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Organizations desire more accurate cost systems as competition increases, and consequently increase cost system complexity, as cost systems with greater complexity are potentially more accurate than simpler systems. However, even complex systems are prone to impactful inaccuracies, for example, due to design or calculation issues, that can adversely affect decision-making and firm performance. The authors investigate whether and the extent to which cost system complexity and competition decrease managers’ attribution of cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system. The authors find greater cost system complexity (by inspiring greater confidence in the cost system) and higher competition (by providing a plausible external cause) decrease managers’ attribution of cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system. With both greater cost system complexity and higher competition, managers observing signals of material cost inaccuracies are potentially the least likely to attribute cost-system-driven adverse firm effects to the cost system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of negative performance feedback on firms' cost behaviors including productive behaviors (i.e. R&D behaviors) and non-productive behaviors (i.e. selling behaviors and business entertainment behaviors), as well as to investigate the roles of ownership types and marketization.

A sample of Chinese manufacturing firms from 2007 to 2018 is analyzed employing multiple regression models.

The results show that negative performance feedback has a positive but not significant effect on R&D behaviors, while its effect on selling behaviors is significantly positive. Meanwhile, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between negative performance feedback and business entertainment behaviors. Furthermore, when facing a performance dilemma, state-owned enterprises tend to adjust selling behaviors, while nonstate-owned enterprises pay more attention to business entertainment behaviors. In terms of marketization, the firms in high-marketization regions are more likely to adjust their R&D, selling and business entertainment behaviors, while the firms in low-marketization regions are difficult to adjust these cost behaviors.

This study explores the role of negative performance feedback in firms' cost behaviors and provides empirical evidence about the differentiated influences regarding ownership types and marketization.

Integrating insights from existing studies and introducing the behavioral theory of the firm and prospect theory, this study proposes a more inclusive framework that addresses the impacts of negative performance feedback on firms' cost behaviors. This paper deepens the understanding of firms' decision behaviors in the dilemma of performance shortfall.

This study addresses the prevailing complexities and limitations in estimating and managing construction overhead costs (COCs) in the existing literature, with the purpose of enhancing the accuracy of cost performance indicators in construction project management.

An innovative approach is proposed, employing the activity-based costing (ABC) accounting method combined with building information modelling (BIM) to assign real overhead costs to project activities. This study, distinguished by its incorporation of a real case study, focuses on an administrative building with a four-story concrete structure. It establishes an automated method for evaluating project cost performance through the detailed analysis of earned value management (EVM) cost indicators derived from ABC results and BIM data.

The results show that the ABC integration improves the accuracy of cost performance indicators by over 9%, revealing the project's true cost index for the first time and demonstrating the substantial value of the approach in construction engineering and management.

The current study highlights a notable gap in the existing literature, addressing the challenges in onsite overhead cost estimation and offering a solution that incorporates the state-of-the-art techniques.

The proposed method has significant implications for project managers and practitioners, enabling better-informed decisions based on precise cost data, ultimately leading to enhanced project outcomes.

This research uniquely combines ABC and BIM, presenting a pioneering solution for the accurate estimation and management of COCs in construction projects, adding significant value to the current body of knowledge in this field.

This study aims to compare the expectations of non-collaborating professionals and the actual opinions of collaborating professionals regarding success factors of horizontal logistics collaboration (HLC) and investigates the reasons behind the observed differences.

This study employs a mixed-method approach. First, a survey is conducted to collect data from two samples representing collaborating and non-collaborating industry professionals. Second, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to compare the measurement models from the two samples and identify their similarities and differences. Third, a Delphi study is conducted to identify factors limiting collaborative behavior.

The results show that collaborating professionals exhibit lower levels of joint relationship efforts and trust than expected. This is primarily due to inadequate information sharing, poor collaboration formalization and the absence of a clear costs and benefits allocation mechanism.

The findings indicate that, in HLC, managers should give high importance to facilitating timely and complete information exchange, putting in place an acceptable costs/benefits allocation mechanism, formalizing the collaboration and prioritizing integrity over competency when selecting partners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that shows the existence of differences between industry professionals' pre-collaboration expectations and the actual experiences in HLC. This is also the first study that points to the exact HLC enablers that fail in practice and the barriers responsible for it.

