[HWU Assignment] CRITICALLY APPRAISE GRAY'S THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ACCOUNTING VALUES

Introduction

There are more than 7 billion people in the world, increasing as speaking, and if taking the view that each individual is his/her universe, the cluster is enormously huge. Basically, these people scatter around the globe, geographically separated into many different groups and thus developed different life styles and histories. The literature calls these differences 'culture'. Efforts have been made to explain how these differences would affect people's thoughts, eventually actions. Throughout the long-term continuously searching for answers, there are two researchers' (Hofstede and Gray, respectively) works that are mostly discussed and criticised, i.e. their works stimulate more ideas. Both Hofstede and Gray devoted into this particular area, attempting to transform the intangible values to written standards, and the former even provided stand ground for the later. In order to analyse and criticise Gray’s theory, this article starts with examining Hofstede’s theory because Gray’s work is based on Hofstede’s assumptions. If the premise is false, the conclusion followed by will be certainly misleading.

This article is organised as follow. In section 2, the very specific two researchers’ works are briefly summarised. Criticisms about Hofstede’s and Gray’s works, whether separately or jointly, are outlined and analysed in section 3. Further suggestions for improving the model are abstracted in section 4. Finally, the conclusion wraps up the discussions.

The formation Hofstede-Gray's theory

What is Hofstede's theory?

As an organisational psychologist, Hofstede (1984, 1991) tried to identify the scopes of culture and separated them into different levels (symbols, heroes, rituals and values) of culture. Culture, in his definition, is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another (Hofstede, 1984, 1991). He was definitely not the first one who tried to explicate the definition of culture and certainly not the first one who provided a framework of it. By surveying the large cross-country organisation, he then developed four cultural dimensions of values, the core of culture, and used these dimensions to categorised 50 countries and three geographic clusters of countries. Over the years, accounting research is one of the numerous disciplines which utilize Hofstede's classification and quantification of cultural differences (Baskerville, 2003, pp. 1).

What is Gray's theory?

Gray’s theory is considered an extension of Hofstede’s theory, identifying the four subcultural dimensions (professionalism, uniformity, conservatism and secrecy) or accounting values. Gray (1988) tried to tie Hofstede’s four dimensions of social values to accounting values by defining these factors with positive or negative relationship, e.g. positive relationship meaning that the higher the individualism, the higher the professionalism; negative relationship meaning that the lower the power distance, the higher the professionalism. In addition, Gray took further step to build on the link between his accounting values and real world accounting systems based on his previous hypothesis. He assumed that professionalism and uniformity affected the authority and enforcement, that conservatism influenced measurement practices, and that secrecy impacted information disclosure.

Disagreement about Hofstede-Gray's theory

Criticisms against Hofstede's theory

Hofstede (1984) built his theory through case study among IBM employees over the period 1968-1972 at which the US culture gaining its influence globally. The survey process generated 117,000 responses from 88,000 employees over 66 countries (Baskerville, 2003, pp. 1). Credits must be given for digesting and interpreting such large amount of data. However, the results and conclusions may be biased if the assumption was misleading at beginning. Validity is also an issue of Hofstede's theory. McSweeney (2002) criticised Hofstede's measure methodology as 'allegedly illustrative stories' because Hofstede claimed that national institutions, events and artefacts were consequences of national cultures, the causal relation which didn't exist. If the aim is to uncover the mystery behind national culture, perhaps both internal and external factors should be included as the researchers set up variables for testing perspectives of individuals, organisations, societies and nations.

Baskerville (2003) challenges the foundations of Hofstede's theoretical assumptions by indicating the obviously biased preferences over particular scholars' point of view, i.e. the generalisation of the theory based on very doubtful ground. According to Baskerville's argument (2003, p.6), Hofstede did not adequately address two important problems prompted by Goodenough (1964, p. 8): classification and definitions; and the problem of sampling and the units of comparison, the problems any study of cross-cultural comparisons has to address. Nevertheless, Hofstede replied this argument in his later paper in 2003 (Hofstede, 2003, p. 813) that he only saw his work as 'exploratory research, not as a finished theory', suggesting the irrelevance of Baskerville's arguments to cross-cultural accounting research. In fact, Hofstede did carry on extending his research in cultural dimensions and make some implements later as emerging markets arising.

