The purpose of this study is, on the basis of institutional theory, to contribute with more understanding about resistance to management accounting change and also to survey reasons for the resistance and how to cope with the resistance. The study is a qualitative case study and semi-structured interviews have been used to complement the study’s theoretical area, consisting of scientific articles. The conclusion from the study is that resistance to management accounting change can be understood and explained by the institutions of each organisation and its underlying structures. A further conclusion is, with the structures in mind there are many reasons for resistance and also many ways to cope with the resistance. A model has been produced in purpose to create understanding and to survey the resistance to management accounting change.

This study explores how higher education can enable the management accounting curriculum to include sustainability content and learning outcomes to encourage future accountants and leaders to use such information in organizational decision-making. It examines current systems thinking theories, and studies how the leverage points available through the management accounting function may assist organizations to embed sustainability into daily practice. To support this transformation, the research reviews the knowledge-base, activities, and tools of management accounting and suggests how to incorporate sustainability principles and criteria into the curriculum within a community college in British Columbia (BC) that has established sustainability as a strategic goal. Action research interviews explore how the management accounting curriculum within the school of business could be enhanced to support organizations - and by extension society - in embedding sustainability into practice, and identifies recommendations for curriculum re-design at the department level, and key elements of change-making to enable it.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe atliktas valdymo apskaitos sistemos tobulinimas inovacijas kuriančioje ir diegiančioje įmonėje. Išnagrinėtos pagrindinės problemos lemiančios valdymo apskaitos sistemos tobulinimą inovatyvios gamybos įmonėje bei pateikti siūlymai šioms problemoms spręsti. Pirmoje darbo dalyje nagrinėjama teoriniu aspektu valdymo apskaita, jos samprata, pateikiamas valdymo apskaitos vaidmuo inovatyvios gamybos įmonėje, apibūdinama kokia inovacijų įtaka yra gamybos įmonėje. Antroje darbo dalyje formuojamas valdymo apskaitos teorinis modelis inovatyvios gamybos įmonėje, lyginami tradiciniai ir modernūs valdymo apskaitos metodai, aptariama informacijos kokybės reikšmė, planavimo ir kontrolės sistemos. Trečioje dalyje aptariami valdymo apskaitos sistemos modelio privalumai ir trūkumai, nagrinėjama galimybė įgyvendinti koncepcinį modelį inovatyvios gamybos įmonėje. Darbo pabaigoje pateikiamos išvados bei siūlymai. / Master's thesis analyses the development of a management accounting system in a company that develops and applies innovations. The paper analyzes the main problems determining development of a management accounting system in the innovative production company and provides recommendations to solve these problems. The first part of the paper deals with the theoretical aspect of a management accounting, the concept of a management accounting, presents the role of a management accounting in an innovative production company, describes the impact of innovation in a production company. The second part deals with the formed theoretical model of management accounting in the innovative production company, the traditional and modern methods of management accounting are being compared, the importance of information quality as well as planning and control systems are being discussed. The third part analyses the strengths and weaknesses of a management accounting system, examines the possibility of implementing a conceptual model for an innovative production company. The paper ends with conclusions and recommendations.

På senare tid har en kritisk diskussion växt fram kring användandet av budget som styrmedel. Budgeten anses vara tidskonsumerande, resurskrävande och den anses även inte tillhandahålla relevant information, vilket har medfört att det finns företag som avskaffat budgeten som styrmedel. Men hur styrs företag utan budget och är det möjligt att styra ett företag utan budget? Det finns forskare som anser att företag som styrs utan budget får problem med planering, samordning samt styrning av aktiviteter då de saknar ett ramverk. Ahlsell AB är företag som har styrt sin verksamhet utan budget i 17 år. Den här studien fokuserar på att fastställa vilka styrmedel som används i företaget istället för budget till planering, samordning, kommunikation, prestationsmätning, belöningar, samt motivation, vilket är aktiviteter som budgeten anses täcka. / Background and problem: Lately a critical discussion about the use of budget as a controltool has increased. A budget is considered to be time and resource consuming and not providing adequate information. The outcome regarding this is that there are companies that have abandoned the budget as a control tool. Research finds that companies in which are not using budget as a control tool faces problems with planning, coordinating and controlling activities because of the absence of a framework. Ahlsell AB is a company that abandoned the budget as a control tool 17 years ago. This study focuses on establishing which control tools that are used instead of the budget to plan, coordinate, communicate, measure performance, reward and motivate, which are activities that the budgets deems to cover.Purpose: This study aims to establish how Ahlsell works with planning, coordination, communication, performance measurement, rewarding and motivation without budget at different levels within the organization.Method: A deductive case study on Ahlsell has been used for this thesis. The empirical data was conducted as the primarily source through semi structured interviews but also through secondary data such as internal education material and other published company information.Conclusion: To control the business the organization needs to be decentralized and consist of a relatively large number of small profit centers. “Relative performance” is another assumption, which aims to compare the business to performances of previous year, other units and competitors in order to continuously improve the outcome. By using only one IT-system available for everyone within the company, benchmarking and target figures for KPI, Ahlsellenables to control the company without a budget.

