Accounting relevance to management
vbtullah1alpishri
Relevencelostandfound.pdf
Critical Perspectives on Accounting (1996) 7 , 533 – 561
RELEVANCE LOST AND FOUND : CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROMISE OF
MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING
R OBIN R OSLENDER University of Sterling
Two major development programmes have been evident in management accounting in recent times . A range of new techniques , generic approaches and frameworks for accounting for strategic positioning have emerged in response to doubts raised about the relevance of cost and management accounting . In parallel , many of the most significant advances in the critical accounting project have taken place in the context of accounting to management . Where the two programmes have intersected , the outcome has been to raise a series of reservations about the promise of the new management accounting . This paper of fers a critical perspective on the reception af forded recent developments in management accounting , and attempts to identify evidence of positive opportunities where others have discerned only further threats . ÷ 1996 Academic Press Limited
Introduction
In recent years management accounting has been fortunate in playing host to two major development projects . Concerns about the relevance of manage- ment accounting in the face of the demands of the global marketplace quickly gave way to the making of a new project , that of accounting for strategic positioning , resulting in a sea change in the meaning and mode of accounting to management . At the same time management accounting has been the site of many of the major developments in the critical accounting project , academic accounting’s attempt to heighten the accountancy profession’s awareness of the conditions and consequences of accounting theory and practice . Given the very dif ferent natures of these two projects , one essentially hands on , the other decidedly scholarly , it is hardly surprising that there has been little cross-fertilization to date . This is not to suggest that the exponents of accounting for strategic positioning have abandoned any pretence of scholarly rigour . In truth a significant part of the emergent literature evidences a great extent of self-awareness , but only technical self-awareness . Nor has the critical accounting project has completely overlooked these developments . However , what characterizes the extant critique of accounting for strategic positioning is its dismissive tone with the almost predictable conclusion that there is little here that promises to contribute to a more attractive accounting praxis .
The founding assertion of this paper is that the emergence of accounting for strategic positioning is a project about which critical accountants should be
Address for correspondence : Professor Robin Roslender , Department of Accountancy and Finance , University of Stirling , Stirling , FK9 4LA , UK .
Received 3 February 1995 ; revised and accepted 3 January 1996 .
533
1045 – 2354 / 96 / 050533 1 29 $12 . 00 / 0 ÷ 1996 Academic Press Limited
R . Roslender 534
more positive . The critical theoretic , the underpinning of the critical account- ing project , seeks understanding as a precursor to change . It is in the enactment of change that the positive triumps over the present’s negativities . Instead of rehearsing a range of indictments regarding the undesirability of the evolving techniques , frameworks and generic approaches to accounting for strategic positioning , there is a need to identify a more progressive agenda . In this way critical accounting can extend the existing technical critique of accounting for strategic positioning through its behavioural and organizational dimensions to its (critical) social theoretic consummation . The first section below provides a brief overview of the debates about the relevance of management accounting . This is followed by a rather longer review of the main developments in the accounting for strategic positioning project as it has evolved in the past decade . The third section of the paper provides a commentary on the development of the critical accounting project to date . The existence of a divided project , between the Foucauldians who seem content to generate sophisticated but uncommitted knowledges , and the Marxists who seem to be increasingly aggrieved by the fact that few people appear interested in the worrying insights they of fer , is argued to be a fundamental constraint on thinking more positively about accounting for strategic positioning . The extant literature is then reviewed in the light of these observations . In the final section of the paper some of the more potentially progresssive aspects of the new economic and commercial order , and the necessity of accounting for it , are identified and discussed . Among these are the opportunities associated with empowerment ; downsizing ; customer consciousness ; market sovereignty ; and ‘‘soft’’ accounting numbers . Ultimately a critical accounting for strategic positioning promises to contrib- ute to the broader critical theory of democratic societal transformation .
Questioning the Relevance of Management Accounting
The relevance debate is usually identified with Robert Kaplan who published a series of polemical papers on the state of management accounting in the US (Kaplan , 1983 , 1984 , 1985 , 1988) , and with Johnson wrote the seminal text : Relevance Lost : The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting (1987) . Four lines of criticism are evident in this literature . First , the limited evidence of technical developments within management accounting practice in response to the major changes in manufacturing technology in the previous 15 years . These changes had resulted in greatly increased productivity , flexibility and quality , together with reduced lead times and inventory , none of which management accounting seemed interested in , nor able to report . Second , the contention that management accounting was the captive of financial report- ing . This had resulted in a damaging short-termism in business outlook , coupled with problematic cost allocation techniques underpinning stock valuation , and an over-reliance on historical information for process control . An infatuation with a single cost system was argued to provide information too distorted , too aggregated and too late to be of much value to management .
A third set of criticisms was directed at academic management accountants . Too much recent research output had been in the form of simplistic ,
Relevance lost and found 535
economics-based models of the outside world , e . g . agency theory , rather than studies of ‘‘best practice’’ . The research literature , and in turn the textbook tradition , had become sterile , divorced from the wider audience of manage- ment accounting practitioners . Addressing the relevance issue would necessi- tate closing the theory gap which had occured in the previous three decades . The final criticism was the most general and the most contentious , being concerned with the history of management accounting . Instead of viewing management accounting as a recent development , it was necessary to recognize its origins in the first half of the nineteenth century . A mature management accounting tradition was well-established in the 1920s , provid- ing the basis for ef fective cost management , management control and performance measurement . Management accounting’s lost relevance is a recent phenomenon , which has resulted in its progress being stalled , al- though not yet beyond the point at which its promise has completely atrophied .
Kaplan’s motives , like those of Johnson and others who joined the relevance debate in the later 1980s , e . g . Berliner and Brimson (1988) , Bromwich and Bhimani (1989) , Shank and Govindarajan (1989) , are complex . His earliest papers were published in the aftermath of the wide-ranging debate about the need to regenerate American industry in the context of the emergent global economy (Hayes and Abernathy , 1980) , the lessons which might be learned from the Japanese success story of the previous two decades (Schonberger , 1982 ; Peters and Waterman , 1982) and the embryonic competitive advantage theory of Porter (1980) . In this way the assertion of a relevance problem in the sphere of management accounting is evidence of a trickle-down ef fect , manifest in an altruistic attempt by a key spokesman for the accountancy profession to evidence a measure of culpability , contrition and commitment to the restoration of American economic (not to mention political and ideological) dominance in the global marketplace . However , there is also the hint of a collective mobility project being formulated in the relevance critique . Kaplan is critical of the failings of a financial reporting oriented accountancy profession . The short-termism which it embodies also applies to the corporate finance alternative which had become more influen- tial in the financial management of business . The rejuvenation of manage- ment accountancy was to be based on cost management rather than cost accounting . If Kaplan’s initial forays into the new management accounting , i . e . activity-based costing , were anticlimactic , his contemporaries evidenced greater vision . Berliner and Brimson (1988) explored several new avenues for accounting to management including a concern with the value-adding process , life-cycle costing and the market-driven , target cost philosophy . Their outward looking or ‘‘strategic’’ approach to management accounting was shared by Bromwich and Bhimani (1989) . Their survey of UK management accounting concluded that although Kaplan’s critique was overstated , there was little doubt that the value of management accounting was limited by its focus on the factory floor . In its place they commend the development of strategic management accounting , integrating accounting and marketing themes . Shank and Govindarajan (1989) af firm the necessity for developing a management accounting project oriented towards the strategic planning rather than the management control process , in ef fect a multidisciplinary approach to the task of management itself .
R . Roslender 536
The Emergence of Accounting for Strategic Positioning
It is misleading to imagine that in little over a decade management accounting has been completely revolutionized . What has happened is that a new sub-branch of accounting to management has been developed , one in tune with the new business and commercial environment , the global marketplace , the postmodern economy , or whatever . Since the latter constitute the principal sites for competition between the leading edge corporations , this new sub-branch aims to structure best practice in accounting management . It is useful to employ a new term to refer to those developments in manage- ment accounting which to this point have been referred to above as the new management accounting . The term accounting for strategic positioning is well suited for this purpose . Accounting for strategic positioning entails the generation of accounting information which supports attempts of senior management to achieve , and sustain , a strategic , i . e . a commanding , position in the marketplace relative to competitors . In this way accounting for strategic positioning is closely associated with the determination and exploitation of competitive advantage , the means to a corporation’s (continuing) strategic presence in the marketplace (Porter , 1980 , 1985 ; Roslender , 1995) . Accounting for strategic positioning is a development which extends the prospectus of management accounting knowledges , admirably complementing the existing sub-branches of accounting to management : cost accounting ; management accounting ; and management control .
The development of accounting for strategic positioning can be viewed in terms of a succession of phases . Initially a range of relevant techniques for accounting to management was promoted . The most celebrated of these , activity - based costing (ABC) , was developed (as opposed to invented) by Kaplan in association with his colleague , Robin Cooper (Cooper and Kaplan , 1987 , 1988 , 1991a ; Cooper , 1988a , b , 1989a , b , 1990 ; Kaplan , 1992) . Initially , ABC was presented as a means of establishing product costs more accurately . Based on the insight that since activities rather than products give rise to costs , it is necessary to understand how dif ferent activities incur costs , and using cost drivers , attach (or attribute) costs to products in a more dis- criminating way . Drawing on case studies , Cooper and Kaplan demonstrated the contribution which ABC could make to production and pricing decisions in modern , hi-tech industries with their characteristic low volume production runs of customized products . While ABC was firmly based in the traditions of cost accounting , other new techniques could claim dif ferent lineages . Backflush accounting provided a means of accounting in a just-in-time environment (Foster and Horngren , 1988 ; Bhimani and Bromwich , 1991) . Instead of the more conventional procedure of working forwards and encountering the dif ficulties associated with large quantities of work in progress , backflush accounting works backwards to allocate costs between product sold and inventory . By contrast , throughput accounting focused on the problems associated with manufacturing response times (Galloway and Waldon , 1988a , 1988b ; Darlington , Innes , Mitchell and Woodward , 1992 ; see also Goldratt and Cox , 1984) . Response times are af fected by a range of factors which are dif ficult to eliminate entirely , e . g . production bottlenecks ,
Relevance lost and found 537
organizational slack , rework levels , scheduling failures . The challenge is to provide information which enables management to take fullest advantage from the prevailing circumstances . The growing emphasis on the provision of high quality products also resulted in renewed interest in determining the costs of quality , identifying its various elements such as failure costs , appraisal costs and prevention costs (Pasewark , 1991) .