One of the criticisms to Hofstede's study argued that the sample case was out of date and needed to reconstruct an updated one. It is disputable that the case study has over forty years history now, getting older as mentions, and some conditions had changed significantly over these years. However, certain underlying norms with good-old-merit characteristics might not change with time. One way of testing the theory is to carry out a whole scale survey again with similar scope of corporations, filtering the unchanged parts and scanning for the new parts. The long-term research might also take quite some time and manpower to interpret and analyse, which is not very economical. Baydoun and Willett (1995) suggested that it was better use Hofstede's theory as an implied definition, adjusting along the situations necessarily.  

Despite the criticisms, Hofstede’s work has been used in many empirical studies not only in accounting but also across the whole range of social science discipline, for his work providing quantitative measurement for other researchers as input in their statistical analysis and testing (Roberts, Weetman and Gordon, 2008). Since it's very difficult to numerate quality related characteristics, Hofstede's work really allows more ideas and thoughts to proceed and to prosper.  For a literature with such a broad area of definition, the researchers might continue wandering and exploring for a while before they reach the core of the issue. Hofstede's work inspired another researcher in accounting field, Sidney J. Gray, to develop his accounting values and broaden the relations connected to accounting practices, the link that demanded initial agreement of cultural dimensions derived from Hofstede's proposition.

Criticisms against Gray's theory

According to Gray's (1988) paper, the hypotheses he made were constructed in an inductive approach, like a proposal, without presenting empirical evidence. Criticism about the lack of evidence was later complemented by further studies done by some researchers who intended to prove or disprove Gray's theory.

Salter and Niswander (1995) used Gray's hypothesis and tested them with a sample of 29 countries, building up measurement indicators for accounting values, so the relationship between social values and accounting values could be recognised. The results of the study showed that there was 'significant relationship between Gray's accounting values and Hofstede's cultural constructs' (Salter and Niswander, 1995, pp. 391), which wasn't surprising at all because there must be predetermined relationship between culture as a whole and its subcultures. However, if looking into each independent cultural component, these cultural variables were not tightly related as Gray presumed. This finding suggests either Gray had overlooked some key indicator quality or he just looked at the wrong direction.

One of the criticisms is the false assumption that Gray’s theory proposed. Some researchers claimed that Gray’s theory didn’t prove the correlation between societal values and accounting values, let along the connection between accounting values and accounting systems. Baydoun and Willett (1995) demonstrated a case study using Hofstede-Gray’s theory as implied definition, examining cultural relevance in the accounting systems in Lebanon and France, respectively. In their examination (Baydoun and Willett, 1995) with the accounting system of France, according to Hofstede-Gray's framework, certain cultural characteristics leading to the assumptions of accounting values and accounting systems didn’t fit with the observation in reality, indicating that either incorrect question asked or fallacious theory used.

However, Chanchani and Willett (2004) found that with certain level of adaption and reinterpretation the results from accounting values survey done in New Zealand and India showed support of Gray's accounting values, and they proposed that further quantitative accounting values survey should be conducted. This paper showed that the literature attempted to optimise and measure the accounting values, and carried the questionnaire through a more theoretical basis rather than empirical one, for testing the validity of Gray’s theory.

Followed up, Doupnik (2008) applied the cultural dimensions to examine whether there is a connection between cultural differences and earnings management; the results supported the connection, but Gray's accounting values dimensions failed to explain the cultural determined measure practices, proposing the insufficiency of Gray's classifications of accounting values. The unexplained part of the result (Doupnik, 2008) hints that there's fifth accounting value 'stability', differences among countries presenting accounting information that is stable over time. Explicitly, there's blind spot of Gray's theory that demands more aspects reckoned.  

Without a doubt that Gray's hypotheses did spark a lot of attention, Heidhues and Patel (2011) stated that Gray's theory was undoubted accepted and applied to international accounting research by subsequent researchers, leading to increased authority and popularity, the employment which required more discretion when utilising.

Salter and Lewis (2011) tested Gray’s theory by using actual reported data extracted from the SEC Form 20-F and found that the cultural variable relate to differences in accounting measurement practices. This study filled the gap between real figures form regulatory and quantified questionnaires led by academy since there was no such type of examination ever made use of actual figures. Indeed, if more aspects considered, the following researchers might be able to amend or enhance previous assumptions, and form a more thorough and fit-for-all theory.

