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This paper aims to show how our understanding of the effects of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on management accounting are influenced through “nudging” by researchers in their preamble before interviews begin.

There were two groups of comparable respondents. Each group received a different preamble to the same questions. The differences in group responses were analyzed.

When the impact of ERP implementation on the physical, transactional and information flows within the firm were nudged, the responses focused on how the chart of accounts had to be expanded to account for the additional data introduced by transaction processing. When the IT and ERP system knowledge and skills were nudged, the responses tended to emphasize analyses or the use of new information through the use of drill down functionality. This research provides new insights and contributions to understanding how nudging affects or directs respondent assessments of the impact of ERP systems on management accounting.

The research is limited by the relatively small samples and by the fact that these were different research projects.

Nudging has an obvious impact on research that should not be ignored.

Unintentional nudging should be considered with all research projects.

This paper makes explicit that nudging occurs in research whether intentional or unintentional.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how COVID-19 has affected the author’s management accounting teaching and research.

This paper is a reflection essay on management accounting.

The author realized that the textbooks, because of the lack of integration among management accounting techniques, do not prepare the students with the ability to make the quick changes required by COVID-19. The author expects that they will have to introduce integration to the management accounting textbooks and courses. Qualitative research will be helpful in identifying the management accounting techniques now integrated in practice. The author further expects the beneficial practices that were learned from online and remote teaching during the pandemic will be with them into the future.

This paper is limited as it is a personal reflection.

COVID-19 has required organizations be increasingly agile, particularly in the use of budgets and other management accounting techniques.

Opportunities are identified for improving the teaching and use of management accounting, especially regarding strategy and budgeting.

The extreme nature of pandemics intensifies the observations of the functioning of disciplines such as management accounting. Everyone learns from extreme experiences.

This paper aims to understand how the tasks of management accountants (MA) are affected by data analytics (DA).

A qualitative methodology was deemed most appropriate given the exploratory nature of the research questions (RQ). In total, 10 open-ended interview questions were used to gather the evidence. The case study design was inductive, yielding rich data from 29 respondents representing 20 different organizations.

Answers were provided to three interrelated RQs about the use of DA by MA, namely, what are their responsibilities? How does this work support inference, prediction and assurance? And how can they ensure insights from DA can be turned into decisions that add value? The findings also indicate that MA have not taken charge of the data analytic opportunities and at present, their activities remain largely focused on descriptive and financial data analysis rather than more complex activities using external data, operational data and modeling.

The limitation of this research is that it is based on a relatively small, geographically restricted sample (20 organizations in south-central Canada) as well by interviews that were only 60 min in duration.

Provides a base for the existing practice of management accounting with DA.

Explains the social relationship between DA and management accounting.

Documented and explained the extent of actual DA use by MA.

With no conceptual basis, financial goals can only be haphazardly incorporated into the planning process. A recent survey of 60 large Canadian companies points out that there is little understanding of the “dynamics and interdependencies” for reconciling goals and for making them more congruent with the goals of most managers. Indeed, in 1977 the Journal of Finance stated that a “fully integrated theory on corporate financial decisions has not yet been developed” — a statement which has to date gone unchallenged.

The present study seeks to refine the findings and theory on the impact that enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations have had on management accounting. Specifically, the purposes of this paper are to analyze the changes that ERP implementations have had on performance measures, management accounting techniques, activities of management accountants, and the use of non‐financial information.

The controllers of 13 major Canadian firms were interviewed as part of a multiple case study. Open‐ended questions were used.

The research assesses how ERP implementations through more computational power, relational databases, standardized state‐of‐the‐art transaction processing, and extended chart of accounts change management accounting. The enhanced computing power and overall standardization lead to more accurate and timely information. The standardized transaction processing and the charts of accounts have increased the availability of information from units and products previously deficient of information, and ensured a consistency of information across all units and products. The standardization and automation of transaction processing has reduced the amount of data entry done by management accountants. Performance measures have been standardized, expanded to more units and products, increased in accuracy, and produced more quickly. Management accounting techniques have become more efficient and effective. Management accountants are less involved with data entry, thus allowing them to undertake more analyses. Non‐financial information is more extensive.

