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The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into how management accountants can become relevant business partners out of respect for existing locally developed accounts of economic performance for decision-making.

The paper is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with local business actors, in this case, families from seven financially successful Danish dairy farms. The casework and the analysis have been informed by pragmatic constructivism.

The local business actors do not use the official accounting system for ongoing cost-management-related decision-making. Instead, they use several epistemic methods that include locally developed decision models, experiences, rules of thumb and intuition. The farmers use these vernacular accountings to compensate for the cost management illusion that the formal accounting system tends to create. What the study suggests is that when management accountants engage as business partners, they are likely to enter a space where accounting is already present.

This paper argues that local business actors practice epistemic methods where they develop and use vernacular accountings to support their managerial practice, also in the absence of a professional management accountant. These vernacular accountings may lead the local actors into an illusion because the vernacular accountings do not necessarily have an inherent economic logic and theoretical reliability. The role of the management accountant in such a setting is hence to understand, support and advance local epistemic methods. Becoming a business partner requires a combination of management accounting analytical skills and a sense of empathy and sensitivity regarding what is already at play and how this can become an object of discussion without violating the values of the other.

This study examines the association between the use of strategic management accounting (SMA) practices and competitive advantage and the moderating role of four aspects of organisational culture – teamwork orientation, outcome orientation, innovation orientation and attention to detail orientation – on this association. Online survey data were collected from 408 accountants in Australian business organisations, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. The results indicate a positive association between the use of SMA practices and competitive advantage with such an association positively moderated by one cultural dimension, teamwork orientation. Specifically, the findings indicate that the positive effect of SMA practices on competitive advantage is dependent upon the fit between the use of SMA practices and teamwork orientation with more (less) teamwork-oriented organisations exhibiting a stronger (weaker) association between the use of SMA practices and competitive advantage.

This study aims to explore how management accounting practices act as drivers of organizational change in situations of institutional complexity.

A case study was carried out in a small company with a strongly rooted social culture, which was acquired by a large conglomerate and underwent a process of strategic change as part of a new control logic. Based on this, the study analyzes the evolution of this change, with a particular focus on the efforts to construct the meaning of the performance through the inscription of objects from the cultural system to which it is attached and the “situated rationality” of the managers who are involved in its production.

The authors show how managers link their own concepts of performance to accounting practices. At the same time, the authors show how accounting practices unfold through representational gaps that their production generates.

This study acknowledges that bias may arise from reliance on retrospective views of past processes and events, gathered primarily through interviews, documentation and observations.

This study highlights that the way in which the performance concept is presented by accounting practices can have a constructive effect on the organization through the aspirations that its representations entail, thus having the potential to stimulate change in organizations.

This study contributes to the organizational literature by clarifying that accounting practices drive change by providing spaces for debates and questions that affect the way organizations understand and report their performance.

This study aims to explore the serendipitous discovery of integrated reporting (IR) by Alpha, an Italian small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Alpha piqued the curiosity when the authors discovered that it experimented with IR alongside other management accounting practices, such as the Balanced Scorecard. As the authors reflected on Alpha’s experiences, the authors had to opportunistically develop a new framework to understand the change that was taking place at Alpha fully. Thus, the authors developed the serendipitous drift framework. This study contributes to addressing the gap between management accounting research that sees change as a planned, ordered process versus research that sees it as an unmanageable drift.

The authors ground the research on a qualitative methodology based on a single case study. This methodology allows us to focus on understanding what has happened at Alpha to discover new themes and provide theoretical generalisations. The authors developed the framework using middle-range thinking and fleshed it out using empirical findings from the case study. Middle-range thinking implies going back and forth between the theory and the empirical material. Therefore, the authors develop the serendipitous drift framework from prior theories and use it to inform the empirical study. In turn, the empirical material collected in Alpha helps refine and flesh out the serendipitous drift framework. The framework explains how Alpha leveraged serendipity to steer change towards favourable outcomes for them.

The authors find that the search for change undertaken by Alpha’s managers was non-specific but purposeful. Their dispositions were sagacious enough to recognise the potential value found in management accounting practices, such as IR and the Balanced Scorecard. They chanced upon new and unforeseen practices through trial and error, iteration, internal engagement and networking.

Overall, the results indicate that Alpha’s managers shaped the disorder of management accounting changes, even though it followed unexpected, uncertain and messy paths. Indeed, appropriate informal controls can act as a frame of reference for choosing, adapting and implementing new management accounting practices to shape the disorder. Informal controls can both guide and bound the experimentation process towards desirable outcomes.