Suggestions for the Hofstede-Gray's theory

There are some researchers trying to make improvement of the Hofstede-Gray's theory. According to the paper of Doupnik & Tsakumis (2004), the authors made suggestion that future research should focus on individual accountants’ behaviour with respect to application of financial reporting rules using Gray’s framework. This opinion suggests that the term ‘culture’ may be seen as one big cluster of individual behaviour within the group, still been affected by each individual who constitutes it. To further analyse the causal relations inside any organisations, the researchers must start with the basic units of organisations, i.e., accountants who work in the organisation. The status of mind decides the actions carried out, and thus merges into a big cluster: culture.

Suggestions made by Chanchani and Willett (2004) urging for practical angles were followed up. Other researchers (Heidhues and Patel, 2011) recommend that accounting research should focus on critically examining the contextual environments of countries rather than measurements, quantification, simplification, and categorisation.

Conclusion

The literature has been trying to find out what causes differences between accounting systems among different countries for a long time. One obvious explanation is the cultural factor. The term 'culture' has a very broad meaning and thus very difficult to set a boundary for. Many efforts have been devoted to explore this area by researchers, standardising the immeasurable characteristics and generalising the observations. Among those research papers, the most discussed one was carried out by Geert Hofstede, an organisational psychologist, who conducted his research by surveying employees within one large international corporation and constructed a theory based on the findings. Hofstede's work has provided a standing ground for following researchers because his attempt to quantify quality-related traits enabled other researchers use as input of data or statistical analysis. However, where there is compliment, there is complaint. Many scholars argued that Hofstede's theory was invalid, fallacious-assumed and ill-constructed, and out of date. With such a controversial situation discussed, fully accepted and followed by Gray's work, built on Hofstede's cultural value dimensions, Gray tried to connect the cultural values with accounting values, from general to specific, and in the end link accounting values to accounting systems. If Hofstede's theory proved to be invalid, Gray's theory would definitely be invalid because the former work was the underpinning of the later. Even if Hofstede's theory wasn't overruled, debates still went on for Gray's theory lacking empirical evidence, misleading assumptions, and overlooking key factors. On the other hand, credits must be given to these two researchers who opened a new page in international accounting research. Along with criticisms, other researchers also made some suggestions to revise their theory and advise discretion for further research or application.

Reference list

Baskerville, R. (2003) 'Hofstede never studied culture', Accounting Organizations And Society, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 1-14.

Baydoun, N. and Willett, R. (1995) ‘Cultural Relevance of Western Accounting Systems to Developing Countries’, ABACUS, Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 67-92.

Chanchani, S. and Willett, R. (2004) 'An empirical assessment of Gray's accounting value constructs', International Journal Of Accounting, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 125-154.

Doupnik, T. S. (2008) 'Influence of Culture on Earnings Management: A Note', Abacus, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 317-340.

Doupnik, T, & Tsakumis, G (2004) 'A CRITICAL REVIEW OF TESTS OF GRAY'S THEORY OF CULTURAL RELEVANCE AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH', Journal Of Accounting Literature, Vol. 23, pp. 1-48.

Goodenough, W. H. (1964) Explorations in cultural anthropology—essays in honor of George Peter Murdock, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Gray, S. J. (1988) ‘Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems Internationally’, ABACUS, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-15.

Heidhues, E. and Patel, C. (2011) 'A critique of Gray's framework on accounting values using Germany as a case study', Critical Perspectives On Accounting, Vol.  22, pp. 273-287.

Hofstede, G. (1984) Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values, Beverly Hills u.a.: Sage

Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and organizations: software of the mind, McGraw-Hill

Hofstede, G. (2003) 'What is culture? A reply to Baskerville', Accounting, Organizations And Society, Vol. 28, pp. 811-813

McSweeney, B. (2002) ‘Hofstede's model of national cultural differences and their consequences: A triumph of faith - a failure of analysis’, Human Relations, Vol. 55, No. 1, pp. 89-118.

Roberts, C. B., Weetman, P., and Gordon, P. (2008) International corporate reporting: A comparative approach, 4th ed, Pearson Education.

Salter, S. B. and Lewis, P. A. (2011) ‘Shades of Gray: An empirical examination of Gray's model of culture and income measurement practices using 20-F data’, Advances In Accounting, Incorporating Advances In International Accounting, Vol. 27, pp. 132-142.