A further group of techniques emerged which promised to furnish ‘‘softer’’ accounting information . For those advocating their development , these are no less useful than the ‘‘hard’’ numbers on which accounting’s reputation had been established . These techniques also embodied an acceptance of the necessity of exploring the potential of a more outward looking approach to accounting to management . Life - cycle costing focused on the pattern of costs associated with the life-cycles of products , from their inception and develop- ment through their growth and maturity phases and finally in their decline , providing guidance on how to account for these over time (Berliner and Brimson , 1988) . Shank and Govindarajan’s (1989) strategic cost analysis technique , a development of Porter’s earlier strategic marketing technique , entailed the analysis of product (or service) value chains . Bromwich (1990 , 1991) advocated the adoption of a strategic management accounting technique based on the contention that the benefits which products provide constitute the ultimate cost drivers . Simply attributing costs to products , rather than to the benefits which they of fer , overlooks the fact that competitive advantage is achieved in the marketplace . For Bromwich only products which yield the maximum value for the amount which the consumer wishes to spend , i . e . ef ficient products , will survive . The term strategic management accounting was already in use , Simmonds (1981) having used it to name his competitor data analysis technique which attracted renewed interest (Wilson , 1991 ; see also Simmonds , 1982 , 1986 , 1992) . Bromwich’s conception of strategic management accounting was also informed by the Japanese technique known as target costing (Hiromoto , 1988 , 1991 ; Sakurai , 1989) . A three step process , target costing begins with the identification of potentially successful products . Once identified , allowable or target costs are then determined , reflecting likely market prices together with desired profit mar- gins . Invariably these target costs are below what can readily be achieved by the business , necessitating value engineering exercises to bring actual costs into line with target costs .
The second phase in the development of accounting for strategic position- ing involved the emergence of generic approaches , or frameworks , for enhancing accounting’s role in the (strategic) management process . Kaplan and Cooper quickly recognized the limitations of ABC , moving to advocate a more comprehensive activity-based theory of the management process known initially as activity - based cost management (ABCM) and subsequently as activity - based management (ABM) (Cooper and Kaplan , 1991b , 1992 ; Kaplan , 1992 ; Cooper et al. , 1992) . As a guide to management action , ABM provides a means of enhancing profitability , unlike ABC with its emphasis on more accurate product costs . ABM is underpinned by a theory of resource consumption with activities now being viewed as giving rise to costs , as in ABC , while also involving the consumption of (scarce) resources . Increased
R . Roslender 538
profitability is argued to be based on the ef fective management of resource consumption .
A second generic approach to accounting for strategic positioning was formulated by Shank and Govindarajan . They define strategic cost manage- ment (SCM) as the managerial use of cost information explicitly directed at one or more of the four stages of the strategic management cycle (Shank , 1989 ; Shank and Govindarajan , 1992a , 1992b , 1993) . SCM integrates value chain analysis , strategic positioning analysis and cost driver analysis . For Shank and Govindarajan value chain analysis is central to the strategic management process . Their concept of the value chain , and thus value-added analyses , is more extensive than for other writers . The value chain stretches from the basic raw material sources of a business through to the ultimate end-use product delivered to the customer . Consequently firms are often only involved in part of the overall chain of value-creating activities , and therefore must endeavour to develop accounting information which permits internal cost management performance . Strategic positioning analysis focuses on the ways in which firms decide to compete , this too having implications for internal cost management arrangements (Gupta and Govindarajan , 1984 ; Govindarajan , 1986) . In the case of cost driver analysis , Shank and Govin- darajan place great significance on those drivers associated with the pursuit of quality , necessitating the development of an analytical framework for establishing the cost of quality . Continuous performance improvement is at the core of a third generic approach to accounting for strategic positioning exemplified in Turney and Anderson’s (1989) Tektronix case study . Con- tinuous improvement as ‘‘the relentless pursuit of improvement in the delivery of value to the customer’’ is argued by Turney and Anderson to be based on manufacturing , engineering and marketing excellence , comple- mented by the development of an accounting philosophy which reflects the environment of global competition , rapidly changing production technology and shortening product life-cycles . The accounting function is challenged to provide information on those aspects of performance associated with the theme of continuous improvement , i . e . key performance indicators on quality , time and cost . Turney and Anderson also af firm that , to a very large extent , the new modes of accounting (for strategic positioning) have little relationship with the needs of external financial reporting , hence their call to embrace a new accounting philosophy .
The third phase in the development of accounting for strategic positioning is presently underway . Although there are continuities with the two previous phases , recent developments amount to a major reconstitution of the management accounting discipline . Management accounting is now argued to play a pivotal role in the regimes of management reporting necessary for the pursuit of strategic positioning . An integrated strategic management process demands integrated modes of performance measurement . While many of these measurement metrics , taken in isolation , reflect a broad range of functional bases , their collective character is clearly that of providing account(ing)s . The latter , not surprisingly , are commonly some distance removed from the hard numbers associated with conventional financial reporting . The radical quality of this third phase can best be appreciated in
Relevance lost and found 539
relation to critical success factors (CSF) . Financial accounting and reporting practices have traditionally reflected the dominant role which profit assumes in the marketplace . In this sense profit is , or more correctly was , the critical success factor . However , in the vastly more competitive marketplace of the 1980s and 1990s , although sustained profitability remains the ultimate goal of corporations , the means of its attainment are much more varied , and , more significantly , increasingly important . Thus it is vital that corporations recog- nize the prospectus of CSFs which is available to them , and are able to measure , report and act on those selected . Consequently , as well as being concerned with sales and margins , it is necessary to have information on production times , component commonality , quality initiatives , customer satisfaction , customer service activity , employee skill development , employee involvement , employee turnover , in fact any element of performance which might be related to success in the market place .
Even this short list of CSFs demonstrates their various disciplinary origins , together with their ‘‘softer’’ , i . e . predominantly qualitative , character . Their integration , and the manner in which this reflects the dominance of an accounting mode of management reporting , is well-exemplified by the management reporting regime known as the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton , 1992 , 1993 , 1996 ; Atkinson et al. , 1995) . The term ‘‘balanced’’ reflects the objective of reporting to stakeholders other than the owners of the business , as well as in ways quite dif ferent to financial reporting . Kaplan and Norton’s balanced scorecard includes a financial perspective together with customer , internal business , and innovation and learning perspectives . The customer perspective accounts for issues such as quality , lead times , re- liability and customer service , particularly as these are reflected in customer satisfaction , repeat business , referrals , etc . The internal business perspective is also concerned with some of these issues as well as productivity and component commonality . Crucially , there is a recognition that the wider workforce is a vital stakeholding group whose skills and commitment to the organization cannot be taken for granted . It must also be accounted for . In this way the balanced scorecard literature refers enthusiastically to employee empowerment strategies . The fourth perspective , that of innovation and learning , is concerned with the dynamic aspects of strategic positioning , i . e . continued performance improvements and the capacity to introduce success- ful new products / services . This reflects the need to sustain a strategic position in the marketplace , in order to create value for its shareholders , provide challenging employment opportunities for its workforce and enjoy a sustained partnership with customers , both corporate and consumers . It is therefore imperative that an appropriate range of metrics exists to incorporate the future into any mature reporting regime .
The Advent of Critical Accounting
Alongside the development of accounting for strategic positioning , manage- ment accounting has played host to a second substantial project , the critical accounting project . Although misleading to claim that management account- ing has been the sole proving ground for this project , it has been its principal
R . Roslender 540
one . In this way the coming of critical accounting might be viewed as the third phase in the social scientization of the management accounting discipline . The first phase occured in the 1950s with the adoption of a range of social and industrial psychological insights , giving rise to the behavioural accounting tradition . In the early 1970s a more widely focused organizational tradition emerged , one heavily reliant on systems and contingency theories . The move from an individual to an organizational perspective was underpinned by a greater emphasis on sociological insights . Sociology continued to play a major role in the third , critical accounting phase , reflecting a shift in emphasis from an organizational to a more social theoretic perspective on accounting . In this light it is possible to of fer a general definition of critical accounting as a concern with the conditions and consequences of accountancy viewed as a set of technical practices , and as a major societal institution .
Critical accounting does not provide a singular perspective on accountancy , however . As with the discipline of sociology which provides a major underpinning , critical accounting embraces a (growing) range of ways of seeing . At its inception , particularly in the case of management accounting , there was great interest in the value of an interpretive sociology . This was in contrast to the essentially positivistic approach of fered by behavioural accounting , one not seriously challenged by the organizational perspectives of the 1970s . A concern with meaning rather than function , process rather than structure , action rather than system , understanding rather than prediction , and with case studies rather than testing theories (or laws) characterized the social constructionist perspective in accounting research . Like the other variants of interpretive sociology , e . g . symbolic interactionism , eth- nomethodology , phenomenological sociology , social constructionism chall- enges positivistic social scientific approaches on epistemological grounds , claiming to of fer a genuinely social scientific alternative , one based in a hermeneutic methodology (hence references to hermeneutic rather than interpretive sociology) . Constructionism continues to serve many critical accounting researchers well , either in its Weberian formulation , or in subse- quent developments such as Giddens’ structuration theory or Callon and Latour’s processual sociology .