The authors contribute to management accounting change theory by developing a framework rooted in serendipity and drifting theories. The framework identifies how searching, sagacity and chance are essential for making positive, unexpected discoveries. Therefore, the authors provide novel insights on how and why IR and other management accounting practices are eventually translated and adopted in the case company. Moreover, the serendipitous drift framework has the potential to help managers frame cultural controls to actively seek opportunities for valuable serendipitous eureka moments through networking and experimentation.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the failed finance companies in Sri Lanka used fair value accounting practices as an opportunistic earnings management practice to launder money under weak corporate governance structures.

This paper uses a qualitative design under the philosophy of interpretivism. The case study research strategy is used inductively to investigate how fair value accounting had been used for money laundering.

The dishonest intention of major shareholders and board of directors had forced failed companies to misuse fair value accounting to manipulate performance and use them for personal benefits which were detrimental to the depositors and stability of the companies. The weak corporate governance structures which were developed because of regulatory forbearance were influential for manipulations. The concentrated ownership had reduced agency conflicts between shareholders and managers because major shareholders were the members of the board of directors. The appointed committees were not effective because of an inadequate number of independent directors with sufficient expertise. The reduced agency conflict between shareholders and managers has exaggerated the agency conflict with depositors. Therefore, it is recommended to dilute ownership concentration to establish good corporate governance structures and make stable institutions.

This study does not discuss the dishonest fair value accounting practices of all licensed finance companies because of the sensitivity of the matter for surviving companies.

This paper is an original work of the authors which discusses how fair value accounting practices had been used to launder money in failed finance companies in Sri Lanka as an emerging market context.

In this study, the authors investigate how institutions influence the adoption and implementation of a quality management practice (QMP) that was originally developed for Western developed countries but is being used in sub-Saharan African firms. The authors’ aim is to contribute to the literature on how local and broader institutions in sub-Saharan African firms impact the adoption of QMP (specifically ISO 9001:2015) and how the firm's situated rationalities shape the associated change in management accounting practices.

The authors applied the extended Burns and Scapens framework and employed a case study research approach. The authors collected empirical data through semi-structured interviews and secondary sources and used direct content analysis to analyse the data.

The authors’ findings suggest that although personal values and commitments to modernising the business are the main drivers of change, the continued dominance of traditional accounting logic restricts the necessary change in management accounting to support effective QMP implementation.

This study emphasises the importance of aligning institutional logics to fully realise the benefits of new strategies and identifies technical competencies, access to information and communication technology, and clarity about the role of management accounting in modernising management practices as critical success factors.

This study is original in that it provides insights into the impact of contextual factors in less developed countries on institutionalising QMP and management accounting change, demonstrating the importance of aligning management accounting change with proposed organisational strategies to fully realise their benefits.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between big data analytics, management accounting practices and corporate sustainability and, more precisely, the impact of the integration between big data analytics and management accounting on corporate sustainability performance development.

A qualitative case study approach is used in this study with multiple collecting data tools as in-depth interviews and observations, in addition to the content analysis used of the annual reports for the year 2021, of Almarai manufacturing corporate (one of the leaders of food and beverage manufacturing corporates in Saudi Arabia and other countries).

Research findings provide good insights about the significant impact of the effective integration between big data analytics and management accounting on corporate sustainability performance development, big data can assist management accounting to form corporate value-added strategies and activities.

The study is limitedly applied to one manufacturing corporate as a study case; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized. Thus, future research can examine the association between the current study variables with wide-scale applications and with different approaches and in different contexts to enrich the findings. Moreover, future research may focus on the integration between big data analytics and management accounting reports in the meta-verse environment to explore the benefits that corporates could gain from the features and capabilities of meta-verse technology.

There is a research gap regarding the impact of the integration between big data analytics and management accounting practices on corporate sustainability development, as most of the previous studies focused on two variables only of the current study variables; therefore, this study tries to investigate and give important insights about it.

This study aims to examine interactions between multiple management accounting routines in integrating a new management accounting routine into a routine cluster.

This study uses a theoretical framework based on routine clusters, including routine complementarities. The authors use an in-depth case study to explore interactions of a management accounting routine integrating into a routine cluster.

The findings show that complementarity between an existing and a new management accounting routine facilitates integration of the new routine into a routine cluster. They also suggest that when an ostensive understanding of a routine exists, the integration of the new management accounting routine is stronger, as the new and existing routines in the routine cluster are more closely intertwined.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is among the first to explore the role of intertwinedness of a new management accounting routine and existing organizational routines in integrating a new management accounting routine into a routine cluster. The findings imply that future management accounting research may need to distinguish between different forms of complementarity.

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.

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.