Salter, S. B. and Niswander, F. (1995) 'CULTURAL-INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS INTERNATIONALLY - A TEST OF GRAY [1988] THEORY', Journal Of International Business Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 379-397.

Bibliography

Gray, S. J. (1988) ‘Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems Internationally’, ABACUS, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 1-15.

Hofstede, G. (1984) Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values, Beverly Hills u.a.: Sage

Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and organizations: software of the mind, McGraw-Hill

[HWU Assignment] The rise of strategic management accounting: The unity and criteria beneath different case companies among different countries

Introduction

As the economics of the world become more developed, the competition of business gets more intense. To survive in such battle, the corporation must evolve and apply at least some certain degree of survival strategy. Management accounting first appeared to serve users’ need of such information. Sooner or later, those who run the business started to feel that something seemed to be missing. The academics kicked in searching for answer and numerous discussions began to prosper. In between these discussions, strategic management accounting (SMA) came forth as the solution of the problem with many scholars guaranteed. Nevertheless, the terminology is not clearly defined in the academic world let along the business world. It didn't stop the trend of developing and applying of SMA techniques within firms. Although several limitations occurred due to the nature of case research, the researchers confirmed that trend through many case studies. As the world gets to understand SMA better, there is a greater possibility to elaborate advanced SMA techniques that adapt the situations more properly.

The rest of article is arranged as follow: in section 2, the definition of strategic management accounting (SMA) is discussed; in section 3, the development of SMA is briefly mentioned; in section 4, the results, criteria and tendency of case studies papers are summarized and analysed; the last section is conclusion.

What is strategic management accounting

Breaking down piece-by-piece, the term ‘accounting’ has many and various descriptions; however, in general it means conveying information for those who need it. If the title in front of accounting changed, the essential of information also shifted its focus. For example, financial accounting provides information of the firm's economic activities, for a certain period of time or at the exact point of time. With ‘management’ in front of accounting, information especially concentrates on managing purposes, more specifically, decision-making. Management accounting (MA) focuses on delivering internal information of the entity to users, in this situation, mostly managers. This internal information sometimes can be confidential and case sensitive against competitors. By using such type of information to carry out the organization goals, managers of the entity draw the route map or correct the direction accordingly. This process of making decision and responding to competition is thought to be strategic management accounting (SMA).

However, there is no concrete definition about what constitutes SMA (Tomkins and Carr, 1996; Roslender and Hart, 2003). Several researchers have tried to conclude a proper expression with different yet similar terms, such as accounting for strategic position (Simmonds, 1986) and strategic cost management (SCM) (Shank, 1989, 1996). Some researchers would tend to be more specific about the idea they carry on later in the research. Bromwich and Bhimani (1994) describe that SMA concentrates more on the customer value and also help to monitor the company's market performance. Haider et al. (2011) explain that SMA improves the traditional management accounting by expanding the scope and combining with other fields such as strategy and marketing. The summary review of SMA development states 'SMA entails taking a strategic orientation to the generation, interpretation and analysis of management accounting information, and competitors’ activities' (Langfield-Smith, 2008, pp. 206).

Furthermore, Langfield-Smith (2008) notes that there are many techniques included 'under the umbrella of SMA' and some commentators define SMA in terms of its techniques, such as target costing, life-cycle costing, strategic cost analysis, competitor cost analysis, activity-based costing, activity-based management, attribute costing, strategic performance measurement systems. All these mentioned techniques are perceived to be more strategy-oriented or strategy-concentrated. In a simple way of telling, it is basically management accounting applied with strategic dimension.

The development of SMA

As previously mentioned above, the MA practice mainly emphasizes internal information delivery; therefore, some criticisms arise. Chapman (2005) points out that putting special attention to the internal affairs of the business might lose sight of external opportunities and possible threats. To answer such critics and also improve the methodology, various attempts have been made, including SMA. The SMA terminology started to pop out in recent decades as a new and effective cure for organization coping with all the difficult situations. This concept inspires plenty responses and further discussion are made by numerous researchers (Simmonds, 1986; Shank, 1989, 1996; Bromwich and Bhimani, 1994; Chapman, 2005; Langfield-Smith, 2008; Carmen and Corina, 2009; Haider et al., 2011; Nixon and Burns, 2012). Through these efforts put into shaping and structuring the context of SMA, the researchers try to uncover more extended linkages with other disciplines. If the accountants wish to develop a more advanced accounting system, it is best to know the logic and rationale behind every strategy applied by sense-making and how it is used during the process (Tillmann and Goddard, 2008). Nixon and Burns (2012) suggest that SMA should be integrated with strategic management (SM) because SM gives broader boundary and also stimulates more ideas.