This research provides new insights or contributions to understanding how ERP systems impact management accounting and management accountants. First, ERP system implementations affect management accounting. Second, the three part lens or conceptual framework – physical, transactional, and information – explicates the impact of ERP systems on management accounting and management accountants. Third, understanding the impact is further guided by recognizing the expanded chart of accounts inherent with ERP systems.

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.

A case study was used with comprehensive archival evidence coming mainly from the Hudson's Bay Company Archives (HBCA) and the HBC's private archive for 1670‐1970 and from interviews with retired and existing senior managers at the HBC for 1970‐2005.

The findings indicated that Burns and Scapens' framework was helpful. Institutions did prevent management accounting changes, even when seriously needed. Under certain conditions, institutions do not resist management accounting changes. Six suggestions are provided for extending and refining Burns and Scapens framework.

Although the 325 years of evidence was uniquely rich, it was still a case study of a single firm.

Management accounting is slow to change because of institutions.

Management accounting change is very much path‐dependent. Changes occur in management accounting because of major external changes such as competition and modernization. Also, management accounting changes come from the introduction of taken‐for‐granted external techniques such as budgeting, capital budgeting, and planning.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the deinstitutionalization of management accounting is better described using structuration theory (techniques are reproduced until replaced) or sedimentation (layering of a new technique upon an earlier technique).

An archival study of management accounting at the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) between 1670 and 2005.

With the delegitimation of management accounting at the HBC, both structuration and sedimentation processes occurred. However, delegitimation did not mean all of the techniques within a set were eliminated. Several management accounting techniques often continued from one set to another (e.g. indents, outfits, standards of trade) reflecting continued reproduction of existing practices. Sometimes new techniques were added to allegedly make the set more effective, but these overlays did not always replace the former.

The usual limitations of single firm study generalizations.

The research provides practitioners with insights into how management accounting practices change. With change some aspects of management accounting will remain the same.

This case study is based upon a unique primary archival. The HBC has made its accounting and other corporate records available to the public for the period 1670‐1970. The archival data set is supplemented by access to some of the Company's private (and more recent) corporate records, plus interviews with retired and existing senior managers about these changes to their management accounting techniques, up to 2005. Therefore, this study is based upon an extensive, unique and robust longitudinal data set.

Sir George Simpson, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1821 to his death in 1860, was the subject of numerous biographical works that described various facets of the man including his managerial abilities, literary prowess, physical stamina, abundant energy, extensive art collection and ethnological specimens. Two related aspects of his outstanding management style have been overlooked: the genesis of his management style and where it can be placed in the evolution of management practices during the 19th century.

Primary data from the Hudson's Bay Company archives plus secondary sources.

Simpson's management abilities came from his grammar school education and his apprenticeship to a counting house. More importantly, it can be attributed to his association with his mentor Andrew Wedderburn, his dedication to the HBC, and his high level of physical and intellectual energy. His information intensive management style was also a significant precursor to systematic management, which occurred later in the 19th century.

Future research should examine other examples of the evolution of management during the 19th century, particularly the transition from sub‐unit accountability to systematic management.

The paper emphasizes the importance of managers in making management systems work.

The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fur trade in the United States and Canada that sent hundreds of thousands of furs to Europe and China relied on “Cheap Labor” and the abundance of “Cheap Raw Materials,” that is to say, living beings such as sea otter, land otter, beaver, and seals. Native American labor, procured by and paid through trade goods in a kind of “putting out” piece-rate system, was cheap partially because their lives were maintained/reproduced through traditional agricultural or hunting and gathering economies. The commodification of fur-bearing animals led to their sharp decline and in some cases near extinction. Cheap labor and cheap living beings interacted dynamically in unison to enable capital accumulation under mercantile capitalism. At the very end of the nineteenth century, fur farming as a petty capitalist enterprise became common in Canada and the United States, and more recently has expanded greatly in China.