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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.

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.

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.

This paper aims to discuss the interplay between strategic management accounting (SMA) and three organizational change configurations: strategy, structure and restructuring. This explication occurs within a context that is characterized by organization restructuring and corporate strategy changes within Jordan Customs Organization (JCO).

This paper uses a qualitative research approach and presents an interpretive case study of the JCO public sector organization. To collect data, it uses methodological triangulation, which includes interviews, historical and statistical analyses, documents and archival records. It is informed by the theoretical lens of configurational theory and strategic typologies to interpret the influences of organizational change configurations on SMA as it relates to the interplay of strategy, structure and restructuring.

The study findings agree with the related literature that SMA practices have developed management accounting from important operational transactions to gain a more strategic orientation through integrating customers, human resources, processes and financial departments. This paper concludes that specific SMA techniques have been used for strategizing by organizations in the public sector, providing a valuable counterpoint to the private sector adaptation that has dominated SMA research. This study finds that organizational restructuring has also contributed to decentralization and delegation, which has led to the distribution of tasks and specialization in accounting departments. It also concludes that SMA may facilitate or delay organizational change configurations in JCO. SMA can play a significant role in ensuring that the institution learns in response to organizational changes. On the contrary, this paper also concludes that organizational practices led to changes in SMA rules and routines.

A general criticism of case-study methods is that they lack rigor and provide little basis for generalization. First, case studies tend to be specific and individual, posing significant issues regarding generalization. Therefore, several comparative case studies involving various organizations should be conducted to ascertain if these practices have become more commonplace, especially in the public sector. Second, considering the nature of a government entity and the sensitivity of the information that required confidentiality, certain strategizing imperatives could not be directly examined, such as meetings between top management to make important decisions of strategic significance. This paper has important implications because it highlights the shortcomings of a supercilious singular relationship between strategic choices and the design of SMA practices.

This paper contributes to the growing literature by focusing on the relationship between SMA and three organizational change configurations: strategy, structure and restructuring. This paper is informed by the configuration theory perspective commonly used in accounting research. The empirical evidence in this study is provided in an SMA field, where empirical research is needed to be comparable with traditional accounting practices.

This paper aims to identify and discuss insights from the business model field on the creation and delivery of value to customers that provide new thinking in relation to the strategic management accounting field.

The customer emphases exhibited in parts of the extant strategic management accounting literature are highlighted and amplified using insights from the business model literature, including those relating to value propositions, customer value creation and delivery and meeting customers’ value expectations.

The paper demonstrates that in addition to providing valuable insights for accounting to management, an extended strategic management accounting concept enables accounting and reporting to customers, now identified as major stakeholders, in the context of integrated reporting.

Through its customer resonances, the paper affirms strategic management accounting’s practical utility for organisations seeking a strong position in highly competitive marketplaces, via the addition of a focus on accounting to customers.

The paper’s use of insights from the business model literature further reinforces the view that strategic management accounting potentially constitutes a pivotal development within both managerial and financial accounting and reporting.

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.

This paper aims to explore how researchers in general, and field researchers in particular, might respond to systems of governance of the researchers' activity in ways that can support rather than distort the quality of the research.

We draw upon literature on serendipity to develop a framework for engaging with the positive and negative potentials of systems of governance. We ground our analysis in discussion of participation in the field comprising two parts: first, the examination of our own activities and second, the accounts of participation found in two career-autobiographical interviews with emeritus professors of management accounting from Japan.

We highlight the potential for a productive tension between two contrasting perspectives that researchers might take on governance of their activity. A contractual perspective sees the value of targets and detailed pre-planning. A reflexive perspective sees the value of exploring the unexpected and considering many alternatives. We offer a framework for considering serendipity and the conditions that facilitate serendipity to help researchers maintain a productive tension between these perspectives.

We build upon retrospective accounts of two successful individuals whose careers evolved in a specific context. The intention is not to set out what might be generally achievable in a research career, nor to propose specific lines of action or planning in relation to specific systems of governance, since these vary across countries and over time. Rather, the paper draws on these materials to illuminate the more general challenge of preparing for serendipity in a way that goes beyond simple opportunism.

We analyse how researchers' mindfulness of serendipity and the nature of contexts that facilitate serendipity can encourage a productive tension between contractual and reflexive perspectives on governance of academic activity.

This research interrogates how the construction of narratives and accounting forecasts contributes to managing the emotional state of actors involved in reporting meetings by promoting discourses of hope in their organization's future, mitigating their anxiety. This study shows how narratives are built from multiple antenarratives and accounting forecasts, which restore and strengthen organizational actors' commitment to their organizations. This study contributes to a better understanding of the role played by narratives and accounting documents in mitigating organizational members' anxiety.

Over eight months, an interventionist research design method gave one of the authors the opportunity to record discussions held during reporting meetings in a business incubator. These recordings captured the production of narratives and forecasts in these meetings.

This study shows how the production of multiple antenarratives and accounting forecasts helps organizational actors who attend reporting meetings mitigate the anxiety triggered by disappointing performance figures and restore collective discourses full of hope for the organization's future. This case highlights how personal antenarratives and successive versions of accounting forecasts contribute to restoring a collective commitment to a failing organization.

This study refines current understanding of the under-explored links between accounting forecasts, narratives and anxiety management. The study provides insight into how accounting practices contribute to the production of narratives that successfully restore organizational members' commitment to working for a failing organization. The study also exemplifies the original insights gained from interventionist research protocols.

Process orientation is important for improving organizational performance. The process view is considered a key enabler of digital transformation, and thus management control systems (MCS) are expected to incorporate this view. However, the existing body of knowledge is fragmented, as different process approaches are often considered independently following a reductionist view of control practices. This paper aims to provide recommendations for further research as well as guidance for practice by a systematic review of the state of research of MC for process orientation. It is based on both a comprehensive view to MC using an MCS package approach and a comprehensive view of process orientation.

A systematic literature review addressing major types of process orientation approaches was performed by applying the comprehensive MC framework of Malmi and Brown. The results were synthesized and propositions were developed.

All components of the MC framework, as well as MCS packages, are highly relevant for process orientation. Propositions regarding configurations of MC for process orientation show directions for future research. However, comprehensive considerations of packages and of individual components, especially cultural controls, remain scarce in the literature.

To the best of the authors‘ knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive, structured overview of MC for process orientation, applying a nonreductionist view, based on an MCS Package approach, and consolidating the so far fragmented view of different process approaches.

To effectively integrate sustainability education into accounting, the needs of stakeholders such as educators, practitioners, regulators, students, and politicians must be considered. While existing literature reflects their separate perceptions, this study considers their influence on the integration process. Sustainability accounting can play a key role in supporting sustainability practices, which businesses need to be accountable for. This study focuses on how sustainability accounting education can improve corporate sustainability practices. However, most existing studies only consider one stakeholder group, and there is a gap in literature on sustainability accounting education in developing countries, particularly in the Middle East. This study informs future researchers about various research gaps in sustainability education.