تفکر مدیریتی

shareholders. Further, given that bonuses and career development are linked to the achievement of
such targets, these measures should provide further assurance that managers take actions in the best
interest of shareholders. Is this then an economic or psychological explanation? We think that
should not be the main concern. The concern is to develop an explanation that reflects reality,
whatever the reasons are: rational, emotional or something else.
Finally, and very importantly, there is no attention to conditions in which these propositions may
hold. We agree with Zimmerman (2001) that this theory is presented as if all firms should follow it.
This is why we regard it as of limited value for practitioners as it stands. Rigorous research should
now provide support for these arguments, or show where its limits lie. This would lead to
refinement or rejection of this theory. It may be obvious that it becomes rejected as a universal
truth, but do these steps hold under particular circumstances. Are all steps required to secure
success? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for assuming that VBM would lead to
better performance? That type of theory explication and refinement would be useful for practice as
well.
Zimmerman (2001) also makes a case against VBM being a theory by arguing that it does not make
predictions about when particular compensation schemes will be used or what firms are most likely
to adopt Activity Based Costing (ABC). We are not quite sure what Zimmerman is expecting from
a theory, but it seems that he is after a single theory that could explain everything. We may need
one theory to explain why firms adopt ABC, another theory to explain how overhead allocation is to
be done to enhance decision-making and yet another theory to explain which managerial steps are
required to enhance shareholder value. These all may be based on economics, or not, but even in
economics there are different theories to explain different phenomena.
Let us take another example from recent management accounting literature, ABC. What the
proponents said in the early normative writings is that poor performance may be explained by the
use of overly simplified cost accounting models. They went on to show how assignment of
overheads based on volume distorts product costs and leads to wrong decisions. Hence, they
explained the mechanism producing poor performance. A number of other things may explain poor
performance, but cost assignment issues are definitely something accounting researchers and
practitioners should be concerned about. They suggested assigning costs based on causality instead
of relying solely on volume. ABC may be thought of as a theory of cost accounting if we consider
that following certain cost assignment procedures accounting produces more useful information for
managerial decision-making. Improved decision-making is assumed to lead to better performance.
Hence, theory of ABC, or more broadly, theory of cost accounting explains how cost accounting
should be done, and why, to assure better performance. Even at its normative phase (which was
grounded on inductive case observations and/or consulting assignments), theory claimed that cost
assignment principles explicated as ABC are suitable for, and eliminate certain costing distortions
in, organizations with complex product mix, complex production process and large proportion of
overheads. Management accounting research has so far provided a number of valuable insights on
whether these limitations hold and what are the other possible limitations. Based on research, we
may today predict which firms are most likely to adopt ABC (certain cost assignment procedures)
as hoped for by Zimmerman (2001). Note also that based on current understanding these adoptions
are explained both by economic and institutional factors, institutional factors clearly not being an
issue in the early normative writings (see Malmi, 1999).
ABC may also be thought of as a tool, not a theory. A situation where ABC refers to both theory
and a certain set of practices is perhaps not desirable. Therefore it might be better to refer to the
theory of cost accounting, or theory of product costing, instead of theory of ABC. Theory of cost
accounting would explain how overheads are to be allocated in different circumstances to provide
best possible decision-support. It would also explain how overheads are to be allocated under
12
different circumstances given that resulting figures are used for achieving goal congruence or to
support signaling. ABC as a tool would be one method for accomplishing this. Plant wide
overheads, for example, would be an alternative.
To sum, we argue that an attempt to establish scientific identity for management accounting by
borrowing theories from other fields has led us to an identity crisis as a scientific discipline (Reiter
& Williams, 2002, argue more or less the same for financial accounting). There is no theory unique
to management accounting that is currently considered scientific by the international research
community. What we do not understand is why academic management accounting community
cannot be proud of practice oriented MA theories?17 These are something that distinguishes us from
economists on the one hand and from organization theorists on the other. These are something
practitioners can pursue in their attempts to improve their organizations. This is not to say that these
theories should be accepted and followed as such. The boundaries of these theories need to be
explored and new theories developed to meet the requirements that society sets for an applied
science like ours – to facilitate developments within society, including organizations.