For many years, universities have been confronted with the rise of a managerial logic, in line with the new public management movement. They have been encouraged to implement new accounting tools such as cost calculations. Literature shows mixed results regarding the institutionalization of such tools, and the logic they try to support. In most studies, the agency of actors is examined to explain the institutionalization of accounting tools and only few studies consider the specific characteristics of these accounting tools to understand this process. To enrich the literature on institutionalization, this article examines how the affordances of costing tools affect the institutionalization of these tools and the institutionalization of new logics in pluralistic organizations such as universities.

The data were collected at a French university which is considered as an example of successful institutionalization of the tool and is cited as a model to follow. The data include a four-month participant observation and 18 interviews. Access to internal and external documents was also available. The analysis of the data is based on a framework proposed by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), which draws on the concept of affordance of tools, to investigate how the possibilities and constraints of costing tools shape the selection, application and outcomes of cost calculations.

The results show that the affordances of cost calculations facilitate the institutionalization of a new logic and its coexistence with previous logics. Technical affordances are mobilized by actors aiming to bring in a new logic without directly confronting the old ones. Role affordances also play a major role in the institutionalization by facilitating the adhesion of the actors through multiple applications of the tool. Finally, value-based affordances reinforce the institutionalization of a managerial logic by emphasizing the values shared with the other logics and thus facilitating the coexistence of the three logics at stake in the university.

This research provides three main contributions. First, it contributes to the literature on the institutionalization of accounting tools. It shows the relevance of the concept of affordance (Leonardi and Vaast, 2017) to unpack the characteristics of accounting tools (including the constraints and the possibilities they offer) and to achieve a better understanding of the institutionalization of accounting tools. Second, this paper contributes to the literature dealing with the role of accounting tools in the institutionalization of logics. The results suggest that the institutionalization of tools and the institutionalization of logics are two different phenomena that move at different speeds. However, these phenomena interact: the institutionalization of accounting tools can facilitate the coexistence of different logics in pluralistic organizations. Third, this paper contributes to the literature on affordances. The data reveal several types of affordances for accounting tools: technical affordances that refer to the technical possibilities to shape and tweak the tool; role affordances that refer to the various roles and purposes that the tool can fulfill and value-based affordances that refer to the plasticity of the values and beliefs that the tool can convey. The study shows that each type of affordance is prevalent at a different time of the process of institutionalization and that the combination of these affordances contributes to the institutionalization of the tool and of new logics.

This classroom activity helps students tie together the concepts of absorption costing for inventory, selling and administrative (SA) cost calculations, and sales price decisions. It shows students how all costs fit together and are used to make business and pricing decisions, synthesizing discrete sections of most managerial or cost accounting books into a complete process. The activity is designed to be run in one 75-minute class session using an Excel template that allows students to focus on business decisions and less on the mechanics of completing calculations. The seven segments of the activity have students calculate target cost, allocate items of overhead into production and service departments, calculate absorption product cost, allocate SA to the production departments, determine the full cost, evaluate product viability, and calculate target price. At the end of the activity, students better understand how all these cost items fit together in a manufacturing setting.

Digital data acquisition is crucial for operations in the digital transformation era. Reality capture (RC) has made an immeasurable contribution to various fields, especially in the built environment. This paper aims to review RC applications, potentials, limitations and the extent to which RC can be adopted for cost monitoring of construction projects.

A mixed-method approach, using Bibliometric analysis and the PRISMA framework, was used to review and analyse 112 peer-reviewed journal articles from the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

The study reveals RC has been applied in various areas in the built environment, but health and safety, cost and labour productivity monitoring have received little or no attention. It is proposed that RC can significantly support cost monitoring owing to its ability to acquire accurate and quick digital as-built 3D point cloud data, which contains rich measurement points for the valuation of work done.

