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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a substantial organization gradually builds a management accounting system from scratch, changing its accounting routines by learning processes. The paper uses the experiential learning theory and the concept of learning style to investigate the learning process during management accounting change. The study aims to expand the domain of management accounting change theory to emphasize the learning-related aspects that can constitute it.

The paper provides an interpretation of management accounting change based on the model of problem management proposed by Kolb (1983) and the theory of experiential learning (Kolb, 1976, 1984). The study is based on a 14-year longitudinal case study (1994‐2007). The case examined can be considered a theory illustration case. Data were obtained from a broad variety of sources including interviews, document analysis and adopting an interventionist approach during the redesign of the costing system.

The paper contributes to two important aspects of management accounting change. First, it becomes apparent that the costing information change was not a discrete event but a process of experience and learning conducted through several iterations of trial-and-error loops that extended over the years. Second, the findings reveal that the learning process can alter management accounting system design in a radical or incremental way according to the learning style of the people involved in the process of change.

Because of the adopted research approach, results could be extended only to other organizations presenting similar characteristics. Several further areas of research are suggested by the findings of this paper. In particular, it would be of interest to investigate the links between learning styles and communication and its effect on management accounting change.

The paper includes implications for the management of learning during management accounting change, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this process.

This paper is one response to the call for an interdisciplinary research approach to the management accounting change phenomena using a “method theory” taken from the discipline of management to provide an explanation of the change in management accounting. In respect of the previous literature, it provides two main contributions, namely, the proposal of a model useful both to interpret and manage learning processes; the effect of learning style on management accounting routines change.

This study aims to explore the calculations and valuations that unfold in everyday practices within social care settings. Specifically, the paper concerns the role of accounting in dealing with multiple calculable and non-calculable spaces within the case management process. The study sheds light on the multiplicity produced in constructing the client as an object through the calculations and valuations embedded in the costing and caring practices in social work.

This is a qualitative case study in a Swedish social care organisation, with a specific focus on the calculations and valuations within the case management process. The data have been gathered from 20 interviews with social workers, team leaders, managers and a management accountant, along with more than 36 h of on-site observations and internal organisational documents, including policy documents, guidelines and procedural lists.

The case management process involves interconnected practices in constructing the client as an object. While monetary calculations and those associated with worth are embedded in costing and caring practices, they interact and proliferate in various ways. Three elements are found: transforming service units into centres of calculation, constructing the accounts of calculation and establishing the cost-value calculations. Calculations and valuations are actuated in these elements in describing the need, matching the case with the unit and caseworker and deciding on the measure. The objectification of the client entails the construction of accounts, for example, ongoing qualifications, categorisations and groupings of units, juridical frameworks, case types, needs and measures. As an object multiple, the client becomes different objects at different stages, challenging the establishment accounts, and thus producing a range of calculations and valuations. Such diversity in calculations concomitantly produces more calculations to represent the present and absent multiple facets of the client, resulting in a multiplicity of costing and caring.

The study might flag up for practitioners the possible risks and unintended consequences of depending too much on fixed guidelines and (performance) indicators since social work involves object multiples, which are always in diversity and changeable in situ. Considering the multiple dimensions within the specific contexts could thus be helpful to mitigate such risks in the evaluation of social care processes and the design of (performance) metrics.

This study contributes to the literature on accountingisation by extending the concept as a part of ongoing organisational practices, materialised within the calculations of money and worth in everyday social care. Besides demonstrating their reconsolidation, this study shows a multiplicity of costing and caring practices depending on the way the client is constructed, resulting in the proliferation of accounting(s) and ultimately accountingisation of social work.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the gap between management accounting professional’s role and the societal expectations of the management accounting professionals in Sri Lanka.

A quantitative research approach was adopted to identify the statistical gap of the management accountant’s role and society’s expectations. Four business sectors were selected from Colombo Stock Exchange as of 31 December 2018. Sample consisted of 160 entities; 480 questionnaires were distributed among three stakeholders (financial accountant/manager, management accountant and human resource manager). Out of the 228 responses received, only 171 responses were usable. Exhibiting an overall response rate of 35.6 per cent.

The role expectation of management accountants varies significantly across the selected business sectors in Sri Lanka. There is an increasing demand for contemporary management accounting skills in Sri Lanka.

The insights of this study would be of use to policy makers and policy implementers to examine and develop remedial measures to enhance the creditability and transparency of the management accounting profession in Sri Lanka. Academic and professional educational providers can identify future trends and necessary skills of management accounting to improve management accounting curriculum.

The evidence from this study contributes to the literature of societal importance of management accounting from a Sri Lankan perspective.