4. What should be the core of MA theory
So far we have argued for management accounting theory that would be both useful in deriving
guidelines for practice and somehow unique to our field. What should be the core of such theory?
From the managerial perspective the answer is fairly straightforward. First, theory should consist of
assertions of what accounting and control methods we should apply, how, and in what
circumstances (see also Ittner & Larcker, 2002, p. 788). By accounting and control methods we do
not simply mean ABC, BSC, VBM or some other existing or emerging normative theories arguing
certain methods lead to better performance. Accounting and control methods may refer to some
commonly used categorizations such as reliance on financial performance measures, non-financial
measures or both; reliance on technocratic controls, socio-ideological controls or both; using simple
or sophisticated cost allocations, etc. How may refer to using these systems diagnostically,
interactively or both; using them for decision-making, control, or both; using them as supplements
or compliments to other methods, using them in the top of the hierarchy, in the bottom of the
hierarchy or in the whole hierarchy, etc. Circumstances include the objectives of management
accounting (enhance efficiency, environmental compliance, etc.), traditional contingency variables,
institutional forces, political issues, economic factors, individual factors, historical factors, etc. The
word “should” above, suggests that there is an assumed relationship to performance. Note that also
performance may be defined differently in different circumstances; different objectives require
different assessment of achievement and proper performance for government organizations is likely
to be different from that of private sector organizations.
In a sense, what we are claiming is that management accounting theory should be a set of
propositions of how to organize accounting and control practices under given circumstances. If we
take performance management and management control systems as an example, Otley (1999)
provides a general framework for how to conduct research in the area as well as what are the
questions we need to be able to answer based on our research and theorizing. The framework he
proposes contains five steps fairly similar to those six used by Ittner & Larcker (2001) to categorize
their literature review. He poses the questions in a managerial tone, which is akin to our argument
about the role of theory in management accounting. Otley’s five questions focus on organizational
objectives and the evaluation of their achievement; strategies, plans, processes and activities to
17 We do understand that management accounting has developed in line with financial accounting, dominated by
economic positivism and a small group of powerful US academics. The shift in the 1960’s into the “scientific mode”
explains where we stand at this point. But how long do we have to continue this scientific agenda just to prove to some
other academic fields that we really do science?
13
achieve those objectives as well as the assessment of the success of these means; the level of
performance in the previous two as well as the way to set targets on those; rewards or penalties that
are associated with the achievement of these targets and the information flows that enable learning
and adaptation. If we would be able to come up with a coherent set of propositions on how to
respond to each of these questions in a given situation, we would have a managerially useful, yet
disciplinary distinctive theory of how to use MCS to achieve superior performance. It is not clear
though whether Otley’s framework would work here as such (alone), as it tends to be somewhat
limited in explaining how the five questions interrelate. But, it could serve as a guideline to start
with and thereafter be developed to be more specific about the interrelations in various contexts.
Second, theory should consist of assertions of how we should change management accounting.
Why a change might be appropriate is already covered by the questions above, while here the focus
is on implementation. The word “should” refers also here to performance implications or success of
such change attempts. Various implementation success and failure related factors provide a good
basis for such theory, although there is a lot more work to be done to link these factors to each other
and various circumstances in which these change attempts may take place.
We suggest that management accounting researchers attempt to develop not a single theory of
management accounting, but a set of theories able to explain the form, use and change of
accounting and control methods in a range of circumstances. We would like to emphasize once
more that we do not mean that all management accounting researchers should subscribe to what we
say, or should shift to develop and test the type of management accounting theories we propose. But
we do think that in general, more emphasis should be devoted to this type of theorizing than is
currently taking place. Note also that we are not saying anything about the suitable theoretical
starting points towards these types of theories, nor do we have any particular view of preferred
methodologies as such. The main argument is simple: let us try to build management accounting
theories that are useful for accounting practice – preferably in the very form in which they are
published.
5. How research should proceed to produce better management accounting theories?
We can identify three main avenues to produce theories that are eventually useful in practice. The
first one is to alter some current practices when conducting traditional research based on “scientific”
theories, whether relying on positive tradition or when following alternative research approaches.
