Developing the Role of the Management Accountant: A review of practitionerorientated sources
By William D Murphy1
The Derbyshire Business School, University of Derby, UK
1. Introduction
Since the mid-1980s the Management Accountant has been subjected to major criticism
concerning its relevance to the information needs of managers. As organisations and their
environments become increasingly complex, management accountants face growing
difficulties in ensuring that the accounting processes, methods and techniques can cope with
the pressures for change. Since the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of
articles in the accountancy press directed at analysing and/or promoting a changing role for
the accountant. This paper uses literature from practitioner-orientated sources since 1998 to
seek answers to the following three questions:
 What is it that is adding to the complexity faced by management accountants?
 How has the role of management accounting and the management accountant been
influenced by the pressures?
 What skills are being demanded of the management accountant if the role is to
evolve to the benefit of the organisation?
The reason for focusing on practitioner-orientated sources is pragmatic. Recent academic
journals have relatively little to say in relation to questions about the role of accountants and I
want to relate the discussion within the writings which are readily available to practitioners.
The analysis notes that the writings have a consistent message regarding the changes needed
but do little to explain the processes by which accountants might realise the required changes.
It is clear from the response to numerous surveys undertaken for professional accountancy
bodies across the world (AICPA, 1998; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Bhimani and Keshtvag,
1999; CIMA, 1998; Hassall et al 1999; ICAA, 1998 and 2001; ICAEW, 1997; McNair, 2000;
Russell et al, 2000) that professional education and training provision is seen as a vital
component in realising the changes. We also have the enlightening interview of CIMA’s UK
President David Melvill reported in Parker (2002a), where 5 potential sources from which
accountants can learn to cope with the changes required:
1. Observing what management accountants presently do.
2. Asking management accountants what they think they will/should be doing in the
future.
3. Asking employers what they require of management accountants.
4. Monitoring what management accountants’ assistants, competitors and substitutes are
doing.
5. Searching the horizon for opportunities and threats afforded by a changing external
environment.
Common to the first three and inferred in the final two sources is a need to understand what is
happening within the historical and social context of the organisation. However, there is little
1
The author wishes to acknowledge Deborah Martindale, a final year undergraduate on the BA (Hons)
Management Accounting programme, for the work relating to the roles and skills in this article.
Page 1 of 11
evidence that the profession or academic press have recognised the weaknesses of interpreting
the role of the management accounting from a rational, entitative perspective. This, a broader
aim of this analysis is to provide a framework for assessing writings about recent management
accounting developments regarding their value in supporting the accountant in understanding
the nature of the changes required by the evolving role.
It is argued that these readily available sources need to reflect more strongly the nature of
organisations and the processes by which individuals construct their role and the role of others.
Thus, before answering the three role questions, the discussion opens with a brief overview of
the perceived failings of management accounting. This leads to an expression that, if Melvill’s
questions are to be answered, practitioners, academics and publishers should accept Chua’s call
in 1988 for more interpretative sociological based research. The article promotes further review
of published work regarding specific accounting-related processes and techniques using a simple
approach which draws on a recognition that the initiatives to overcome the failings in the role
played by accountants might be better considered within a relational rather than the
economic/entitative definition of organisation with its focus on rational decision making. The
contrasting perceptions of organisations draw heavily on Scapens, Otley and Lister (1984) and
Tansley and Watson (2000). Scapens et al (1984) recognise that managers appear to hold
two contrasting views which are summarised as either viewing the organisation as a
designed artefact or as a natural phenomenon. Taking a designed artefact perspective results
in a focus of ensuring effectiveness through the use of rational and neutral procedures.
Effectiveness is defined in relation to achieving organisational goals. The accountants have an
important role in supporting the organisation management control procedures to help achieve the
goals. In contrast, the natural phenomenon perspective is concerned with explaining
organisational behaviour in terms of power and processes of interaction. The role of
management control, and presumably the role of accountants, is about being used as a tool to
dominate others. Tansley and Watson (2000) arrive at two views or organisations using similar
conceptual arguments. However, they are clearer that the relational (natural phenomenon
perspective) is more appropriate and they also differentiate the views of organisation from views
of the individual, table 1.
