational action to the point where organisations may run wild. The procedures developed by the design are actors that over time can transform organisations radically, and this calls …
Abstract: This paper addresses an important but neglected issue – the nature of and evidence for success in management accounting. The case of activity-based costing/management (ABC/M) is used to explore how researchers have gathered evidence of this technique’s success. A variety of approaches have been adopted and all have shortcomings. The problems of obtaining reliable evidence of s…
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to theorise the recent changes to accounting practices in local government in the UK. The principal theory used is regulation theory, which incorporates aspects of hegemony theory and governance. Regulation theory attempts to explain major changes in national economic structures by examining underlying systems of capital accumulation, regulation and hegem…
Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the new standards on Sukuk which was issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institution (AAOIFI) as a result of the strong critics posed by Shaykh Taqi in the end of 2007 that 85 percent of Sukuk issuance were not in line with the teachings of Shariah. Design/methodology/approach – This study reviewed samples of Suku…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the need of Islamic Accounting Standards – a review of the literature – for Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). Design/methodology/approach – The basis of the paper was stakeholder theory to analyse the need of accounting standards and to design the conceptual framework as evidenced fromAccounting andAuditing Organization for Is…
Purpose – The aim of this research project is to examine the adoption rate of management accounting tools by businesses in the Gulf Co-operative Council (GCC) countries and attempts to determine if significant variances in the use of management accounting tools by GCC businesses are contingent on a companies’ ownership, legal structure, size or industry sector. The study covers a broad …
Purpose – This paper seeks to explore the reasons for the dominance of Western accounting and neglect of Islamic accounting in Islamic countries, using Jordan as a case study. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports the results of a series of interviews, using a semi-structured questionnaire, with senior members of the accounting regulatory regime in Jordan. The interview data a…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an extension of a previous study by the author into compliance by Islamic banks in Bahrain with accounting standards issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). Design/methodology/approach – A number of compliance indexes are constructed to better understand compliance by the sample ban…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the accounting treatment for mudarabah contract and its implications on the reliability and fairness of the financial statements. In addition, the paper also aims to explore the effect of provisions and reserves on profit allocation among unrestricted investment account holders (UIAHS). Design/methodology/approach – This study reviews th…
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is any difference in the management accounting systems (MAS) of conventional and Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – The paper was based on a survey of 45 conventional and IFIs listed on the Malaysian Central Bank’s web site. The respondents were the chief financial officers (C…