The second is to take normative theories as a starting point. The third is to rely more on the
interventionist research approaches.
5.1 Traditional research
We used part of the summary of contingency literature (Chenhall, 2003) above to illustrate how
current research falls short in providing meaningful advice to practice. We argued that there is a
need, for example, to be able to argue that as uncertainty increases, certain forms of MCS used in a
certain way would provide better decision-making support, or more likely lead to the achievement
of goal congruence. Such claims could be based on theories, which explain and predict the
outcomes of various forms and uses of management accounting in given circumstances. There is
nothing new in this argument. However, as results of this research paradigm have not been
compelling so far, we might need to re-think how we are approaching it.
There are three main suggestions, and a number of supportive ideas for traditional research to
progress. One of these we have raised already above. We argue that researchers should assume
objectives and objective functions, and build theories that support these objectives. Second, we
14
argue that we should relax the assumption that all firms optimize all the time. We think one source
of confusion between Zimmerman’s view and the one propagated here is due to different
assumptions of equilibrium. Positive accounting theory as presented by Watts and Zimmerman
(1986) is concerned with accounting choice. An assumption is that there is no need to study the link
between these choices and performance, as decision-makers are assumed to maximize their utility.
Hence, we should not expect to see any performance effects due to accounting choices if all firms
are optimizing all the time (cf. the potential problem of endogeneity in MA research, see e.g. Ittner
et al., 2002). Similar assumptions characterized early contingency literature assuming selection fit
(Gerdin & Greve, 2004). Research on management accounting provides evidence that this might not
be the case. It has been suggested that MA practices are adopted due to a number of reasons,
economic utility being but one (albeit important). It is not our task here to evaluate these different
claims and empirical support provided for them. Rather, we argue that if we relax one of the
fundamental assumptions Watts & Zimmerman make, research needs to incorporate the link
between accounting choice and performance to be complete and useful. This is exactly what many
researchers have done already and what both Ittner & Larcker (2002) and Luft & Shields (2003)
argue.
Third, we would also urge researchers to utilize more comprehensive managerial or control
systems, such as VBM discussed above or control systems packages (e.g. Otley, 1980, Fisher,
1995)18 as a unit of analysis. The underlying reason why a certain MCS element in isolation is
expected to have certain effects is probably not the most puzzling issue. Instead, why certain
combinations work together and others do not, in various circumstances, needs more attention. In
other words, we are suggesting that instead of trying to provide economic, psychological or some
other explanation for atomistic relationships e.g. between MCS elements and performance, we
could try to build up theories containing more complex MCS constructs and explanations of why
those combinations are likely to produce certain outcomes in certain circumstances. These
explanations may build on various established theories borrowed from related fields. However, as
our MA constructs get more complex, and hence realistic, these combinations of established
theories required to explain the outcomes are likely to become unique to management accounting.
It would be easy to argue that as there are an infinite number of factors and their relationships in a
complex world, this type of theory building is doomed to fail. If this is the conclusion, however, we
have two alternatives. The first one is to close most of our research programs and start looking for
better and more productive jobs. If we are not able to produce any meaningful advice to practice, or
if the best we can do is to provide further proof of “taken for granted” claims, it is our responsibility
towards the rest of society to argue that money spent on management accounting research would be
better spent on for example medical research, engineering sciences or on humanistic sciences
without any technical imperative. The second alternative is to start from “normative theories”. We
can either start to develop and refine existing normative theories based on empirical research, or to
start to create new theories rooted in empirical experiences. We are inclined to reject such a
conclusion, however. Therefore, before turning to normative theories we provide some further
suggestions on how to improve current research practices.
First, we should think carefully about the situations in which the study of a random sample of
organizations produces sufficient ground for a useful theory. Hume’s guillotine postulates that from
how things are we cannot infer how things ought to be. This seems to be true when it comes to
observed accounting practices. We can hardly assume that all firms optimize accounting and
controls at all times. Frequent changes in exogenous variables accompanied with the fact that time
18 We are suggesting here that e.g. VBM needs to be decomposed into its sub-constructs, and we need to study all these
sub-constructs simultaneously. We do not see much value of asking organizations whether they use VBM and then
regressing use to performance without controlling what use means.
