Management accounting researches are took place without having a clear answer to the very basic questions; “what is management accounting?” and “what kind of functions are expected to management accounting?” Because of having no concrete definition of management accounting, current management accounting researches are widely spread in terms of research methodologies, topics, and expected audiences. Therefore, the focused destination of researches is not well defined. Very limited number of researches tackle the research topics that are relevant to the practical usefulness that is strongly recommended by Johnson and Kaplan (1987). As a result, management accounting research output are not attractive to top executives, managers, and researchers in other disciplines. It is curious enough that management accounting researchers do not pay attention to this situation, however.

　In this paper, raison d'être’ of management accounting is examined based on the previous researches. Then, the reasons of irrelevance of the research to the practices are explained. Based on the analysis, expected future research directions will be indicated. Finally, the paper proposes how to harness management accounting as the major tool for organizational control.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the process of the role of middle management towards “Accountingization” (Power and Laughlin 1992, p.133) in healthcare organizations through an in-depth case study.

　 Accountingization is defined as a situation which frontline operations are distorted as a result of accounting control. There are two roles of middle management in Accountingization in a healthcare organization, which are “Absorption”(Laughlin et.al. 1994ab; Broadbent and Laughlin, 1998) and “Two-way windows”(Llewellyn 2001)

　 “Absorption” means that middle management absorbs accounting influence indicated by top management; separating accounting and frontline activities. “Two-way windows” means that while middle management translates accounting information indicated by top management to frontline operations, they also work as consolidating opinions from the frontline and communicate with top management to reflect these opinions into strategy and planning, connecting accounting and frontline operations.

　 Research question is as follows; how middle management functions as “Absorption” or “Two-way windows” towards Accountingization in frontline operations. This paper conducts interviews and on-site observations in a middle-sized hospital in an ordinance-designated city. Three findings are clarified through in-depth case study.

　 (1) Middle management act as “Absorption” in order to protect frontline operations from accounting pressure by the top management. In this situation, management accounting systems and frontline operations are maintained in loose coupling or decoupling.

　 (2) Middle management switches from “Absorption” to “Two-way windows” triggered by failing financial performances. In this situation, management accounting systems and frontline operations are connected.

　 (3) Middle management could switch from “Absorption” to “Two-way windows” if executive office provides a fine grain accounting information including each clinical department’s profit data to frontline staffs.

　 This paper contributes to existing literatures in terms of expansion of a concept of Accountingization and adding these process -based knowledge to Accountingizaiton discussion.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the accounting knowledge required by accountants in factories of Japanese firms. Specifically, we conducted an analysis based on a mail survey targeting factories in Gunma Prefecture. The results show that accounting knowledge is needed to simplify management accounting practices rather than complicate management accounting practices.

View full abstract

We focus on observation systems that aim to prevent adverse selection by employees and reduce budgetary slack, and make a comparison between coarse and precise information systems. Our laboratory experiment shows that signals by the coarse system impose more tight restrictions on employees’ reports, and managers tend to reject the reports beyond the upper limit of the signal. In sum, there is some possibility that it is desirable for managers to use the coarse system if used together with evaluation and reward systems that punish employees who make reports beyond the allowance.

View full abstract

This study investigates the influence of parent-PMS on subsidiaries’ decision-making, and the relationship between the use of parent-PMS and subsidiaries’ external embeddedness. In particular, this study analyzes the moderating effects of the subsidiaries’ external embeddedness on the cause-effect relation between parent-PMS use and the influence of parent-PMS on subsidiaries’ decision-making. The analyses using survey data from 199 top-managements in Japanese subsidiaries indicate that subsidiaries’ embeddedness in customers negatively moderates the influence of the interactive use of PMS by headquarters although subsidiaries’ embeddedness in suppliers positively moderates the influence of the interactive use of PMS by headquarters.

View full abstract

This paper examined the influence of organizational learning theories on management control research by literature review. To analyze, I classify previous studies into three group by applying schools of organizational learning theories. Organizational learning theories distinguish three representative school by their original research: Hedberg school that focus on the unlearning by top management, Argyris school that studies the prescription to realize double loop learning and learning by whole organizational member, and March school that bases on the concept of organizational routine.

　 The result of literature review show management control research using Argyris school or March school only, and Argyris school was applied by many studies. But the studies applying March school deal with different issues from the ones applying Argyris school. This imply that it is important to use organizational learning theory appropriate to research purpose.

　 Also, some extensions for contemporary management control research using organizational learning theories become clear. First, there were few studies argue the relationship between management control research and Hedberg school. the study that examine the relationship between management control and unlearning is needed because unlearning is the base process to acquire new knowledge for organization and this process is important to survive organization in turbulent environment.

　 Second, few studies applying Argyris school explored the relationship among individual level, group level, and organizational level learning. It is required to consider how individual level or group level learning by management control is institutionalized to organizational learning.

　 Third, studies applying Argyris school tend to interpret double loop learning concept broadly. In such studies, it is unclear whether they research the relationship between management control and double loop learning itself or the relationship between management control and the behavioral pattern that become easy to realize double loop learning. To distinguish these relationships is required.

View full abstract