A significant number of those interested in creating a critical accounting project were attracted by the promise of a third sociology . In the mid 1960s , the Weberian interpretive alternative to the dominant positivistic structural functionalism associated with Parsons was itself challenged by sociologists who took Marx as their intellectual inspiration . Where Weberian sociology sought only to address the epistemological limitations of structural functiona- lism , a Marxist sociology focused on its politically conservative , i . e . regula- tory , undertones . Marxist sociology openly sought to contribute to the overthrow of the capitalist order , developing understanding for the purpose of promoting social change . Marxist accounting scholars were the beneficiaries of 20 years of theoretical development as they began to fashion their contributions to the critical accounting project . At least three Marxist perspec- tives have been employed by those associated with this tradition of research and scholarship : political economy with its holistic and structural emphases ; the labour process perspective which focuses on the institutions of work and
Relevance lost and found 541
employment ; and Critical Theory , which endeavours to provide a balanced critique of the capitalist order , placing particular emphasis on the superstruc- ture and its processual mechanisms . As with constructionism , Marxist theory continues to appeal to a sizable minority of accounting scholars whose commitment to its underlying philosophy of praxis has remained substantially undimmed despite the spectacular failures associated with ‘‘living’’ Marxism in recent years .
During the past quarter of a century , social theory has been transformed by the emergence of a new intellectual tradition . After Lyotard , a founding feature of this new tradition is a rejection of metanarratives , i . e . grand stories , of which Marxism is the grandest . Interlinked with this is the problematization of the idea of progress , whether achieved by reason , science , or Marxism . Such notions were now dubbed ‘‘modern’’ , perhaps useful , even necessary for the previous two centuries or more but now defunct , to be avoided . This is the ‘‘postmodern’’ age , one in which civilization has gone about as far as it can go . By no means perfect , and certainly not to remain un-critiqued , as the work of Baudrillard af firms , what must be recognized , postmodern philo- sophers assert , is that we can no longer assume a link between knowledge and progress . If postmodern philosophy constitutes a challenge to the philosophy of praxis , then poststructural ‘‘methods’’ (for want of a better term) challenge the positivistic methodology underpinning modern science . The most widely recognized of such poststructural methods are deconstruc- tion (Derrida) , and archaeology and genealogy (Foucault) , as well as those employed by Callon and Latour in their processual sociology . The common feature of such methods is their capacity to provide only partial insights reflecting the lack of decidability of knowledge .
Postmodern / structural perspectives are currently dominant within the criti- cal accounting project . There are a variety of reasons why this should be so , although several are more apparent . Some writers clearly delight in the freedom which postmodern philosophy of fers them to reject Marxism . This can result in what to the outsider , i . e . someone who has retained faith with Marxism , seems to be a confirmation of Marxist insights being presented as the most descriptive but highly sophisticated analysis , crucially devoid of any wider significance , giving rise to a sense of bad faith . Alternatively , post- modern philosophy provides a pretence to critize anyone who would con- template embracing such outdated views . Turning to the epistemological issue , poststructural methods commend themselves as alternatives to the form(s) of scientism which characterize managerialism , and to the interpretive or hermeneutic sociologies of the early critical accounting project . For those who innocently believe that political or ideological factors don’t matter , and who find an intuitive appeal in the anti-metanarrative message of postmodern philosophy , poststructural methods add to the richness of a mature social science methodology . A variant of this condition applies to those who are , or at least start from the positioning of being Marxists , but who become seduced by unquestionably powerful notions such as local knowledges , discourses , sub-texts as pretexts , and the commonsense of local resistance , and end up ‘‘going (a postmodern version of) native’’ .
There is a serious side to the dominance of postmodern / structural perspec-
R . Roslender 542
tives , however . Calls to sever links between the pursuit of knowledge and its employment in attempts to improve the quality of life , whether within the present order or in some dif ferent order , are certainly radical , but only regressively so . Are we to believe that scientific research in the medical field is to be reoriented to the provision of whatever passes for ‘‘process knowledge’’ on the grounds that we are all going to die anyway? The lessons to be learned from the postmodern / structural turn is that the link between knowledge and progress is highly problematic and that we should not persuade ourselves otherwise . To say that any particular scholarly research exercise really has no broader significance is as disingenuous as pretending that it is possible for such endeavours to lead us to utopia . The emergence of postmodern / structural perspectives within the social sciences reinforces the conclusion that it is necessary to promote a plurality of ways of seeing , characterized by defensible composite knowledges and with only a minimal extent of eclecticism . ‘‘Anything goes’’ too readily translates into the con- struction and deployment of any admix of ways of seeing , the very antithesis of the paradigmatic purity commended to the advocates of critical accounting by Burrell and Morgan , to be valued for their capacity to provide a body of insights , however limited , on some aspect of reality . The objective should be to fashion a middle way(s) , to incorporate postmodern themes and post- structural methods with the modern perspectives such as hermeneutic sociology and / or Marxist theory , not just in some passing way to pursue a specific reserach project , but cumulatively and reflectively . Implicit in this call for enhanced postpositivist perspectives in critical accounting research is a commitment to the desirability of pursuing progressive knowledges , albeit less assuredly .
What of the current condition of the critical accounting project? The proliferation of ways of seeing has clearly advanced the development of critical accounting to date . However , the dominance of postmodern / structural approaches , and in particular a satisfaction with process knowledge , is a cause for some concern . Equally , Marxist approaches are increasingly guilty of a measure of fatalism in analysis , and a potentially damaging trend towards formulating critiques of postmodern / structural work rather than accounting issues . Both are guilty of posturing which must inevitably af fect the quality of insight which they generate . The fashioning of some form of grand synthesis is even less desirable than is it possible . The objective of critical accounting must be to promote cross-fertilization in an attempt to develop substantial , defensible perspectives capable of generating composite knowledges and promoting beneficial social change .
Critical Commentaries on Accounting for Strategic Positioning
Only a limited critical literature on accounting for strategic positioning has emerged to date . Nevertheless most of the theoretical perspectives identified in the previous section are represented here , with contributions being of an exemplary level of accounting scholarship . The literature has tended to be rather negative in tone , understandable perhaps , but no less problematic for
Relevance lost and found 543
those seeking to foster a more progressive critical accounting project . It is useful to consider the extant literature in terms of three subsets : critiques of Johnson and Kaplan’s 1987 text ; case studies of organizations which have embraced some form of accounting for strategic positioning ; and wider ranging commentaries which highlight some of the less attractive aspects of accounting for strategic positioning .
Ezzamel , Hoskins and Macve’s 1990 critique of Johnson and Kaplan is underpinned by a Foucauldian conceptual framework . They question both Johnson and Kaplan’s account of the history of cost and management accounting , and their remedies for restoring the lost relevance of manage- ment accounting . Ezzamel et al. take the view that a dif ferent history of US cost and management accounting can be written . It is not the case that until 1925 cost and management accounting was evolving admirably but was somewhat captured by financial reporting and subverted . ‘‘Managing by the numbers’’ is not so much the twentieth century corrupted form of a previously sound cost and management accounting tradition , rather the necessary consequence of pursuing that very objective : management by accounting / financial numbers . For Ezzamel et al. managing by the numbers is a sine qua non of modern organizational life . There is no mystery about cost and management accounting’s lost relevance ; things were always intended to be this way . Johnson and Kaplan’s remedies are similarly problematized . After briefly rehearsing other writers’ concerns about the wisdom of returning to a cost management emphasis , Ezzamel et al. explore the possibilities af forded by the ‘‘Japanese cure’’ . Japanese managerialism is argued to have its own characteristic power-knowledge based disciplinary practices , modes of visibi- lity and regimes of calculation . Although the Japanese have not been reliant on accounting numbers to date , Ezzamel et al. argue that this should not be mistaken for a wholesale rejection of the power of quantitative modes of management control . Physical measures of performance and an NCO style of physical contact with employees is widespread within Japanese industry , and consistent with Japanese culture which values loyalty and honour , order and the hierarchy . The Japanese workforce is argued to be open to exploitation by means of both group dynamics and individual self-discipline . A range of observations about the experience of Japanese companies operating in the US , and the longer term prospects for the Japanese economy , further undermines the value of the Japanese cure . At the same time , however , the reader is left with the question : what is to be done? Ezzamel et al. of fer the following suggestion in their conclusion :
‘‘ . . . we should be thinking systematically about the underlying accounting problem that has been there from the outset . How best can we make the accounting numbers work within the overall system of control so that they become really ef fective complementary and interlocking ways of both describing and driving real-world performance while being aware of and responsive to the ways that a population of calculable persons changes and evolves . ’’ (p . 165)
After appearing to reject managing by accounting , or indeed any sort of numbers , Ezzamel et al. are forced to admit that given the reality of ‘‘calculable persons’’ , some form of accounting is unavoidable . This position
R . Roslender 544
might be described as popular Foucauldianism , i . e . given that it is not possible to escape the disciplinary ef fects of power-knowledge , then the best that we can aim for is an enlightened form of managerialism . And an enlightened form of managerialism is precisely what is implicit in Ezzamel et al. ’s advice earlier to Johnson and Kaplan about paying more attention to the behavioural and organizational contexts of management accounting systems (pp . 162 – 3) , i . e . revisiting behavioural accounting!
