It has been argued that management accounting theories have had a relatively limited impact on practice as the practice-research gap exists in management accounting. How can we close the practice-research gap so as to apply the research outcomes to actual management situations effectively? I think management accounting must always be inextricably tied to the actual organizational environment that it is intended to serve. It suggests that lot more research should be made to get better understanding the complexity of practice in an imperfect world. After identifying three fields of research in management accounting, I propose that interactive researches should be more actively conducted. I also argue that there is an opportunity for research to explore the boundaries among the related disciplines. Finally, I adduce that it is important for management accountants to focus on ROIC(Return On Invested Capital) to create the values of operations.

An important issue of management control systems in high-contact service organizations is to guide employee’s behavior working in the front-line position in a desirable direction for the organization. To address challenges found in articles concerning ‘service encounter’ and ‘service profit chain’, service organizations should adopt ‘MCS as a package’ approach. Additionally, to realize value co-creation with customers, service organizations should revise management control systems to emphasize on cultural controls and include customers as a part of object of management control.

This paper examines how to establish new theories of management accounting. In this paper, after the significance and the necessity of qualitative management accounting research in Japan, and the roles of “theories” in management accounting research such as “theories of management accounting” and “theories about management accounting” are discussed, I show that understanding management accounting research with theoretical lens of “common sense knowledge” based on ethnomethodology enables to find new aspect of management accounting which has not been focused in terms of scientific knowledge.

In recent years, the research focusing on the MM loop has been conducted. In describing the progress and evolution of management accounting systems, the MM loop is a useful framework. This paper explains the MM loop and considers the progress of the accounting information system with the MM loop through the I-company’s case. This case shows that the progress of calculation system of gross margin has been brought about by changes in the calculation formulas and improvements in the operational environment of the system. I discussed three significance of using the MM loop in analysis of management accounting system. That is possible to (1) clarify in the mutual relation of each system in the whole system, (2) signify what kind of loop is necessary for the whole system, (3) study the evolution of systems when the MM loop is continuously turned. Also I pointed out difficulties properly distinguishing between related loops and non-related loops and identifying the organization context.