Case study for SMA

Despite the theoretical supports and prospering researches related to SMA, the empirical evidences somehow are scarce. One of the critics for SMA is about the lack of real practices and actual usage applied in business. The research finding implies that the use of the term SMA is not very general among management accountants. Many who actually use the techniques don't recognise them as SMA implying the uncertainty about the phrase. However, the observation from the UK sample in this research provides a cue that SMA had more appreciation because the term was first cited and originated in UK, implying cultural and historical factors involved in the choice of words, not entirely related to lack of practices in other countries. Some studies put more weigh on building profound knowledge by inspecting the vertical relation within one organisation rather than horizontal. Either ways of pursuing and exploring helps construct a thorough comprehension. 

Practices in different countries

Guilding et al. (2000) survey 12 SMA practices usages in hundreds of the largest public and private companies, in terms of turnover, among United Kingdom (UK), United States (US) and New Zealand (NZ). It appears that NZ companies have special preferences for three out of the 12 SMA practices questionnaire ('value chain costing', 'competitive position monitoring' and 'competitor performance appraisal based on published financial statements') while US companies have totally different point of view. The researchers also point out that the observation conclusion may be due to a) a fast-developing and highly-competitive business environment in NZ, or b) those NZ companies selected from samples are part of multinational operations. To conclude, there are four major findings according to this paper: firstly, competitor accounting and strategic pricing seem to be widely applied; secondly, despite most of the low usage rate of SMA practices, the underlying potential shouldn't be overlooked because the expected advantages are higher than the usage rate; thirdly, the company size affects the adoption of SMA when restricting matched sub-sample level; lastly, the phrase SMA seems not broadly appreciated in corporations.

Following up, Tillmann and Goddard (2008) examine the context of SMA based on a case study of one large multinational company in Germany. The authors define the core phenomenon of SMA process as sense-making which employed as a vehicle to better understand situations encountered and make sure no spots missed, in other words, understandability and transparency. This paper tends to provide insights into SMA and serve as cornerstone for other possible future SMA systems design because one SMA technique could not fit with all situations well. The finding also highlights the ability of management accountant has to cover more knowledge, not just accounting related, but other know-how. As a main information translator in organizations, management accountants nowadays are required to be full-aspect prepared.

Furthermore, Ma and Tayles (2009) inspect the adoption of SMA practices from one department within a global medical technology company in England. In the case company, the researchers discover that some SMA techniques are adopted because those methods fit with the company’s strategic goals, suggesting that usage of certain SMA techniques due to the level of relevance. In addition, the trigger behind the adoption of SMA techniques was changed market situation and thus increased competition pressure. In such manner, the case company strived to survive, and hence the accounting information remodeling procedures were made.

Moreover, Cadez and Guilding (2012) investigate how prototypes of new SMA techniques facilitate performances in Slovenian manufacturing companies. The result indicates that approximate level of performance can be reached by different strategies portfolios.

Tagging along, the process of exploring and broadening SMA gradually goes from surface to core. The above case studies provide a stand ground for coming up researches. The research started with a simple question: is there any similarity among practices preferences among different continents? Although the researchers chose English-speaking countries to begin with, the result indicates the existence of preferences and implied cultural geographical characteristics. Among these case firms in different countries, there might be certain cultural differences but the ultimate goal is the same: pursue the best performance.

Criteria

There are several criteria for selecting the sample for analyzing and interpreting strategies behind applications. In the survey research, the scope of practices must be considered, for such work could be very experimental and exploratory. The research carried out at organizational level varies from the one at sub-department level, for higher management with more strategy concerned and direction guidance, and middle management with more field practice and real perception of strategy execution.

One problem is that the unclear definition of SMA, more specifically, what constitutes SMA. Considering future possible innovating techniques, the boundary of SMA would be presumably vague and conceptual. The need of SMA conceptual framework is foreseeable increasing.