15
required for major changes in accounting and control systems have been shown to take long periods
of time, the fact that most ideas, methods, principles or theories in management accounting may be
applied in a number of ways and the evidence of accounting failures all suggest that assuming that
all firms optimize is bold at best and dangerous at least (see also Luft & Shields 2002). If we cannot
assume that an average firm has optimal accounting and control methods, conclusions derived from
empirical studies regarding the usefulness of certain systems in certain circumstances are doomed to
be biased. This is not to say that cross-sectional studies are useless, or that there are never or even
seldom situations where optimizing behavior may be assumed. What we argue is that these issues
should be explicitly discussed in empirical papers.
Second, we should devote more attention to accounting and control practices in successful
organizations. It seems that there is a bias towards studying problems and shortcomings of
accounting, especially among those using the case method. Case based analysis of successful
practice is seldom published. Similarly, unsuccessful organizations could provide basis for
theorizing what systems not to use, or how not to use them.
Third, if what we suggest above as a fruitful avenue for research seems as a huge task, there is no
logical reason why we should continue to conduct management accounting research individually or
in small groups. Large research groups and projects may help to overcome the problem of
addressing overly simple relationships. Moreover, management accounting theory building is likely
to benefit from more repetitive studies. For us, decreasing somewhat the application of social meta
theories providing new “insights” on management accounting practice, and increasing to some
extent the conduct of repetitive studies in different contexts would seem a fruitful way towards
developing a cumulative body of knowledge. We admit that for some the idea of repetitive studies
may sound boring. But again, are we here to enlighten ourselves or to develop a body of knowledge
that could help managers and other actors to improve their practices? It should be noted that we are
not suggesting here that studies conducted in the US, for instance, should be repeated as such with
data from other countries. Pure repetition without explicit a priori consideration of theory
contribution is definitely not what we are suggesting.
Fourth, according to the agenda put forward here, the object of inquiry should be motivated and
positioned by linking it to the underlying main research question, i.e. cause and effect of MA or
how to implement MA, and how that is supposed to help in building a prescriptive agenda of
management accounting research. This would help readers to assess the contribution. Finally, the
concluding sections of research papers should make both the theory tested or developed and its
practical implications explicit. Moreover, we encourage researchers to speculate more in discussion
sections above the data (cf. Hinings & Greenwood, 2002). Even if the research is in the early stage,
and no definitive conclusions or prescriptions can be derived, the discussion section provides us an
opportunity to speculate the meaning of the particular findings, or those assumed to be available
after the later stages of the research program have been finished, for practice.
5.2 Normative theories
We see the development and testing of normative theories as a fruitful avenue to produce more
practice relevant research and theories of management accounting. It is easy to argue that normative
theories are usually presented as universal truths and hence do not provide sufficient understanding
of their potential limitations. Moreover, they are typically presented in polemic style, lacking the
precision required from scientific theories (Lukka & Granlund, 2002). There is a need to explicate
used constructs, their relationships und underlying reasons and to develop more contingent claims
about their applicability. Moreover, an additional complexity in studying normative theories is their
changing nature. For example, activity-based costing literature first emphasized overhead
allocation, then measurement and management of business processes. Balanced scorecard was
16
introduced as a more comprehensive information system for managerial decision-making, then as a
tool to translate strategy into action, essentially relying on the logic of management by objectives,
and finally as a tool to clarify and communicate strategies with the aid of strategy maps. This
development of ideas, especially in terms of which practical problems they are about to solve,
requires researchers to be clear which variation of the idea they are addressing, both conceptually
and empirically.
We used ABC above as an example of a normative theory (or alternative method for overhead
allocation within the theory of cost accounting), illustrating how research has produced valuable
insights on circumstances in which to use it. From a practical point of view, however, it is far from
enough to explicate the circumstances in which the use of ABC to allocate overheads is likely to
provide benefits. There are a large number of practical considerations that are likely to have an
impact on how the functioning and results of a cost accounting model are understood, how easy it is
to maintain, how accurate the information it produces is, and so on. These practical considerations
include how to define activities, and what type and how many cost drivers to use, to name just two.