Table 1.1 Entitative and relational perspectives on organisations and individuals
Organisations
Individuals
Entitative perspective
 Are seen as reified-as having a
concrete existence
 Exist independently of people
 Exchange, as systems, with ‘the
environment’
 Have a relatively fixed form
 Are fairly fixed one-dimensional
entities
 Are need-filling, goal meeting ‘minisystems’
 Exist independently of context
 ‘Others’ are part of the context
Relational perspective
 Are constantly emerging patterns of
belief and activity rather than
concrete entities
 The emphasis is on organising a
rather than organisation
 Are constantly re-shaping
 Have constantly shaped and reshaped identities
 Are ‘emergent’
 Prominence given to negotiation as
a cognitive, social and political
process.
Source: Tansley, C and Watson, T. (2000:111),
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2. Background
Kaplan (1984 cited in Drury chapter 28, 1996,) noted that practice and the textbooks differed
in a number of aspects:
a) A delay in theoretical developments being applied in practice.
b) A lack of understanding of theory by practitioners.
c) Theory fails to address the reality faced by practitioners
One element in the explanation of the differences can be related to the thinking that
management accounting and management accountants should be concerned to with the use of
techniques and information system design to maximise the functional utility and relationships
based at the level of the individual e.g. Principal and Agent. Indeed, it can be argued that
Kaplan wrote from this functional economic perspective. Later Johnson and Kaplan’s
influential work Relevance Lost: Rise and Fall of Management Accounting (1987) identified
four main concerns:
 Conventional management accounting does not meet the needs of today’s
manufacturing and competitive environment.
 Traditional product costing systems provide misleading information for decisionmaking purposes.
 Management accounting practices follow, and have become subservient to,
financial accounting requirements.
 Management accounting focuses almost entirely on internal activities, and
relatively little attention is given to the external environment in which the business
operates. (Drury, 1996 p. 834.)
Again the concerns are expressed from an economic perspective: the concern is about
effectiveness in achieving the goals of the business entity and uses a systems perspective to
understand the nature of organisations. Indeed such views on organisational control and the
role of management accounting pervade tracts of literature to the present day. The best selling
text Management and Cost Accounting (Drury 2000, p.5), states “Management Accounting is
concerned with the provision of information to people within organizations to help them
make better decisions and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of existing operations.” In
similar vain, a 2003 text states that “Management accounting is concerned with providing
information to managers – that is people inside an organization who direct and control its
operations”, (Garrison, Noreen and Seal, 2003). Zimmerman’s definition is straightforward
“The accounting system used within an organisation to help the organisation achieve its
goals”, (2000, p. 718). Organisations are perceived as entities having a more or less fixed
structural form and a tangible existence which exists independently of people. Exchanges
occur between systems and with the external environment. The accountant deals with
information for the purpose of supporting the rational operating of the organisation. The
majority of writings in the accountancy press and in the best selling accounting texts assumes
that the role played / to be played by the accountant remains that of helping people within
(what is perceived to be) organisations to achieve organisational control and effectiveness
through appreciating the gap between theory and practice and through using
knowledge/information systems in a rational and economic manner for decision-making. The
appropriateness of undertaking studies within these perceptions of what constitutes an
organisation will be challenged later in the article.
Page 3 of 11
3. Pressures for change
The pressures for change in the ways managers approach their responsibilities arise from
challenges bringing new competition, such as globalization and deregulation, and
technological and structural changes within organisations presumably aimed at taking
advantage of or defending against the use of any derived competitive advantage.
The main forces influencing the profession include:
Table 3.1 Pressures for Changes
Internationalization and
globalization
Deregulation and
privatization
New business process and
technologies
Shifts in organisational
structure
The need for more and
different types of
information
Due to the internationalization and
globalization, the location of the business
has become irrelevant, and is thus,
transforming the Management Accountant
into a multi-disciplinary profession and
having to operate within differing national
cultures.
New laws have led to increased and new
forms of competition within the public
sector and regulated industries. The
legislation can be accompanied by a need
to review all processes and practices. The
impact is seen in structural changes to the
market and to individual organisations; in
a reassessment of the balance between cost
reduction and specification of service level
both internally and in the nature of the
relationship with the end-consumer.