Hopper and Armstrong (1991) are not in the business of refashioning managerialism . They of fer a Marxist rebuttal of Johnson and Kaplan , based principally on labour process theory . The paper has two interlinked foci , a critique of the transaction cost framework which underpins Johnson and Kaplan’s thesis , and a lengthy labour process history of US cost and management accounting . In the case of the transaction cost framework , a raft of criticisms is evident , two of which are particularly damaging . First , that transaction cost theory confuses gains from increased ef fort with gains from increased ef ficiency. From a labour process perspective , significant gains are to be had from the extension and intensification of labour , and the monopoli- zation of product markets . Such gains must not be confused with ef ficiency gains resulting from changes in organizational forms and control systems . Second , Hopper and Armstrong point out that in explaining the stagnation of management accounting after the mid-1920s by making reference to the increased dominance of financial reporting and the failings of the academy , they import issues which fall outside of the transaction cost framework . The alternative history of US cost and management accounting invokes a three stage development process . Between 1820 and 1870 , capital achieved the formal subordination of labour by means of the intensification of labour , and the introduction , and subsequent dismantling of a system of internal contract- ing . Accounting information was used to redistribute rewards away from labour rather than to promote ef ficiency . When capital displaced contractors , the necessary cost information initially resulted in significant transaction costs , although the decision itself was to prove beneficial to capital . Stage two , between 1870 and 1920 , involved the homogenization of labour , the emergence of the foreman , the inception of standard costing and the evolution of a battery of management control techniques to complement emergent organizational forms . Capital reinforced this real subordination of labour by means of a ‘‘drive system’’ of employment and anti-union campaigns resulting in greatly increased ef fort on the part of labour who found themselves powerless to organize against their employers . Hopper and Armstrong continue their analysis by arguing that in the mid-1920s the situation began to change , with significant consequences for cost and management accounting . The power of the primary sector of labour increased markedly at this time , and for the next 50 years a labour-capital accord was in place . New developments in cost and management accounting comple- mented this accord , relevance being refocused rather than lost . Renewed interest in budgeting and cost allocation techniques reflected the pricing pressures contingent on the emergence of monopoly capitalism . In the primary sector less need existed for cost management techniques and a discourse of labour ef ficiency . In the light of this undisputably compelling
Relevance lost and found 545
history it should come as little surprise that Hopper and Armstrong are distinctly wary of advocates of a rejuvenated management accounting discipline . US competitiveness has been under increasing threat since the mid-1970s , with the labour-capital accord now suspended as capital searches for new forms of labour process control . It is by no means certain that management accounting will have a crucial role to play in this scenario , Hopper and Armstrong acknowledging the potential of a wide range of accounting initiatives including agency theory and new modes of financial reporting which reflect the discipline of capital markets . However , if it does , it is extremely unlikely to of fer much of comfort to the mass of the workforce , and , understandably , should be resisted by whatever means are available .
The third critique is non-aligned , being informed by neither Marx nor Foucault . What makes it critical is its autocritique status . Having been the co-author of Relevance Lost , in which he argued that management accounting was capable of being refashioned to meet the needs of an increasingly competitive market place , Johnson now takes the view that :
‘‘Relevance was not lost by using improper accounting information to manage ; it was lost by improperly using accounting information to manage . ’’ (Johnson , 1994 , p . 262) .
Johnson now sees management accounting as part of the problem of US business uncompetitiveness rather than providing a solution to it (see also Johnson , 1992a , b) . Accounting in whatever guise can only provide a top- down approach to control , a view that is reconcilable with both the Marxist and Foucauldian positions outlined in the previous paragraphs . Johnson advocates embracing a bottom-up philosophy based on employee empower- ment and the promotion of customer satisfaction . This can be achieved by embracing a total quality management (TQM) approach to managing proc- esses . For Johnson , management by the numbers has increasingly led to businesses losing sight of the processes by which people , i . e . employees , and customers make a company competitive . Before World War II many US businesses were well-managed , if often intuitively so , with well-run processes and satisfied customers . Thirty years later , however , business generally defined process in terms of financial results , ‘‘in terms of a cost function , a revenue function or the accounting determinants of return on investment’’ (Johnson , 1994 , p . 262) . Processes are no longer defined in terms of the work people do , or the satisfaction customers receive . This is how relevance has been lost in the case of the US . The Japanese , and some European competitors , however , have not lost sight of the people / customer / process nexus , hence their success in the global marketplace . TQM with its emphasis on the competitive power that resides in building relationships and empower- ing people to solve problems , especially those associated with the customer , is Johnson’s new strategic positioning paradigm .
Several case studies of attempts to promote accounting for strategic positioning have been published . Bhimani and Piggott (1992a) of fers an account of the implementation of ABC at a UK pharmaceutical company . The researchers employ a social constructionist perspective to explore some of the constitutive ef fects of ABC in action (see Bhimani and Piggott , 1992 b for a
R . Roslender 546
technical analysis of the case) . The processual consequences of the ABC initiative were quickly recognized as being positive . Useful data was gener- ated on product costs and for investment appraisal purposes , while an existing continuous improvement programme was strengthened . However , even a modestly critical enquiry such as this highlighted several interesting behavioural and organizational consequences . The accountants seemed to benefit most from the introduction of ABC : they gleaned more accurate cost data ; their appreciation of the operational matters was enhanced ; relations with factory management improved and accounting became firmly establ- ished as the discourse of plant . The production function also experienced some gains : suspicions about some product costs were confirmed ; the value of the continuous improvement programme was enhanced and communica- tions with the accounting function were now much improved . The losers were the selling professionals . Not involved in the implementation of ABC , they had to bear the brunt of resultant price changes when meeting budget targets . The balance of power had shifted away to these who had a longer association with ABC , i . e . accountants and factory management . Bhimani and Piggott portray these as being unanticipated consequences , perfectly exemplifying both the strength and the weakness of researching accounting in action . It is surely naive to conclude that the emergent balance of power was not forseen , not intended . A Focauldian interpretation might conclude that for those in subordinate roles , i . e . the factory operatives , nothing had changed , af firming Johnson’s rejection of ABC . Conversely a Marxist study would have homed in on the Bhimani and Piggott’s unexplored observations that ,
‘‘ . . . Head Of fice managers became increasingly concerned with monitoring cost trends . Such renewed concerns altered the relationship between the factory and head Of fice without making it explicit . . .
The study has also revealed that the legitimacy accorded to accounting information in managerial exchanges within the organization coupled with the ready acceptance of ABC information by factory managers altered the relationship between the manufacturing function at Evans and the Head Of fice . ’’ (p . 130-1) .
which do seem to endorse Hopper and Armstrong’s concerns . Miller and O’Leary’s 1994 case study of the Decatur plant of Caterpillar Inc .
documents a more comprehensive set of issues . Caterpillar Inc . began to experience the challenge posed by the emergent manufacturing excellence of the Pacific Rim nations in the early 1980s . Initially it responded by embracing a range of strategies designed to improve corporate competitiveness , includ- ing both new accounting techniques such as competitor cost analysis , and a range of manufacturing and quality initiatives which had their own accounting implications . However , it was quickly recognized that something more radical was required if the company was to regain its former competitive edge . Decatur was the site for Caterpillar’s Plant With A Future (PWAF) programme initiated in 1984 , and realized with the launch of the plant’s Assembly Highway in May 1989 . Caterpillar’s top management saw that in the PWAF it was necessary to introduce a fundamentally dif ferent spatial ordering of manufacture , both to complement and to significantly extend the changes necessitated by its earlier manufacturing initiatives . The physical basis of this
Relevance lost and found 547
reordering of manufacture was the move to a cellular configuration of operations , i . e . of persons and machines . Innovation in hard technology was embraced in the form of computer integrated manufacture (CIM) systems . The Assembly Highway itself was the enabling concept , the cornerstone of the Decatur initiative . There was more to the PWAF than these changes , however . For Miller and O’Leary
‘‘This delineation of new manufacturing spaces did more than establish a physical framework within which systems and manufacturing expertise could address the details of a novel way of making things . In transforming the relationships between the dif ferent stages of the production process , and envisioning the process as a whole in systems terms , the Assembly Highway gave form to the ideals and aspirations contained in a particular notion of the ‘‘customer’’ . In so doing , the Assembly Highway made possible a temporary and fragile stabilisation of that ‘‘new economic citizenship’’ appealed to by so many commentators . ’’ (p . 36) .
Caterpillar Inc . had fully engaged the debate Miller and O’Leary (1993) term the ‘‘politics of the product’’ , a multifaceted concern with issues of quality , productivity , manufacturing innovation , and customer responsiveness , all set in the wider context of schooling , training , labour-management relations , in ef fect all the factors that enable a nation , i . e . the US , to produce well . It is this new economic citizenship which Miller and O’Leary find the most significant from a (critical) accounting point of view . Variously defined in the two papers , the new economic citizenship is closely linked with the objective of empower- ing all the members of a workforce , thereby enabling them to contribute in meaningful ways to the parameters of the product , and to interpret the demands of the customer . The new economic citizenship has the conse- quence of installing a significant mode of accountability to the customer within the workforce . This can be viewed in a positive way as it promises not only to provide a larger measure of responsibility for the production process on the workforce’s part , but also enhanced personal well-being , underpinned as it is by the fact that in the big picture , producers also fill the role of consumers .
What do Miller and O’Leary make of all this? The following pair of sentences perfectly encapsulates their position :
‘‘The ‘‘governable person’’ is supplanted by the ‘‘governable process’’ , as accounting makes possible a calculable knowledge of these new manufac- turing spaces . Thus accounting helps to make operable the demands and aspirations of the ‘‘new economic citizenship’’ . ’’ (p . 41) .
