Key emerging Issues in

Management Accounting
Research
By
Dr. Latifa Mbelwa
MANAGEMENT CONTROL

• Budgeting: -a traditional management accounting topic

• As tool, as process

• “What are the determinants of effective planning and forecasting in Oil and Gas Sector?”
• “What/How are the roles of IT & decision-support systems in improving planning & forecasting in Oil
and Gas Sector?”

• ‘How and what determines the use of accounting information in the public sector budgetary decision-
making process for internal budget efficiency and external financial legitimacy and to what extent?’
• http://41.86.178.5:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/5933

• Do budget institutions play a role in explaining why government effectiveness is higher in some
advanced countries than in others?
 Performance measurement and evaluation
• Benchmarking
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280167712_Benchmarking_and_Management_Accounting_A_Framework_fo
r_Research
• Consequences for organisational behaviour and performance Incentive systems
• How budgetary performance measurement practices influence the use of accounting information in Tanzanian LGAs
budgetary decision making process
• https://journals.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/bmr/article/view/457
• A Review of the Effects of Financial Incentives on Performance in Laboratory Tasks: Implications for Management
Accounting: Sarah E. Bonner; Reid Hastie; Geoffrey B. Sprinkle; S. Mark Young Journal of Management Accounting
Research (2000) 12 (1): 19–64. https://doi.org/10.2308/jmar.2000.12.1.19

• Performance measurement systems

• Is the balanced scorecard an appropriate tool for performance evaluation……..
• Aly, A.H. and Mansour, M.E. (2017), "Evaluating the sustainable performance of corporate boards: the balanced scorecard
approach", Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 167-195. https://doi.org/10.1108/MAJ-04-2016-1358
• Chen, S., Yang, C. and Shiau, J. (2006), "The application of balanced scorecard in the performance evaluation of higher
education", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 190-205. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780610647892
• Determinants of effective implementation of balanced scorecard in the performance evaluation of Public University in
Tanzania: The case of University of Dar es Salaam

• Design/Development of performance measurement systems for specific industry, sector,….…. Ground theory….
 COST ACCOUNTING

• Activity-Based Costing
• What are determinants of successful ABC efforts?
• Is it possible to prescribe optimal complexity or describe the complexity of apparently successful ABC
systems?
• How leadership style and user participation in the design of an ABC system
• How the life cycle stage of an organisation may affect the decision to implement an ABC system.
• What the benefit to the firm when adopting ABC.
• Mainstream cost accounting research pointing out the growing criticism of the mainstream ABC
research for “neglecting issues of power and politics and for viewing ABC implementations as
something inherently positive” (p.154). In order to remedy this, they call on mainstream ABC
researchers to draw on the insights of the politically oriented literature.

• Interorganisational cost management (Coordination of organization/supply chain to reduce

cost)
• Interorganizational Cost Management in Australian Construction Alliance
• Seventh International Conference on Construction in the 21stCentury (CITC-VII) “Challenges in
Innovation, Integration and Collaboration in Construction & Engineering” December 19-21, 2013,
Bangkok, Thailand
INTELLECTUAL RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
• Accounting information systems
• What are determinants of effective AIS
• How AIS increase organization performance
• Chalu, H 2010, ‘Dimensions and determinants of accounting information systems
performance in Local Government Authorities in Tanzania’, PhD thesis, University of Dar
es Salaam
• Accounting Information Systems in Healthcare: A Review of the Literature:
(2017) Studies in health technology and informatics 238:193-196
• Organisational learning
• Knowledge management
• Management information presentation
Others Areas..
Literature review/analysis
• b) Research methods/methodologies
• c) Risk management
• Integrating Management accounting decision making with audit functions
towards risk management
• d) Strategic management accounting
• Thus, it lies at the interface between strategic management and accounting.
• Integrating management accounting and marketing (Roslender and Hart
2003).
• e) Sustainability and environmental management
 FRAMEWORK FOR RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
• the two broad classifications of research:
• empirical and nonempirical.