In recent years, the growing importance of environmental and social issues has put pressure on companies to implement environmental and social systems. With the pressure on companies to improve environmental performance, environmental management accounting can provide a valuable tool that enables companies to respond to environmental challenges. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry and also to identify and evaluate the opportunities to improve both a company's environmental performance and economic performance. In this study, scatter plot diagrams were used to determine the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry. Ten South African mining companies were selected for the study and their financial information as well as environmental information for the period 2005 to 2009 was used. After the analysis of the scatter plot diagrams was done, it was found that it pays to be green for coal–mining companies, but not for gold– and platinum–mining companies. This study also identified that environmental management accounting is essential to identify and effectively manage environmental costs to improve environmental performance and that it is a very important tool to help companies to implement environmentally friendly programmes for ensuring a company's long–term strategic position. Despite all the risks and challenges facing the mining industry, opportunities to improve a company's environmental performance and economic performance, include emissions trading, development of new technologies, investing in projects in renewable energy and an increase in demand of mining products due to the effects of climate change. ii The value of the study is that it is the first study to investigate the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry. This study is also unique as it takes into account how investors see the company in terms of environmental performance. This study uses economic performance measures from an internal and external point of view and not merely from an internal point of view like the previous studies. Companies in the mining industry as well as investors can use the findings presented in this study to realise the importance of preserving the environment as well as the importance of triple bottom line accounting. / Thesis (M.Com. (Management Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

In recent years, the growing importance of environmental and social issues has put pressure on companies to implement environmental and social systems. With the pressure on companies to improve environmental performance, environmental management accounting can provide a valuable tool that enables companies to respond to environmental challenges. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry and also to identify and evaluate the opportunities to improve both a company's environmental performance and economic performance. In this study, scatter plot diagrams were used to determine the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry. Ten South African mining companies were selected for the study and their financial information as well as environmental information for the period 2005 to 2009 was used. After the analysis of the scatter plot diagrams was done, it was found that it pays to be green for coal–mining companies, but not for gold– and platinum–mining companies. This study also identified that environmental management accounting is essential to identify and effectively manage environmental costs to improve environmental performance and that it is a very important tool to help companies to implement environmentally friendly programmes for ensuring a company's long–term strategic position. Despite all the risks and challenges facing the mining industry, opportunities to improve a company's environmental performance and economic performance, include emissions trading, development of new technologies, investing in projects in renewable energy and an increase in demand of mining products due to the effects of climate change. ii The value of the study is that it is the first study to investigate the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance in the South African mining industry. This study is also unique as it takes into account how investors see the company in terms of environmental performance. This study uses economic performance measures from an internal and external point of view and not merely from an internal point of view like the previous studies. Companies in the mining industry as well as investors can use the findings presented in this study to realise the importance of preserving the environment as well as the importance of triple bottom line accounting. / Thesis (M.Com. (Management Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Managerial work has been described as fragmented, action-oriented, and highly interpersonal, leaving limited room for formal planning and analysis. Even so, managers are expected to engage with accounting information for planning and analysing their area of responsibility. Accounting information has, however, been found to be tardy, aggregated, and incomplete, leading managers to rely on a wide set of additional informational resources. Still, managers’ doings and concerns tend to remain largely in the background in much management accounting research, which leaves us with limited knowledge of how accounting information comes into play in managers’ work. Moreover, technologies aimed at accommodating managers’ information needs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and allow for timelier and more precise accounting information. This gradual transformation of technologies has led to questions concerning how management accounting is practised, and how it is related to accounting information systems. The aim of this dissertation is to identify roles of accounting information in managerial work in order to better understand the link between managerial work and management accounting systems. The dissertation consists of two volumes, each with three papers and a summary appraisal. The empirical material consists of interviews with a cross-sectional sample of mainly first-line managers, and a study of a construction firm including interviews with higher- and lower-level managers, observations of workshops where higher-level managers and staff discuss the management accounting systems, and internal documents. Overall, this dissertation suggests four roles of accounting information, based on its capacity to serve as representation, translation, key and perspective. Essentially, these roles reflect the ability of accounting information to both aggregate and disaggregate “reality”. The potential of each of these roles is shaped by managerial, organisational and technological issues, and is not always easily realised. The potential of these roles is particularly challenged in an environment with many local contexts. By accentuating what makes accounting information more and less valuable vis-à-vis other informational resources, this dissertation adds clarity to the emerging body of literature on managers’ situated use of accounting information, and to the debate on information technologies and management accounting.