The ‘‘governable person’’ was the ordering concept of Miller and O’Leary’s seminal 1987 Foucauldian history of budgeting and standard costing . The perspective which informs the Decatur case study is outlined in Miller and Rose (1990) . It can be described as ‘‘later’’ Foucault , i . e . focused on ‘‘gov- ernmentality , ’’ enhanced by the constructionist emphasis of Latour and Callon , its central theme being the process referred to as the ‘‘government of economic life’’ . The new economic citizenship provides a way of governing economic life in sites such as Decatur . To the extent that the new economic citizenship enrolls accounting , it reproduces accounting’s contribution to the imperative of governance . In other words , there is no possibility of escaping the power ef fects of accounting / accountability . This being the case , the best
R . Roslender 548
that critical accounting can aim for is to provide knowledges of ‘‘the provisional and shifting stabilization of elements that traverse such a [tem- porary and fragile] ensemble’’ that is / was the PWAF initiative at Decatur . In other words , (detailed) processual knowledge of (debatable) governable processes .
The third case study , Munro’s 1995 analysis of a TQM initiative in a UK subsidiary of a multinational corporation manufacturing car components (Component) , is also informed by the work of Callon and Latour . Less detailed than the Decatur study , it conveys a much stronger sense of concern about what is happening at Component , although stopping far short of a Hopper and Armstrong-style repudiation of the changes under scrutiny . Munro details how the introduction of a ‘‘new province of quality’’ has been received enthusiastically by Components’ middle managers . It is seen as providing an opportunity for them to escape the surveillance which accompanies the operation of budgetary control systems , as well as promoting much-desired personal autonomy and the chance to enhance their career prospects . In terms reminiscent of Miller and O’Leary , Munro links managers and cus- tomers via the issue of quality , with the former wholeheartedly seizing the opportunity to represent the customer , to act as the customer’s spokesperson . Middle management saw themselves as experiencing a process of empower- ment , one rapidly giving way to major advances in the governance of Component , and a shift in the balance of power that they applauded and were confident about retaining . Munro describes the emergent order in the following terms :
‘‘The important point is to see the process of enrolment through which middle managers achieve their title to speak for the customer . For example , given middle managers’ link as spokespersons . . . of the customer , access to the source of expertise on quality was carefully guarded . . . Plant managers had established contacts [with Nissan] and kept a close grip on these . Through their expertise in quality , middle managers represent the customer . Within the new ‘ethos’ of quality , middle managers stand ready to act as the spokespersons of the customer . In this way , accounting numbers become re-examined , but this time on the assumption that plant managers are serving the customer . ‘I don’t believe it’s [standard costing] relevant to the present day if you are serving the customer’ (plant manager 2) . Standard costs become rubbished in the name of the customer . ’’ (p . 141) .
Things are not always as they seem , however . Munro views the TQM initiative as a way of intensifying accountability on the part of middle managers , one which also provides senior management with a means of distancing them- selves from the failures of their subordinates when necessary . Whereas the use of budgets and standard costing gives rise to hierarchical accountability with its very apparent surveillance properties , Munro links the new province of quality with the promotion of lateral accountability . Citing Munro and Hatherly (1993) , he argues that lateral accountability can readily be subverted by senior management , resulting in control and surveillance being intensified . So while middle managers are enthusiastically embracing quality , they are committing themselves to a more demanding regime of accountability . In this way ‘‘management by the numbers’’ , i . e . management at a distance by senior management using management accounting numbers , mutates into
Relevance lost and found 549
‘‘management by distance’’ which is reliant on fewer , even a single account- ing number(s) . As Munro himself observes in his concluding comments ,
‘‘Managing by distance takes the artefact of accounting numbers to its logical conclusion . . . . a dissemination of accountability away from the line , through ‘output’ measures which individuate and intensify responsibilities , facilitates a switch to an insistence on a number being met , at all costs to the individuals concerned . In this way , a propensity to give ‘accounts’ which excuse , legitimate or justify their failures is silenced . ’’ (pp . 146 – 7) .
As with the attempts to install some form of accounting for strategic positioning at both Evans and Decatur , a worrying downside is clearly visible beyond the discourse of beneficial technical innovation .
The third subset of critical commentaries was produced in response to Johnson’s autocritique , the three papers being published together with it in a 1994 issue of this journal on the theme ‘‘Management accounting and US competitiveness’’ . More wide-ranging than previous critiques , they strongly af firm that there is little to commend the development of accounting for strategic positioning to date . Ezzamel (1994) views Johnson’s ‘‘shift from managing results through the use of MAS to managing processes by embracing the philosophy of TQM’’ . (pp . 270 – 1) as problematic on three counts . First the value of TQM as a solution , second the ef ficacy of abandoning management accounting , and third the naivety of Johnson’s implicit problem-solution framework . Ezzamel assembles a powerful critique of TQM both Japanese- and Western-style . TQM entails management by physical rather than accounting numbers , thereby promoting only a dif ferent regime of surveillance , discipline , punishment , etc . Nor does TQM necessarily give rise to supportive cultures , cooperation , interdependence or the pursuit of continuous quality improvements . The quest for zero defects demands intense concentration which can undermine workforce commitment to em- bracing the culture of quality . This is further problematized by the practice of linking rewards and sanctions to extensive quantification of results and routine performance measurement . For Ezzamel , this ‘‘hard’’ face of TQM , neglected by Johnson , suggests that it dif fers little from the top-down accounting calculus it is held to supplant . Turning to the supremacy of the customer aspect of TQM , Ezzamel initially draws attention to how the market metric commodifies dependence , reciprocity and trust within the workforce , thereby promoting a disciplinary regime based on personal responsibility and blaming individuals . The primacy of the market ultimately reconstructs all organizational processes in a way that is anti-social / employee / quality of working life Ezzamel asserts . The spread of the market metric to the public sector , as in the UK , has resulted in a further round of damaging com- promises . Finally , Ezzamel reminds his readers that as a managerial initiative , TQM is normally imposed on employees from above , and serves only to perpetuate hierarchy . Ef fective resistance by ‘‘empowered’’ employees is dif ficult to envisage . Ezzamel’s antipathy to TQM is articulated in the following :
‘‘ . . . by evolving a new disciplinary regime subsumed under the guise of TQM , management seeks to legitimise and reassert its prerogative through the use of performance measures and reward structures (and other
R . Roslender 550
numeric measures of quality such as conventional statistical control techniques) which sanctify success and shame failure . The very notion of quality is curiously reduced to quantity . What is initially presented as a conscious policy of employee empowerment on closer inspection turns out to be yet another manifestation of top-down managerialism : the rhetoric empowerment rurns (sic) into the reality of hierarchical control . ’’ (p . 275) .
Ezzamel clearly finds Johnson’s conversion to the cause of critical account- ing unconvincing . His TQM corrective , with its emphasis on empowerment , customers and processes , is argued not to constitute a departure from top-down control . Instead of abandoning management accounting , Ezzamel believes that it is necessary to build on the extant critique of accounting’s power ef fects . The latter are to be resisted by ‘‘deconstructing accounting as a micro-technology and by transforming its practices into socialising forms of accountability’’ . (p . 276) . For Ezzamel , Johnson’s failure to explore the positive aspects of accounting’s constitutive role is a major shortcoming . In none of the papers so far reviewed is there such an unambiguous statement of the progressive / constructive / positive commitment / promise of the critical ac- counting project . Unfortunately , what comes next is extremely anticlimactic . Those in search of insight on socializing forms of accountability are directed to the work of Rose (1989) and Roberts (1991) , both of which , on the evidence presented here , convey the impression that only token resistance is possible , a position entirely consistent with Ezzamel’s popular Foucauldianism . Finally , on Johnson’s problem-solution framework , Ezzamel queries the idea of quick solutions to problems not fully analysed or understood . In a rather condes- cending manner he opines that ,
‘‘Although Johnson has admirably attempted in both Relevance Lost and his latest paper to enhance our understanding . . ., much more remains to be learned before we can be confident that we have gained a sound appreciation of the roots of the problem . . . ’’ (p . 278)
a position that explicitly priviliges certain knowledges over others , and sits uncomfortably with the earlier invocation of the notion of deconstruction .
This provides a ready link into the second of the CPA responses to Johnson or ’‘Johnson 2’’ as Williams et al. (1994a) designate his later work . The paper is constituted by two complementary parts . The first ‘‘deconstructs’’ Johnson’s texts employing a ‘‘style of reading’’ adapted from the work of 1970s discourse theorists . The second uses a ‘‘simple accounting framework’’ in an attempt to get to what Ezzamel might describe as the ‘‘roots’’ of the problem of US competitiveness . Although careful not to apply a label to this accounting framework themselves , like their deconstruction technique it is Marxisant , if not ‘‘pure’’ Marxist , exhibiting a close af finity with the perspec- tive which Tinker and Neimark (1987) termed political economy . In the first part of the paper , Williams et al. argue that although there is evidence of a significant shift between Johnson and Kaplan (1987) and Johnson 2 , the underlying managerialist a priori remains the same . It is the latter a priori which they deconstruct , identifying a framework of unexamined assumptions and assertions , which they illustrate and discuss in the context of Johnson 2 . Johnson’s first assumption is that it is management , and its proclivity for managing using financial numbers , who are to blame for declining US
Relevance lost and found 551
competitiveness . Williams et al. argue that replacing management accounting with TQM of fers no advance as it continues to disregard the influence of key structural variables . Assumption two is of national styles of management which give rise to similar levels of performance within economies , and dif ferent levels of performance between economies . The problem here is a reliance on simplistic oppositions , and a desire to cling on to the belief that America will always triumph in the end . Johnson’s third assumption is that TQM , as a zero sum game , holds out the promise that all stakeholders can be satisfied . Against this Williams et al. raise the question of the relationship between productivity gains , flat demand and levels of employment , and shareholder interest in profit , managerial action and the redundancy option . The final assumption is that the Business School plays a central role in the dif fusion of management calculation of any sort , an assertion that is presently unsupported by survey findings . Williams et al conclude that there is good reason to believe that texts such as this , like the Business School itself , play a mystificatory role . They divert attention away from a range of ‘‘hard technical evidence on the structural variables which determine the composition of costs and the generation of cash’’ (p . 282) which can be used to develop a fundamentally dif ferent account of the causes of American manufacturing uncompetiveness . More significantly , this account obviates the possibility of a happy ending , Hollywood-style , as promised by Johnson .
