THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
Table of Contents
ARTICLES
By George Joseph and Asha George
Short planning horizons and an increasingly competitive environment has changed the organisational strategic planning landscape. Yet, a dissonance between strategy and budgets handicaps organisations when responding to the changing environment and stakeholder needs. Increasingly, an integrative role for management accounting is becoming evident in supporting the implementation of strategy, particularly with developments in management accounting, operational management techniques and information technology
This paper first identifies key components of the integrative approach and illustrates this approach (using a case study) to show how a stakeholder approach supports a knowledge management system to monitor and adapt to changes in the environment. Specifically, the case shows how tacit information from stakeholder engagement and feedback, harnessed and conveyed through networked information technology, complements the explicit structures and knowledge contained in traditional performance measurement and operational tools by enabling the firm to adapt strategy to the changing environment.
By Mei Lim
The concept of sustainable development has heightened awareness across a range of industries including solid waste management (SWM) of the need to integrate social and environmental costs into the accounting management system. Full Cost Accounting (FCA) is an approach for including social and environmental costs in decisions. Several studies have confirmed the effectiveness of this approach, yet very few studies have analysed the applicability of FCA in SWM in newly industrialised countries.
This paper provides a review and critique of the existing literature relating to SWM, FCA and newly industrialised countries. It contributes to the general lack of clarity in the literature of the factors that facilitate and hinder the adoption of FCA. The paper concludes that there is a need for research capable of providing evidence of FCA as a tool for measuring the social and environmental costs of SWM in newly industrialised countries.
Does Individual Locus of Control Matter in a JIT Environment?
BY Suzanne Bryne
Higher empowerment and task involvement are accepted features of a JIT environment. However, the well studied Locus of Control (LOC) congruency hypothesis suggests that the level of involvement should align with the LOC orientation of the individual for greater job satisfaction and performance.
This study examines this potential conflict. Results show that involvement for both internal and external LOC managers in a JIT environment is crucial in improving perceived performance but that involvement is more efficient for internal LOC managers as these managers’ performance improves at a greater rate. However, for job satisfaction the LOC congruency hypothesis holds in a JIT setting for both internal and external LOC managers.
By Evangeline Elijido-Ten
The purpose of this study is (1) to examine the extent of disclosure of sustainability reports (SRs)and balanced scorecards (BSCs) among Australia’s Top 100 companies; and (2)to ascertain whether correlations exist between sustainability and BSC reporting, share market performance and perception as well as company size and industry. As the use of BSCs and SRs gains popularity, it is reasonable to expect that large firms and those belonging to environmentally sensitive industries would be more willing to disclose this information publicly to signal their superiority and deflect public scrutiny.
The results show that size and industry are significantly related to disclosures. Disclosers are seen to outperform the non-disclosers in terms of shareholder returns and market perception in the year before the global financial crisis, suggesting that the financial crisis may have introduced more volatility to market performance.
RESEARCH NOTE
The Management of Sustainability: The Art of Interpretation
By Glen Lehman
The present paper introduces the art of interpretation to management accounting as a way to think about the natural world. A key aim of Interpretive Accounting Research (IAR) is motivated by a desire to understand how accounting disciplines such as management accounting might act in relation to pressing issues such as global warming, carbon emissions and sustainability considerations. IAR involves critical reasoning and invites us to rethink our response to dilemmas confronting communities and organisations. IAR emphasises the ability of citizens to rethink the structures and strategies allowing them to relate to the natural world. This leads to an argument that IAR adds philosophical insight into the discipline of management accountant using our powers of interpretation and perception to put us directly in the world. The issue for management accountants is to keep in mind the need to broaden and conceptualise how we theorise cultural and environmental dilemmas that confront the discipline. In accounting research, the art of interpretation is a method that encompasses our obligations to shareholders, the natural world and our society broadly conceived.
Stay In Touch