Developments in technology is taking the
skill out of routine accounting tasks, which
is freeing up time for the Management
Accountant’s to complete more advanced
work on business support activities such as
diagnoses, decision-making and control.
Cost reduction techniques, production
control and real time information systems
have forced a revision of costing methods
and the integration of accounting
information systems and other processes.
Companies are adopting more flexible
structures and patterns of working and the
accountants have to follow suit.
(Russell. Siegel and
Kulesza, 1999, p. 41),
(Parker, 2002b, p. 32),
(McNair, 2000, p. 28)
Businesses are increasingly requiring more
rapid financial and non-financial
information. Technological developments
are deskilling the routine work of the
accounting and moving the focus to
diagnoses, advice and decision-making.
(Busco, Riccaboni and
Scapens, 2001, p. 31),
(Russell, Siegel and
Kulesza, 1999, p. 41),
(Parker, 2002b, p. 32),
(McNair, 2000, p. 28)
(Seal and Croft, 1997),
(Kapoulas, Ellis and
Murphy, 2002),
(May,2002b), (Soin, Seal
and Cullen, 2002).
(Burns and Yazdifar, 2001,
p. 33), (May, 2001, p., 36),
(Russell, Siegel and
Kulesza, 1999, p. 41),
(Parker, 2002b, p. 32),
(Drucker, 1992, p. 3),
(McNair, 2000, p. 28),
(Scapens, Jazayeri and
Scapens, 1998)
(Burns and Yazdifar, 2001,
p. 33), (Parker, 2002b p.
32)
Page 4 of 11
Rise of non-accounting
competitors and alliances
The internal organisational consumers of
accounting services are reducing their
demand for traditional feedback
information and demanding more advice
on operational decision-making, the
managing of people, and the developing of
strategic financial plans.
The deskilling of accounting routines is
(Parker, 2002b, p. 32)
moving the ownership of data away from
the accountant, allowing other professions
to present themselves as multi-disciplinary
business advisers. Due to this trend
professional accounting associations are
now promoting general business
qualifications or MBAs.
The list of challenges is fairly consistent across the texts but May (2002a) provides another
list that is worth exploring. The first is ‘shareholder power’ which has forced two reactions
by business, the obvious one relates to delivering shareholder value but the second relates to
intangible assets and the need to have integrated mechanisms to manage corporate risk.
Linked to this is the requirement for a ‘heightened awareness of environmental, ethical and
social issues’. Parker (2002, p32) also notes “the call for broader accountability” as a force
influencing the accountancy profession. This would suggest that need to consider beyond the
boundaries of the business entity and recognise that boundaries are being constantly reshaped. May also notes that managers of organisations are considering changing from the
predominant command-and-control management style to one that is empowering,
encouraging innovative and possess a ‘bottom-up culture’ (p28).
The need for change becomes obvious as managers historically view management
accountants as “functional scorekeepers who are preoccupied with the past and reluctant to
accept responsibility for decisions”, (Parker, 2002b, p. 33). “Managers want people who can
influence the score not simply report the score”, (Anastas, 2000, p.16). The focus of
Management Accountant must be switched from analyst of the past toward planning and
feed-forward control and strategic thinking about the future. “With the challenge of
contributing more directly to the decision making process”, (Parker, 2002b, p. 33). May
(2002b, p29) calls for the finance function to “become more cost-effective, customer-focused
and embedded within business processes, adding value and responding quickly to changing
needs”. She also points out that the finance function has to earn and maintain its “standing” as
a supplier to business, and “change the emphasis from gatekeeper to opportunity seeker”
(May 2002, pp.28-29). The writings analysed indicate that in order for management
accountants to maintain their role, they must broaden the nature of the role.
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Table 3.2 Extending the Role of the Management Accountant
Strategic management
Risk management
Change management
Environmental management
Information management/Knowledge
management
(McNair, 2000, p. 32), (Russell. Siegel and Kulesza,
1999, p. 42,), (Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 35), (May,
2001, p. 37), (Parker, 2002b, p. 33)
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (May,2002b, p. 28)
(Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 35), (Parker, 2002b, p. 33),
(Anastas, 1997)
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (McNair, 2000, p. 32)
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Anastas, 1997),
The descriptions of these extended roles vary in detail. For instance, strategic management is
articulated to a higher degree than the others. Indeed, knowledge manager is poorly
articulated but the role appears to emphasise “intelligent interrogation and analyses, finding
new ways to extract ideas out of information so as to gain competitive edge.”, (Sawers, p.26).