In the second part of their paper Williams et al. explore the underlying economic reality of the decline in US competitiveness using the car industry as their case study (see also Williams et al. 1994b , 1995) . Initially they demonstrate how there is no evidence to support the contention that in the case of hours-to-build , the Japanese have an overwhelming superiority over the US . The significant reductions achieved by the Japanese in the first half of the 1970s have given way to much more modest achievements . However , the comparative wage rates between the two industries during the following decade strongly favoured the Japanese , in large part due to that industry’s far greater reliance on smaller supplying firms . While noting that these wage dif ferentials have now shrunk very significantly , to less than 5% in 1991 , Williams et al. confidently proclaim that
‘‘The evidence on structural variables has devastating implications for Johnson’s assumption that management calculation is the crucial source of Japanese advantage . The structural variables are a suf ficient cause of US motor industry uncompetiveness in the 1970s and 1980s ; it is therefore unnecessary to invoke management calculation . ’’ (p . 289) .
On the question of continuous improvement and the pursuit of quality , evidence suggests that most car manufacturers can achieve these if they need to stay in business . Turning to the issue of value added , Williams et al. find little support for the contention that ef fective process control is the secret of superior performance . Toyota’s exceptional value added figures in the late 1980s are coincident with a high level of demand for its product at that time . Finally , in respect of the capacity to satisfy all stakeholders , Williams et al. see the acid test to be the ability to generate cash flow . They argue that cash flow is required to fund the next generation of product and process developments
R . Roslender 552
on which the continuation of businesses and the long term capacity to satisfy any stakeholders are dependent . Evidence presented for the US and Japan indicates that in neither industry does the average assembler ‘‘steadily generate a substantial cash surplus over and above the labour conversion costs incurred in its factories . ’’ (p . 292) . This makes the possibilty of happy ending(s) even more remote of course . In the last analysis , the basis of competitiveness in the global economy is as it ever was : the payment of low wages and the ef fective exploitation of labour . This is not what Williams et al. wish to commend to embattled US corporations , however . In their subse- quent work they chillingly demonstrate the extent of the threat posed to both the US and Japan by the newly emergent low wage Korean motor industry with its ultra cash-generative capacity underpinned by a social settlement which right-wing Western ideologues can presently only dream of . Develop- ments of this sort threaten not just US manufacturing industry but Western civilization itself . This is not to be construed as selfishly defending the gross imbalance which exists between nations , for as Williams et al. (1995) so eloquently conclude :
‘‘ . . . the issue is not whether we block Third World development , but whether we countenance the recreation of the Third World in the First . ’’ (p . 92) .
Yuthas and Tinker’s response to Johnson also addresses these issues . Employing an engaging cocktail of authentic Critical Theory , political econ- omy and labour process-based insights , they set out to explore whether it is possible to appraise the truth claims made about new management account- ing techniques , and to examine the techniques of ‘‘truth-making’’ employed by Johnson (and Johnson and Kaplan) to prosecute their truths about management accounting . They view their paper as a contribution to the project of advancing a critical politics of accounting . In this way the paper evidences continuities with Willmott et al. (1993) , Neimark (1994) and Roslender (1996) . Yuthas and Tinker consider the symmetry which exists between Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained texts , and Johnson’s concern with management accounting’s relevance in the post-war era . Both Milton and Johnson are argued to develop propositions which are simul- taneously true and false . This is inevitable because truth and falsity are always intertwined , and consequently truth itself is dynamic in nature , a social and historical truth which is destined to be rendered obsolete by changing social circumstances . However , the non-existence of an absolute , eternal , epistemic truth should not be taken to mean that there is no point in seeking to establish truth and falsity , i . e . what is ‘‘ideological’’ , at any point in time , for example in a text such as Johnson’s .
At this juncture , Yuthas and Tinker’s paper moves from a predominantly Critical Theory mode to an excursion in political economy . The ‘‘total quality truth’’ in Johnson is quickly reprised : accounting’s failure to ignore the full value-creating chain , its sacrifice of issues such as quality and flexibility , and the harm done by allowing management by numbers to dominate organiza- tional processes . ‘‘Falsity’’ is explored in greater detail . Attention is drawn to a plethora of economic factors which Johnson barely mentions : cheap
Relevance lost and found 553
imported labour in the US ; ever cheaper labour in the Pacific Rim and former Communist countries , including Russia and China ; the accelerated mobility of international capital ; the development of readily portable production technol- ogies , etc . Yuthas and Tinker remind us that high profits are the other side of the coin to low wages . More significantly , it is high profits which attract new capital , create employment and produce economic growth , which for writers like Johnson are the hallmarks of competitiveness . For Yuthas and Tinker it is not dif ficult to understand why Johnson ignores these alternative explana- tions of the bases of competitiveness :
‘‘ . . . such a discussion might unravel in unpleasant directions ; it leads one to recognise the conflicting interests of capital and capital accumulation on the one hand , and national (social) prosperity on the other . ’’ (p . 303) .
In this respect Johnson (and Kaplan) can be seen as being to the Clinton administration what Jensen and Meckling were to those of Bush , Reagan and Thatcher . They make a vital contribution to the creation of a hegemony of consent , one which , while rejecting the excesses of the past decade or so , does not challenge the fundamental characteristic of American society—the exploitative social relations of capitalism . As an ideologue , the ‘‘truth’’ that Johnson of fers can , at best , only produce a temporary negation of the crisis which it claims to address . For Yuthas and Tinker the big picture is desparately worrying , with the result that
‘‘ . . . the optimism of Relevance Lost and Relevance Regained cannot be sustained in the context of economic conditions that are increasingly incapable of ensuring individuals a livelihood and existence . ’’ (p . 305) .
What is required is a concerted challenge on the economic contradictions which persist within capitalism , not texts serving only to mystify its instability .
Discussion
At the height of her popularity in the 1980s , the British Prime Minister , Margeret Thatcher , once expressed a preference for those of her ministers who brought her ‘‘solutions’’ rather than only ‘‘problems’’ . The same thinking underpinned an aphorism which gained some popularity in managerial circles at the time : what is seen by one person as a ‘‘threat’’ is to another an ‘‘opportunity’’ . I believe that the latter opposition in provides an insightful starting point for drawing this paper to a conclusion . The critical accounting contributions to the relevance debate reviewed at length in the previous section focus on the threats posed by the various techniques , generic approaches and broader frameworks associated with the development of accounting for strategic positioning . These threats are most clearly set out in the two Marxist papers of Hopper and Armstrong , and Yuthas and Tinker . The work of Williams et al. conveys a similar concern about the machinations of the international labour and capital markets , while Munro is clearly troubled about the prospects for Component’s empowered middle management
R . Roslender 554
cadres . Although the Miller and O’Leary case problematizes empowerment initiatives , it does so in an understated way . There is an irritating sense of fatalism at work here , a combination of ‘‘could you really expect anything else?’’ , and the inescapability of power ef fects , which perfectly captures the notion of popular Foucauldianism introduced earlier . The Ezzamel and Ezzamel et al. papers are more forceful in their rejections of the simple solutions of fered by Johnson and Kaplan . Similarly trapped by the ines- capability thesis , they end up by commending dubious accomodations in the form of reflexivity and behavioural accounting .
The purpose of the critical accounting project is not something which can be determined by one person . What it is or becomes must be determined in the process of its enactment , a process which will inevitably assume a meandering form . In the initial stages of the project most of those involved were content to apply a more social scientific approach to their accounting researches . This quickly gave way to a more radical project influenced by Marxist theory , one which recognized the need to link understanding with action , i . e . the philosophy of praxis . However , a quarter of a century of development in social theory resulted in the rapidly maturing critical account- ing project having a broader range of perspectives to choose from . By the late 1980s it was Foucault and not Marx who informed the majority view in the critical accounting project , a situation which has continued since that time . The Marxists have acknowledged the fact that there is much of value in the literature of the opposition camp which can be used to enhance their own perspectives (Alvesson and Willmott , 1992a , b ; Armstrong , 1994 ; Roslender , 1996) . At the same time , however , there has been a discernible loss of sight of the necessity for a Marxist critical accounting project to pursue an active strategy . There is evidence of a drift toward the understanding of the conditions of contemporary capitalism , for its own sake. The identification of the threats which the advent of accounting for strategic positioning poses is one example of this drift . The same criticism cannot readily be levelled against the Foucauldians , however , since they can legitimately claim to be concerned with understanding but not necessarily change , at least not at the societal level . The production of local knowledges and the mounting of local resistance has much to commend it as a postmodern ‘‘critical’’ philosophy . However , as Neimark (1994) reminds those who might be tempted , it is still necessary to make the connections between practices and discourses , and the system of production which continues to shape the social world (see also Alvesson and Willmott , 1992a) . A genuinely critical accounting project must focus on the big picture , and it must do so with the objective of changing it for the benefit of those who are presently disadvantaged within it . The lesson in the case of developments in accounting for strategic positioning is quite simple : while it is possible , and indeed desirable , to identify the many threats it presents , it is incumbent on a genuinely critical acocunting project to contemplate the opportunities for change it also promises . The remaining paragraphs of the paper are given over to this task .