Theory of cost accounting should ultimately advance towards answering these questions. It appears
to us that too much emphasis is devoted to understanding why companies adopt ABC, and too little
to understanding how it should be applied to serve the purposes it is adopted for. We believe
accounting researchers could provide valuable insights for practice by addressing these how
questions.
Let us use BSC as another example. There seems to be at least three different types of scorecards
(KPI-, stakeholder- and strategy scorecards) used in practice. They seem to serve a different
purpose as well. In the case where we would like to theorize about the use of BSC as a managerial
control system, and develop a theory of management control systems further, addressing following
BSC related questions are likely to be of help. We believe that the business community applying
scorecards would also warmly welcome answers to these questions:
1. What are the necessary conditions for strategy scorecards to translate strategy into action?
• For example, do measures need to be derived following assumed cause and effect
relationships?
• Do rewards need to be linked to achieving targets set for these measures?
2. In which circumstances does strategy mapping as a method for deriving scorecard measures
lead to a proper set of measures?
• What is the nature of strategy; are there major changes taking place inside the
organization?
• In which circumstances should some other logic of deriving measures be used?
3. Are these contingent on particular factors?
• These may include factors traditionally studied in contingency studies, the implications
of existing control practices on the applicability of BSC, etc.19
Answers to these questions would help us towards a theory of how to apply BSC in order to get
desired results. An alternative approach would be to follow the lead by Otley (1999) as discussed
above. Research could assess how BSC is used and ought to be used to facilitate each of these five
steps. The specific questions above as well as the role of BSC in each of these generic steps would
provide propositions as how to apply BSC and under which circumstances, and on the other hand,
when not to apply as the expected outcome is likely to be negative or non-existent. One could also
19 It should be noted that some of these questions might be answered by traditional research approaches as well.
However, providing descriptive answers to one or two of these questions alone – i.e. without consideration of the other
relevant questions put forward above – may have no value in the end regarding the development of strategic
performance measurement systems in practice.
17
assume that many of the observations generated in studying BSC are applicable to other existing
and emerging management accounting practices, hence providing elements for a more general
theory of MCS. As a result, we might not have a theory of BSC at the end, but a theory of
management control, where BSC is one option, or value, that some of the sub-constructs of that
theory may take.
5.3 Constructive studies
An alternative approach to create theories useful for practice is to solve practical problems with
practitioners and synthesize the novel solutions to a more general form. In management accounting
such an approach has been suggested by Kasanen et al. (1993) under the name of constructive
research approach and by Kaplan (1998) under the name of innovation action research. Recently,
based on their screening of how knowledge tends not to accumulate in the management accounting
domain in a fruitful manner, Lukka and Granlund (2002) suggested increasing reliance on the
constructive approach.
The studies applying the constructive research approach (e.g. Malmi et al., 2004; Tuomela, 2005;
see also Labro & Tuomela, 2003) commit to strong interventional actions in the case organizations,
and the researchers actively participate in the innovation process of new management control
constructs. This reflects a strong contention with regard to positive accounting research. The action
research tradition prominent especially in Sweden (e.g. Jönsson, 1996) is not far from the
constructive approach, though typically implying weaker intervention and having no particular
innovative element (see Jönsson & Lukka, forthcoming).
Kaplan (1998) promotes the innovation action research approach, and starts his piece quoting Kurt
Lewin: “If social scientists truly wish to understand certain phenomena, they should try to change
them. Creating, not predicting is the most robust test of validity-actionability”. Both the innovation
action research and the constructive research approach share a common core in this regard.
However, they are also very demanding research approaches, embodying certain risks, not least
ones related to the studied organizations (commitment to the project over time, personnel
replacements, etc.). Of these two the approach proposed by Kaplan (1998) can be considered as
even more demanding, and may probably not be even executable by most researchers. However, the
risks associated with these methodologies have been recognized and discussed, and by careful
research project management they can be controlled (Lukka, 2000).