The study’s conclusions are based only on the Scopus and Web of Science data sets. Only English language documents were approved, whereas others may be in other languages. The research is a non-validation of findings using empirical data to confirm the data obtained from RC literature.

This paper highlights the importance of RC for cost monitoring in construction projects, filling knowledge gaps and enhancing project outcomes.

The implementation of RC in the era of the digital revolution has the potential to improve project delivery around the world today. Every project’s success is largely determined by the availability of precise and detailed digital data. RC applications have pushed for more sustainable design, construction and operations in the built environment.

The study has given research trends on the extent of RC applications, potentials, limitations and future directions.

In this paper, the editors argue that management accounting research should seek to expand to examine the broader ecosystem of information sources that influence organizational performance. The editors introduce the concept of the management accounting ecosystem as a means of linking discrete management accounting research topics to the broader environment in which organizations operate. By doing this, a stronger connection can be established between management accounting research and management accounting practice. The goal is to encourage more cross-disciplinary research that provides a better understanding of the ecosystem in which management accounting practitioners operate. The editors encourage researchers to submit studies to “Advances in Management Accounting” that evaluate the effectiveness of new management accounting information sources and the techniques used to analyze them in the broader ecosystem to enhance the effectiveness of management accounting practices. By exploring the wider information sources within the management accounting ecosystem, future management accounting research can become more innovative and better address the decision-making needs of organizational members.

This paper aims to map the research on management accounting (MA), clarifying its current role and identifying gaps and opportunities for future research.

In this paper, 784 papers were reviewed for the 1958–2019 period, published in 220 scientific journals indexed on Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded [SCI-EXPANDED] and Social Sciences Citation Index [SSCI]). In the process, content analysis, regression analysis and bibliometric analysis were used.

The most relevant journals, authors and topics in MA, along with trends and patterns in the literature, were identified. Seven clusters that represent the overall thematic research structure of the MA field were also identified. This study shows that MA is becoming a multidimensional management decision-support instrument covering all organizational dimensions. As such, the research on MA is following the recent concerns with the sustainable development and digitalization of business processes.

Based on the findings of this research study, theoretical and practical implications for MA researchers were provided. These findings could also be useful to industry practitioners to improve their knowledge of emerging trends in MA practices, strategies and concepts.

Based on bibliometric and content analysis, a framework that shows an organizational, market and social context for the evolution of MA over the past 60 years was provided. It highlights the dynamics of MA alignment with organizational and external environment changes. Future research opportunities and implications for researchers and practitioners were also identified.

The study aims to explain the process of management accounting practices and organizational change aspects in the public sector’s response to environmental pressures. Specifically, it discusses the interaction process between management accounting practices from one side and culture, leadership and decentralization from the other side.

This study adopts qualitative research approach and an interpretive case study. The study uses the triangulation method of data collection, including interviews, annual reports, documents and archival records. A theoretical lens informs it of the contextual/processual approach for interpreting interaction processes between management accounting and organizational change aspects, including culture, leadership and decentralization.

The findings confirm that a change in organizational culture has an important impact on accounting change, which has played a central role in the desire to initiate and accept such changes by the organizational members. Similarly, the new leadership style created a unique culture that was considered a solid platform to introduce new accounting systems by enhancing the trust between IT staff and management accountants and their trust in themselves to accept the change. The paper concludes that the relationships between the change aspects at the organizational level, and accounting practices at the inherent organizational and accounting levels are both recursive and two way, with the two concepts inextricably interwoven.

The study has some limitations as the data is limited to only a single country – more explanation for Jordanian Customs Organization quantitative understandings of governance improvement. The study has important implications for practitioners and customs officials by showing that different government regulations and customs reforms have varied influences on the public sector. These reforms have included most modifications to the accounting and organizational configurations. This study contributes to institutional theory development and refinement by exploring the interface between external influences and internal origins in the accounting change process.

This study uses a categorical association between organizational changes and accounting in the public sector as most prior studies have been conducted on the private sector due to competitive and technical pressures. It also contributes to organizational change and accounting literature by discussing the relationship between accounting from one side and culture and leadership from another side.