A number of the key themes which underpin the thinking behind accounting for strategic positioning , e . g . value-added , quality , continuous improvement , etc ., implicitly privilege the contribution which labour makes to the
Relevance lost and found 555
production of goods and services . The same privileging was evident in some of the popular management texts of the early 1980s , e . g . Ouchi (1981) , Pascale and Athos (1983) , Peters and Waterman (1982) , Schonberger (1982) , which also commended the Japanese way to manufacturing excellence . Employee empowerment is the realization of this privileging , and as such it becomes the latest addition to the list of management philosophies designed to harness the potential of workers : scientific management , human relations theory , theory Y , system 4 , the quality of working life , corporate culture , etc . What characterizes all of these philosophies , and the pseudo-empowerment initia- tives which Munro , and Miller and O’Leary draw our attention to , is their top-down nature . All involve senior management empowering those they employ in some way . They are all managerial philosophies which take as given the existing power structures not only of organizations , but also the broader society . When Johnson invokes the notion of bottom-up empower- ment , he reminds us that a dif ferent set of organizational and social arrangements are possible , one in which workers empower ‘‘managers’’ . Within the organization , those in managerial positions are now charged with performing tasks of a broader , more organizational nature than the opera- tional tasks entrusted to the workforce . They are charged with organization rather than management , and more significantly , within these arrangements managers can only remain ‘‘in charge’’ with the consent of the workforce . Similar arrangements are possible within the broader society . All are based on the principles of participation and accountability , in their truly democratic guise .
Lest this be dismissed as idealistic dreaming which conveniently forgets past experiments in democratic socialism , it is interesting to consider a little further the opportunity which the empowerment option provides . Reading the contribution of the advocates of accounting for strategic positioning , it is clear that they accord the employee’s contribution to the pursuit of profit a vital role . As accountants they are seeking to incorporate this contribution into their regimes of calculation , in many cases redefining accounting in the process . As critical accountants we should be aware that such is capital’s reliance on the creativity of labour , that labour is now in a position to begin to challenge the power of management . At this point Munro’s case assumes a new significance . In embracing the opportunity which a quality programme presented them , Component’s middle management were doing little more than promoting an intensified mode of control by their own superiors . Their empowerment , like that of Miller and O’Leary’s operatives , was a case of pseudo-empowerment , of the order reproduced across the entire restructured , i . e . delayered , management hierarchies of Western corporations in the name of increased competitiveness . For precisely this reason it may be possible to attract the lower levels of managerial and professional employees to the cause of genuine bottom-up empowerment . As those who , on a day-to-day basis , are presently charged with the control of labour , they are well-placed to play a key role in the rearrangement of organization as the enactment of real empowerment . These are not novel ideas , as the new working class theses of Mallet (1963) and Gorz (1964) , Touraine’s (1974) post-industrial society thesis , and the new class analyses of Poulantzas (1973 , 1975) and Carchedi (1975 ,
R . Roslender 556
1977) , all confirm . Although ultimately little came of the developments which interested these writers , it would be wrong to dismiss the potential of multi-level employee cooperation in the pursuit of genuine bottom-up empowerment .
If it is employees who provide the necessary quality , value for money , reliability , etc , which Bromwich’s ef ficient products must exhibit , they are called upon to do so by customers who have the power to determine the prospects of the majority of businesses . The marketplace is now significantly dif ferent to that of a generation ago , in the age of the Af fluent Society where producers dominated and consumers (not the active customers of today) were cast in the role of followers of fashion , to be manipulated almost at will and relieved of their disposable incomes (and more) at every opportunity . Embracing the axiom of the past 20 years that it is the market which determines , many of those who have contributed to the development of accounting for strategic positioning have been content to fashion a reactive mode of accounting . Their critics are justified in pointing out that in this respect accounting for strategic positioning only serves to perpetuate the existing order . The Miller and O’Leary case suggests that the coming of the new economic citizenship may result in many employees experiencing worsening conditions , now the captives of both employers and customers . Once again , however , very genuine threats may be obscuring interesting opportunities .
One question which might be posed is where did today’s customers , with their collective market power , come from? Yesterday’s passive consumers appear to have experienced an empowerment process , one which has been of their own making rather than initiated by those who now find themselves competing for their custom . At the present time there can be little argument that despite their very real power , customers are still behaving in ways which do not challenge the existing , capitalist , order . What they appear to want is more for their money , whether it be in the form of consumer goods , personal services , leisure pursuits , etc , and as far as possible an increasing range of these to choose from . However , it is important not to lose sight of the fact that as genuinely empowered consumers , present day customers (the market even) may elect to rethink what it is that they wish to consume . Alienation and commodity fetishism , concepts central to Marx’s own thought , did not refer to terminal states , rather to the conditions capital sought to reproduce in order to secure its own dominance . The contradiction between mass commodity fetishism and mass consumer empowerment can only persist if the latter does not exercise its power . Customers exist as a constituency to be persuaded to embrace a more balanced portfolio of goods and services . This will incorpor- ate socially responsible products , those characterized by their use value to society rather than by their exchange value to capital and its accumulation needs . Again , these are not new ideas , the challenge of accounting to society having long since been recognized by the social accounting movement . However , it is vital that critical accounting researchers devise ways of telling socially responsible stories directly to empowered consumers . These ac- counts must convey the full costs of their consumption in understandable ways , rather than in terms of externalities or sustainability . Equally it will be necessary to devise ways of contributing to the case for socially responsible
Relevance lost and found 557
products which may not always af ford the same value for money as those already on of fer . In short , critical accounting must act on the commonsense observation that the market to which accounting for strategic positioning accords such privilege is constituted by the same individuals who alone have the power to change society .
Much of the accounting for strategic positioning literature departs only minimally from traditional ways of accounting to management . From a threats perspective this might be interpreted as meaning that not only does account- ing for strategic positioning embrace the objectives of mainstream account- ing , it also reproduces its means in large extent . As ever , there are exceptions to every rule . While it is not possible to claim that those who have gifted management accountants a growing array of new ways of accounting are driven by a desire to fundamentally challenge the present social arrange- ments , they do venture , or perhaps stray , into new territory in respect of means . The idea of ‘‘soft’’ accounting numbers which are intended to stand alone , rather than being commensurate with the ‘‘hard’’ numbers convention- ally found in financial statements , has been mentioned earlier . Examples of such numbers are to be found across the accounting for strategic positioning literature , in the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton , 1992 , 1993 , 1996) , the Texas Instruments’ Blue Books (Ittner , 1988 , 1989) , Hewlett Packard’s break-even time technique (Horngren and Foster , 1991) , the strategic invest- ment appraisal matrix (Bromwich and Bhimani , 1991) , etc . Developments such as these do more than simply provide proof of the value of the profession of management accounting to beleagured Western businesses . They of fer an insight into what is possible in the name of accounting , or more specifically , means of accounting which depart from the mainstream in some radical way . One of the fundamental dif ficulties of the critical accounting project , like other ‘‘alternative’’ projects before it , e . g . social accounting , behavioural accounting and human resource accounting , is the imbalance which generally exists between well-founded critiques and constructive advances . Where the latter are on of fer , they normally depart from the mainstream in only small measure . In the case of accounting for strategic positioning , however , some significant departures are evident which should be explored rather than simply rejected on the grounds of their questionable underpinnings .
Finally , although the previous paragraph refocuses attention on accounting issues , earlier concern with empowerment , participative democracy , class alliances , the market , commodity fetishism , socially responsible products , etc , were only loosely (and consciously so) associated with either accounting or the critical accounting project . Does a genuine link exist between them and accountancy? For this author , there is a very clear line of connection back to the broader Critical Theory project , described in the following terms by Max Horkheimer , Director of the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt :
‘‘ . . . in its concept formation and in all phases of its development [CT] makes its own that concern for the rational organisation of human activity which it is its task to illumine and legitimate . For this theory is not concerned only with goals already imposed by existing ways of life , but with men and all their potentialities’’ . (Horkheimer , 1937 , in Connerton , 1976 , p . 223) .
R . Roslender 558
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Norman Macintosh , David Otley , Alan Richardson and two anonymous reviewers of this journal , participants at the 1994 Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association , the 1995 Western Regional Meeting of the American Accounting Association , and the 1995 Annual Conference of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association , and at seminars at Queen’s University and the University of Stirling , for their many helpful comments on previous versions of this paper . The opportunity to significantly develop the themes underpinning the paper was provided during a period of sabbatical leave funded in part by the Visiting Scholars’ program of the School of Business , Queen’s University .
References
Alvesson , M . & Willmott , H ., ‘‘On the idea of emancipation in management and organization studies’’ , Academy of Management Review , Vol . 17 , No . 3 , 1992a , pp . 432 – 464 .
Alvesson , M . & Willmott , H ., ‘‘Critical theory and management studies : an introduction’’ , in M . Alvesson & H . Wilmott , (eds) Critical Management Studies , (London : Sage Publications , 1992b) .
Armstrong , P ., ‘‘The influence of Michel Foucault on accounting research’’ , Critical Perspective on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 1 , 1994 , pp . 25 – 56 .
Atkinson , A . A ., Banker , R . D ., Kaplan , R . S . & Young , S . M ., Management Accounting (New Jersey : Prentice Hall , 1995) .
Berliner , C . & Brimson , J . A . (eds) , Cost Management in Today ’ s Advanced Manufacturing : the CAM - I Conceptual Design , (Boston : Harvard Business School Press , 1988) .