It is likely that positive accounting researchers would reject these approaches, because researcher
intervention does not belong in their agenda. Our position is favourable to interventionist
approaches, as in our view the potential of generating directly applicable, yet theoretically informed
solutions to practitioners is important to pursue. However, it is true that in some sense the role of
the academic researcher is at stake here and should be solved: how normative can we be without
becoming labelled as consultants? As Bazerman20 (2005, p.29) notes: “As a graduate student in the
late 1970s, I was trained to be descriptive; prescription was for consultants, not for serious
researchers. I now believe that this attitude is wrong, not only for the field of management but for
society as a whole.” Kasanen et al. (1993) provide functioning guidelines in this regard. According
to them the most important element of constructive research is its constant theory connection, which
demarcates research from consultancy.21 Moreover, the strengths of such approaches seem to be
evident. By acting as experts in real-life development projects, we can simultaneously produce
research results that are both practically and theoretically interesting. The interventionist approaches
20 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
21 Lukka (2000 and 2005) has recently enhanced a view emphasizing that the main purpose of the constructive research
approach should be to produce theory contribution, the development of a new innovative construction being only one
result.
18
presented above subscribe to the idea of pragmatic truth theory even more distinctly than the other
research avenues we have discussed in this study, though also here to varying degrees (Kasanen et
al., 1993; see also James, 1955).22 Overall, this implies that we should always first consider
relevance and then truth, rather than vice versa. An underlying assumption then is that in problem
solving science researchers can and should be prescriptive and the validity of the results is tested
through implementation: what works in practice is true. The fundamental question then is: how to
relax the dominant view embedded in most conventions of management accounting research that
avoids intervention and sticks strictly to the very traditional criteria of science, like statistical
generalizability only (see Lukka & Kasanen, 1995).
An important thing to realize here also is that when succeeding in producing a theory informed
construct to solve a practical problem that is also of theoretical interest, and if the construct is
shown to be working, we have built a management accounting theory (see e.g. Malmi et al., 2004).
In that case there is no need for other kind of theory building. The functionality of the theory should
then of course be tested in other similar type of organizations and further under very different
circumstances. The scope and applicability of the new theory would thus be examined.
6. Summary / Conclusions
In this paper we have argued that the purpose of research and theorizing in management accounting
should be on determining which management accounting practices work and in which
circumstances. We argue that there is a need for management accounting theories addressing what
systems or techniques to use, how and in which circumstances. We also need theories explaining
how to change management accounting practices. Such theories would be unique to our field and
useful for practice.
We argue that there are two types of theories currently used and developed. Theories that are used
by the research community are borrowed from related fields. Although capable to explain a number
of issues of interest, they are seldom as such, or in conjunction with MA practices, helpful in
explaining what systems to use, how and in which circumstances. We also have a number of
normative theories that are not regarded as theories by the academic community. These theories aim
to give guidance to practice, but seldom address the potential shortcomings and inherent limitations.
We outlined three major avenues for further research. The first one is to develop traditional research
approaches. It appears that we need to assume an objective function to be able to build meaningful
theories. We also need to relax, at least partly, the assumption that firms are optimizing their
management accounting and control systems. Hence, studies should address the performance
implications of various practices. Moreover, we believe that more complex management control
system constructs should be studied. The second avenue is to develop existing “branded” practice
theories, such as ABC or BSC, to more complete theories by specifying constructs, relationships
and underlying mechanisms more clearly and addressing their limitations. The third avenue is to
rely on interventionist research approaches, such as the constructive research approach or
innovation action research, and get involved in theory building, testing, and refinement by creating
new practices.
We believe that the research agenda suggested here would help us as a research community to
provide more assistance to the organizations and societies than is currently the case. It could also
22 Particularly in the constructive research approach testing the functionality of the created construct in the spirit of
pragmatism plays an important role in the research process. For the different market test levels for constructs, see Labro
& Tuomela (2003; cf. Kasanen et al., 1993).
19
solve at least some concerns related to the gap between research and practice, and address the
conjectures regarding the failure of management accounting research to produce a cumulative body
of knowledge. Finally, we believe it would differentiate our field of inquiry from related fields, and
give management accounting a stronger identity.
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