Change management is not explained but some idea of what is intended can perhaps be taken
from Anastas (1997) “The management accountant has to be more of a change agent and a
sales person rather than just a reporter – someone who can sell the idea of what to do with the
information”. Drucker (2001) presents the task of managing information as a critical
challenge facing modern day organizations, KPMG (2000) warns that there is already
evidence emerging that major organisations may be flagging due to information overload,
which suggests that understanding knowledge management is a necessary dimension to the
role of the management accountant. However, there is little to indicate the processes the
individual accountant has to undertake in order to fulfil these new roles. Indeed, for
knowledge management, there is little empirical research to help discover the processes and
models that may be employed by organisations (Chourides, Longbottom and Murphy, 2003).
The accountancy practitioner press do not allow absence of knowledge and understanding
prevent pronouncing on the new roles and what skills re required to enact them. “It is fair to
say that Management Accountant must fast equip themselves for new roles in line with
changing business demands”, (Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, page 35). This ‘fast equip’ relates
to extending an individual’s skill base.
Page 6 of 11
Table 3.3 Extending the Skills of the Management Accountant
Strategy - Ability to think
strategically about long term plans
taking into account the market.
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 34),
(Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999, p. 42)
Technology - IT competence
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Anastas, 2000 p. 14), (Burns and
Yazdifar, 2001, p. 34), (Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999,
p. 40), (Montvale, 2000, p. 6)
Involvement in operations (Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999 p.
Management Accountant’s will need 40)
to have a greater involvement in
other operations in the company, to
enable them to effectively reduce
costs without any implications to
customer satisfaction.
Ability to integrate financial and non- (Parker, 2002b, p. 33)
financial information
Business knowledge
Decision-making /Problem solving
Analysis and Interpretation
Advisor
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999,
p. 40)
(Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 34), (Parker, 2002b, p. 33),
(Anastas, 2000, p. 14)
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999,
p. 40)
(Russell. Siegel and Kulesza. 1999, p. 40)
Communications - speaking,
listening, sending, receiving
(Parker, 2002b, p. 33), (Anastas, 2000, p. 14), (Burns and
Yazdifar, 2001, p. 34), (Russell, Siegel and Kulesza, 1999,
p. 40)
Leadership and Management skills
(Busco, Riccaboni and Scapens, 2001, p. 30), (Parker,
2002b, p. 33), (McNair, 2000, p. 31), (Russell. Siegel and
Kulesza, 1999, p. 40)
Team player – Although being a team (Anastas, 2000, p. 15), (Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 35)
player is necessary, it is also
highlighted by some researchers the
need to be a leader.
Proactive
(McNair, 2000, p. 31), (Russell. Siegel and Kulesza, 1999,
p. 44)
“Managerial teams are currently demanding dynamic, forward-thinking business analysts,
who add value to the business process, not just who highlight whether targets have been met.”
(Burns and Yazdifar, 2001, p. 35). The shift from ‘scorekeepers’ to ‘analyst’ demands that
individuals develop special skills to be effective (Anastas, 1997). Sole reliance on an
accountancy qualification might not be significant; management accountants will have also a
general business qualification. Drucker (1992) claimed that the accounting and computing
departments were not “information-focused as a rule” however; computer literate executives
Page 7 of 11
were capable of converting data into usable information that can actually be used for
decision-making.
A common theme through the writings is recognition that organisations will require corporate
wide information systems integrating financial and non-financial measures. Busco et al
(2001) evidence that the impact of this information need is the need to redesign the
accountability systems and to implement a measurement-based quality programme. May
(2002b) indicates that the same actions follow from the emerging changes in management
style regarding empowering and the ‘bottom-up culture. A number of authors note the impact
of technology is already releasing from data preparing and sorting and the consequence is an
extending the company’s financial systems and restructuring the accounting and finance
function. However, the process of evolving is not straightforward and it is clear that in the
USA that there the techniques of management accounting are not always supporting the
accountant’s extension of role - “While it’s clear that the management accounting profession
is moving toward a greater partnership in strategic decision making, there’s a widespread
perception by many financial executives that the tools and methodologies haven’t evolved to
aid this transition” (Garg, Ghosh and Nowacki, 2003, p6).