The development of Information Technology is, according to the Swedish Government, the most important area of development. The costs of IT in governmental agencies are somewhere in between 20 to 25 billion SEK, paid by taxpayers and one of the largest cost items in the Swedish governments resources. Despite this, every third Swedish governmental agency lacks an IT-strategy and is unable to meet needs for flexibility and control. The study aims to reveal barriers that prevent an active application lifecycle management (ALM) at Swedish governmental agencies and to answer the question: “How do Swedish authorities handle their proprietary applications from a lifecycle perspective; financially and technically?” The case study will be conducted at the Social Insurance Agency (SIA). The SIA distributed, in 2010, about 6 % of the Swedish GDP and is mainly funded by grants and loans from the Swedish National Debt Office. The survey will be studied from a management accounting and ALM perspective. Management accounting is the actions within organizations to achieve financial goals. ALM is the lifecycle of an application that consists of the phases; requirements specification, development, testing, deployment and maintenance. The study will also investigate the technical debt at the governmental agencies. Technical debt refers to the work which has to be completed before an application can be considered finished. The survey is a qualitative study based on interviews with an exploratory purpose. The results are generalised to reflect a greater part of the Swedish authorities and showed that Swedish governmental agencies have inadequate handling of their proprietary applications and that each application is financially linked to one or more projects simultaneously. The models made are to facilitate the understanding of the different stages of ALM in synergy with the management accounting. Theoretically, the Maintenance phase allocates approximately 90 % of the total costs, whereas in governmental agenises it stands for about 20 %. Theoretically 10 % of the total costs are allocated to the Development phase, whereas in governmental agencies the corresponding amount is 80 %. A consequence of this is increased technical debt. The technical debt at Swedish authorities is often funded with loans, which is not allowed according to the Swedish National Debt Office. The SIA exceed budgets without asking for increased funds and according to the Swedish Audit Office, so does also 1/3 of the Swedish governmental agencies, meaning that they must handle the financial complications internally by moving funds amongst different departments and projects, also spending money meant for development on maintenance. Future studies can be made as investigations on how management accounting and ALM can be implemented on a safe and effective manner in a governmental agency.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2003.

The diffusion of Activity Based Costing (ABC) has been researched extensively in developed countries. Research on these issues in Jordan in general and within the Jordanian industrial sector more specifically is limited. The aim of the current research is to contribute to the design and successful ABC implementation in the Jordanian industrial sector. To achieve the aim of the research, the research methodology included both quantitative and qualitative data. The first stage was a quantitative study. The questionnaire survey was developed and the primary aims were to determine the current state of ABC adoption and implementation. The factors that facilitate, motivate and create barriers to ABC implementation were examined. In the second stage, semistructured interviews were used to probe the significant results of the questionnaire survey. The interviews were conducted with 6 companies that have implemented ABC in full and currently using ABC information. The survey findings indicate that ABC implementation among Jordanian industrial companies is quite satisfactory. The rate of ABC implementation is about 50.8%. Within the Jordanian industrial sector, the interaction between the following factors facilitated and motivated the implementation of ABC, namely: top management support, both training and education about the system, higher information technology, increasing proportion of overhead costs, growing costs, including product costs and administrative costs, and an increasing number of product variants. The interviews with financial managers/heads of cost accounting departments are consistent with questionnaire survey findings and both reveal and emphasise the important effect of consultants, professional management/accounting bodies and cooperation between academics and professionals upon implementing ABC within the Jordanian industrial sector. Therefore, it can be concluded that it is not only demand but also supply factors that influence implementation of ABC within the Jordanian industrial companies.