RESEARCH QUESTION Research Strategy Research Methods

 TABLE 2: EMPIRICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FRAMEWORK
Purpose Exp loratory   Descriptive Explanatory
  NON-EXPERIMENTAL
EXPERIMENTAL   Longitudinal     Cross-Sectional
Field-Based  
Quantitative Qualitative Quantitative
Field & non-

9
Research Approach / Strategy
field Based

Mixed Approaches / Strategies

Laboratory Experiment

Field Experiment

Grounded theory

Hermeneutics
Ethnography
Case study

Biography
Other
Theoretical perspective 

     
Epistemology

     
     
Positivism Interpretivism Positivism

Pragmatism?
     
Data analysis Ontology

Objectivism Constructionism Objectivism

 
     
  Thematic analysis  
Statistical   Statistical

Mixed
ethod

Analysis10 Content analysis Analysis

Research strategies in Management
accounting
Philosophical world view underpinning the design
of Research Methods in Management accounting
• an empirical quantitative approach (26/41) 63.4%
• an empirical qualitative design. (10/41) 24.4%
• mixed methods that combine empirical quantitative and qualitative
designs. (5/41)-12.2%
• Data are principally collected via surveys (13 articles),
• interviews (19 articles),
• archival databases (1 article) or
• a combination of interviews and questionnaires (4 articles).
Why…
• Management accounting is by its very nature associated with tools for
application in practice (Malmi and Granlund, 2009).

• mainly for theoretical and academic purposes, rather than research for
management accountants in the practical field.

• That is, such researchers’ questions primarily relate to the existence and
change of management accounting practices while disregarding
questions of how the techniques work and how they can be used to
solve practical problems
Why..
• the pressure in many universities to publish in high-ranked journals,
possibly regardless of whether or not the work has a clear relevance
to practice and society (Gendron, 2008; ter Bogt and Scapens, 2012).

• Such pressure may stimulate quantitative research based on existing

data-sets instead of the often time-consuming development of new
techniques for practice, which – for example – may require forms of
qualitative research in organizations
Theorization
Institutional Theory..
• Institutional theory aims to explain practice and to understand how
social order is produced and reproduced (Chua, 1986) in socially
constructed contexts.
• Hopwood & Miller (2004) point out that accounting could not and should not
be studied as an organisational practice in isolation from the wider social and
institutional context in which it operates.

Contingency Theory….
• Chua (1986) argued that mainstream paradigm concurs with the
contingency theory of management accounting and decision
usefulness concept by assuming the existence of rational goal setting.
Pressure to Qualitative approach or
Triangulation (Mixed Approach)………
• Management accounting research has moved from a predominant
focus on the technical to a predominant focus on the social.

• There has been a neglect of research which seeks to balance both

aspects and which therefore reflects the real-world nature of the
accounting discipline.
Pressure to Qualitative approach or
Triangulation (Mixed Approach)…

Valorization” of academic knowledge

• Means the dissemination and exploitation of research findings with
the aim of optimizing their value, strengthening their impact, and
making them available to citizens, organizations and society.
• Policy impact
“lost in or before translation”
• A knowledge production problem may arise if the research fails to focus on
problems that matter to practitioners “Lost before translation’’

The main questions in this respect are: do we as researchers address issues that
are of interest to practitioners and, more specifically, are we involved in designing
better management accounting tools or instruments that are particularly valued
in certain circumstances, or in designing modes for a successful implementation
of these tools?

• A different “knowledge transfer” problem may arise if researchers fail to

translate their research outcomes into formats that practitioners can use in
their work, resulting in a lack of practical relevance of their academic work,
which is labelled as “lost in translation”
References
• 1. ter Bogt, H. and van Helden, J. (2012), "The practical relevance of
management accounting research and the role of qualitative methods
therein: The debate continues",
Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp.
265-273. https://doi.org/10.1108/11766091211257470