Parker’s (2002a) declaration that “The decision to change is ours” leaves open the question of
how the academics can support the required transformation. As this paper reveals the nature
of publication readily available to practitioners do not provide the detail necessary for a
learning process. Indeed, too often phrases are used that have little agreed meaning –
knowledge manager, business advisor or perhaps over simply such skills as ‘team player’.
It is clear from reading May (2000) or Parker (2002a) that the management accountant, any
accountant, requires the personal skills/attributes listed in Figure 3. However, it is unclear
how those skills, and the other more technical skills, can be used to the benefit of the
organisation without the individual being more aware of the complexities of organisations,
and within them, the complexities of interactions between people within organisations. The
current state of accountants’ unsatisfactory understanding of what is happening within their
organisations compared to other groups is amply demonstrated by such surveys as Burns and
Yazdilar (2001). The next section discusses possible alternatives to the entitative view of
organisations to support the accountant in understanding and learning. Then, perhaps, the
perception of management accountants’ perceptions of their role and those of senior
managers’ and CEOs’ may coincide (Burns and Yazdifar, 2001).
4. Discussion
Alongside the review of writings in the practitioner-orientated magazines, consideration has
been given to what writing is around that could help accountants understand more about their
role within their organisation. A sound starting point is “The Social and Organizational
Context of Management Accounting by A Puxty (1993). This text assumes “no knowledge of
the reader beyond a knowledge of traditional management accounting and some knowledge of
traditional management accounting research” (Puxty, 1993, pp.1-2). Hopefully what will be
gained from reading the text is a fuller explanation of the pitfalls of the accountant attempting
to understand organisations through economic-based theory and an entitative perspective.
Page 8 of 11
The reader is reminded that “the quest for complexity simply as a means of better
representing reality will not necessarily provide ‘ideal’ methods of management accounting”,
Scapens (1983). This not only suggests weaknesses in the entitative view of organisations but
on an individual’s ability to comprehend what is happening. Individuals suffer from bounded
rationality and decision-making as a group process suffers from conflicting goals resembling
more a garbage can than an orderly intellectual process (March & Olsen, 1976). Indeed,
another view of organisations is that they are an outcome of the activities of human beings
and could be considered not as designed artefacts but as natural phenomena (Scapens, Otley
and Lister, 1984). The organisation has “little existence separate from the ongoing, social,
political, cultural and economic processes of human individuals and groups” (Tansley and
Watson, 2000, p110). Using this relational interpretation, the concern of the management
accountants perhaps should focus on the motivational impact of using techniques and
processes. Related to this view of an organisation, it has been argued elsewhere that a social
constructionist approach to organisational analysis is favoured (Karatas and Murphy, 2002).
More recently has been the use what is termed an institutional framework for conceptualizing
management accounting change (Burns and Scapens, 2000; Soin, Seal and Cullen, 2002). Its
application to management accounting change is directly related to the failings in economic
based approaches to understand how accounting techniques “come to be used in
organizations, or the nature of resistance to their use” Burns and Scapens, 2000, p 21).
It is argued here that unless accountancy practitioners seek a contextual understanding of the
processes of change, they will be unable in May’s phrase to “earn and maintain its standing as
a supplier to business” (May 2002, pp.28-29). The extension of role might well involve a
‘partnership in strategic decision-making’ but before attempting to secure that role,
accountants have to understand the social and political context within which they operate and
the symbolic role of (accounting) information. Much has been learnt from Jones and
Dugdale’s exploration of activity-based costing (Jones and Dugdale, 2002) but it is felt that a
simpler framework can provide some appreciation of the dangers of writings that concentrate
on the technical role of a technique or process. It is proposed that having initiated this review
of writings on the developing role of accountants, the analysis progresses within an
interpretive paradigm to consider writings on recent developments in management accounting
techniques and processes. The analysis will critique the view of organisation taken within the
various articles and the nature and level of attention paid to the political and symbolic context
using the concepts developed by Scapens, Otley and Lister (1984) and Tansley and Watson
(2000).
Page 9 of 11
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