Standardizing terminology is also considered to be one of the coming problems. Since SMA has a wide range of definition and applied techniques, researchers desperately attempt to establish a boundary for what components constitute SMA. To a basic standing point, the literature must have some level of mutual agreement to what constitutes SMA otherwise further studies would be invalid because it is different subject at the beginning.

The level of economic development would also affect the choosing of case company. In a developing economics, small capital corporations are more common than large capital corporations, and thus jobs and responsibilities are not as diversified as the larger ones. For concept of SMA, it specifically targets at combining two or more different functions of the entity together and thus creates a sharp forward-looking strategy which helps the entity to compete against other market participants. Given the prosperity of economics, there are more objects to choose from, even just doing a thorough investigation of one firm. The complexity and depth of real business practices would not be revealed unless digging deeper underneath, which large capital corporations are more capable to offer. However, there is also a possible explanation that small capital corporations have more flexibility and in-time reaction to sudden change in situations when adopting SMA as a tool to survive.

Conclusion

This article tends to outline the development of strategic management accounting, an improved management accounting, and analyses the empirical evidence carried out by different researchers. As mentioned above, SMA has quite vague and broad definition, no conceptual framework existing yet. It is also considered to adopt an even broader coverage as strategy management, lightening the image of accounting. However, SMA techniques are useful in the real business world practices, even with mere perception of the term. Through those case studies, the researchers confirm that the adoption of certain type of SMA technique is based on the relevance of performance. There are many possible SMA techniques combinations, validated by case studies, no matter which one combination the firm choose can reach similar level of performance. This result implies that there is no perfect solution but the most suitable one. By acknowledging the criteria those researches encountered, the future researchers can try to improve the research method, and even better, come up with more advantageous SMA techniques.

Reference list

Cadez, S. and Guilding, C. (2012), 'Strategy, strategic management accounting and performance: a configurational analysis', Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 484-501.

Carmen, A. A. and Corina, G. (2009) ‘A strategic approach of management accounting’, Annals Of The University Of Oradea: Economic Science, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 736-741.

Chapman, C. S. (2005), Controlling Strategy: management, accounting, and performance measurement, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Guilding, C., Cravens, K.S. and Tayles, M. (2000) ‘An international comparison of strategic management accounting practices’, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 11, pp. 113-135.

Haider, S., Ali, M. and Muhammad Shaukat, M. (2011) 'STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING – A MESSIAH FOR MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING?', Australian Journal Of Business And Management Research, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 1-7

Jorgensen, B. and Messner, M. (2010) 'Accounting and strategising: a case study from new product development', Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 184–204.

Krumwiede, K. R. and Charles, S. L. (2007) 'Finding the right mix: how to match strategy and management practices to enhance firm performance', Articles of Merit Award Program for Distinguished Contribution to the Roles and Domain of PAIBs, Oct. 2007, pp. 1-8.

Langfield-Smith, K. (2008) 'Strategic management accounting: how far have we come in 25 years?', Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 204-228.

Ma, Y. and Tayles, M. (2009) ‘On the emergence of strategic management accounting; an institutional perspective’, Accounting and Business Research, Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 473-495.

Nixon, B. and Burns, J. (2012) 'The paradox of strategic management accounting', Management Accounting Research, Vol. 23, Strategic Management Accounting, pp. 229-244.

Nixon, B., Burns, J. and Jazayeri, M. (2011) 'The role of management accounting in new product design and development decisions', CIMA Research Executive Summary Series, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1-7.

Roslender, R. and Hart, S. J. (2003) 'In search of strategic management accounting: theoretical and field study perspectives', Management Accounting Research, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 255-279.

Shank, J. K. (1989) 'Strategic cost management: new wine, or just new bottles?’, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 1, pp.47-65.

Shank, J. K. (1996) 'Analysing technology investments from NPV to strategic cost management (SCM)', Management Accounting Research, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 185-197.

Simmonds, K. (1986) ’The accounting assessment of competitive position', The European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 16-31.

Tillmann, K. and Goddard, A. (2008) ‘Strategic management accounting and sense-making in a multinational company’, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 19, pp. 80-102.

Tomkins, C. and Carr, C. (1996) 'Reflections on the papers in this issue and a commentary on the state of Strategic Management Accounting’, Management Accounting Research, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 271-280.