Bhimani , A . & Bromwich , M ., ‘‘Accounting for just-in-time manufacturing systems’’ , CMA : The Management Accounting Magazine , Vol . 65 , No . 1 , 1991 , pp . 13 – 34 .
Bhimani , A . & Pigott , D ., ‘‘Implementing ABC : a case study of organizational and behavioural consequences’’ , Management Accounting Research , Vol . 3 , No . 2 , 1992a , pp . 119 – 132 .
Bhimani , A . & Pigott , D ., ‘‘ABC in a pharmaceuticals company : a remedy?’’ , Management Accounting (UK) , Vol . 70 , No . 11 , 1992b , pp . 18 – 20 .
Bromwich , M ., ‘‘The case for strategic management accounting : the role of accounting informa- tion for strategy in competitive markets’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 15 , No . 1 , 1990 , pp . 27 – 46 .
Bromwich , M ., ‘‘Accounting for strategic excellence’’ , Mimeo , London School of Economics and Political Science , 1991 .
Bromwich , M . & Bhimani , A ., Management Accounting : Evolution not Revolution. (London : Chartered Institute of Management Accountants , 1989) .
Bromwich , M . & Bhimani , A ., ‘‘Strategic investment appraisal’’ , Management Accounting (US) , Vol . 72 , No . 9 , 1991 , pp . 45 – 48 .
Carchedi , G ., ‘‘On the economic identification of the new middle class’’ , Economy & Society , Vol . 4 , No . 1 , 1975 , pp . 1 – 86 .
Carchedi , G ., On the Economic Identification of Social Classes , (London : Routledge & Kegan Paul , 1977) .
Connerton , P ., (ed) , Critical Sociology , (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd ., 1976) . Cooper , R ., ‘‘The rise of activity-based costing—part one : what is an activity-based cost system?’’ ,
Journal of Cost Management , Summer , 1988a , pp . 45 – 54 . Cooper , R ., ‘‘The rise of activity-based costing—part two : when do I need an activity-based cost
system?’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Fall , 1988b , pp . 41 – 48 . Cooper , R ., ‘‘The rise of activity-based costing—part three : how many cost drivers do you need
and how should you select them?’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Winter , 1989a , pp . 34 – 46 . Cooper , R ., ‘‘The rise of activity-based costing—part four : what do activity-based systems look
like?’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Spring , 1989b , pp . 34 – 46 . Cooper , R ., ‘‘Implementing an activity-based cost system’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Spring ,
1990 , pp . 33 – 42 . Cooper , R . & Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘How cost accounting systematically distorts product costs’’ , in W .
Bruns , Jnr . & R . S . Kaplan (eds) : Accounting and Management : Field Study Perspectives , (Boston : Harvard Business School Press , 1987) .
Cooper , R . & Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘Measure costs right : make the right decisions’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 88 , No . 5 , 1988 , pp . 96 – 103 .
Relevance lost and found 559
Cooper , R . & Kaplan , R . S . (eds) , The Design of Cost Management Systems , (New Jersey : Prentice Hall International , 1991a) .
Cooper , R . & Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘Profit priorities from activity-based costing’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 69 , No . 3 , 1991b , pp . 130 – 135 .
Cooper , R ., Kaplan , R . S ., Maisel , L . C ., Morrissey , E . & Oehm , R . M ., ‘‘From ABC to ABM’’ , Management Accounting (US) , Vol . 74 , No . 5 , 1992 , pp . 54 – 57 .
Darlington , J ., Innes , J ., Mitchell , F . & Woodward , J ., ‘‘Throughput accounting : the Garrett Automotive Experience’’ , Management Accounting (UK) , Vol . 70 , No . 4 , 1992 , pp . 32 – 38 .
Ezzamel , M ., ‘‘From problem solving to problematization : relevance revisited’’ , Critical Perspec- tives on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 3 , 1994 , pp . 269 – 280 .
Ezzamel , M ., Hoskin , K . & Macve , R ., ‘‘Managing it all by numbers : a review of Johnson & Kaplan’s ‘Relevance Lost’’’ , Accounting & Business Research , 78 , 1990 , pp . 153 – 166 .
Foster , G . & Horngren , C . T ., ‘‘Cost accounting and cost management in a JIT environment’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Winter , 1988 , pp . 4 – 14 .
Galloway , D . & Waldron , D ., ‘‘Throughput accounting—the need for a new language for manufacturing’’ , Management Accounting , (UK) , Vol . 66 , No . 10 , 1988a , pp . 34 – 35 .
Galloway , D . & Waldron , D ., ‘‘Throughput accounting-ranking products profitably’’ , Management Accounting , (UK) , Vol 66 , No . 11 , 1988b , pp . 34 – 35 .
Goldratt , E . M . & Cox , J ., The Goal : Excellence in Manufacturing , (Croton on Hudson , NY : North River Press , 1984) .
Gorz , A ., Strategy for Labour , translated by M . Nicholaus and V . Ortiz , (Boston : Beacon Press , 1964) . Govindarajan , V ., ‘‘Decentralisation , strategy and ef fectiveness of strategic business units in
multibusiness organisations’’ , Academy of Management Review , Vol . 11 , No . 4 , 1986 , pp . 844 – 856 .
Gupta , A . & Govindarajan , V ., ‘‘Business unit strategy , managerial characteristics and business unit ef fectiveness in strategy implementation’’ , Academy of Management Journal , Vol . 27 , No . 1 , 1984 , pp . 25 – 41 .
Hayes , R . H . & Abernathy , W . J ., ‘‘Managing our way to economic decline’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 58 , No . 4 , 1980 , pp . 67 – 77 .
Hiromoto , T ., ‘‘Another hidden edge—Japanese management accounting’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 66 , No . 4 , 1988 , pp . 22 – 26 .
Hiromoto , T ., ‘‘Restoring the relevance of management accounting’’ , Journal of Management Accounting Research , Vol . 3 , 1991 , pp . 1 – 15 .
Hopper , T . & Armstrong , P ., ‘‘Cost accounting , controlling labour and the rise of conglomerates’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 16 , No . 5 / 6 , 1991 , pp . 405 – 438 .
Horngren , C . T . & Foster , G ., Cost Accounting : a Managerial Emphasis , 7 / e , (New Jersey : Prentice Hall International , 1991) .
Ittner , C ., ‘‘Texas Instruments : cost of quality (A)’’ (1988) in R . Cooper & R . S . Kaplan (eds) , The Design of Cost Management Systems , (New Jersey : Prentice Hall International , 1991) .
Ittner , C ., ‘‘Texas Instruments : cost of quality (B)’’ (1989) in R . Cooper & R . S . Kaplan (eds) , The Design of Cost Management Systems , (New Jersey : Prentice Hall , International , 1991) .
Johnson , H . T ., Relevance Regained : From Top - Down Control to Bottom - Up Empowerment , (New York : The Free Press , 1992a) .
Johnson , H . T ., ‘‘It’s time to stop overselling activity-based concepts’’ , Management Accounting (US) , Vol . 74 , No . 3 , 1992b , pp . 26 – 35 .
Johnson , H . T ., ‘‘Relevance regained : total quality management and the role of management accounting’’ , Critical Perspectives on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 3 , 1994 , pp . 259 – 267 .
Johnson , H . T . & Kaplan , R . S ., Relevance Lost : the Rise and Fall of Management Accounting , (Boston : Harvard Business School Press , 1987) .
Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘Measuring manufacturing performance : a new challenge to management accounting research’’ , Accounting Review , Vol . 58 , No . 4 , 1983 , pp . 686 – 705 .
Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘The evolution of management accounting’’ , Accounting Review , Vol . 59 , No . 3 , 1984 , pp . 390 – 418 .
Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘Accounting lag : the obsolescence of cost accounting systems’’ , in K . B . Clark et al. (eds) : The Uneasy Alliance : Managing the Productivity - Technology Dilemma , (Boston : Harvard Business School Press , 1985) .
Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘One cost system isn’t enough’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 88 , No . 1 , 1988 , pp . 61 – 66 .
Kaplan , R . S ., ‘‘In defence of activity-based cost management , Management Accounting (US) , Vol . 74 , No . 5 , 1992 , pp . 58 – 63 .
Kaplan , R . S . & Norton , D . P ., ‘‘The balanced scorecard—measures that drive performance’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 70 , No . 1 , 1992 , pp . 71 – 79 .
Kaplan , R . S . & Norton , D . P ., ‘‘Putting the balanced scorecard to work’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 71 , No . 5 , 1993 , pp . 134 – 147 .
R . Roslender 560
Kaplan , R . S . & Norton , D . P ., ‘‘Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system’’ , Harvard Business Review , Vol . 74 , No . 1 , 1996 , pp . 75 – 85 .
Mallet , S ., La Nouvelle Classe Ouvriere , (Paris : Editions du Seuil , 1963) . Miller , P . & O’Leary , T ., ‘‘Accounting expertise and the politics of the product : economic
citizenship and modes of corporate governance’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 18 , No . 2 / 3 , 1993 , pp . 187 – 206 .
Miller , P . & O’Leary , T ., ‘‘Accounting , ‘economic citizenship’ and the spatial reordering of manufacture’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 19 , No . 1 , 1994 , pp . 15 – 43 .
Miller , P . & Rose , N ., ‘‘Governing economic life’’ , Economy and Society , Vol . 19 , No . 1 , 1990 , pp . 1 – 31 .
Munro , R ., ‘‘Governing the new province of quality : autonomy , accounting and the dissemination of accountability’’ , in A . Wilkinson & H . Willmott , (eds) , Making Quality Critical : New Perspectives on Organizational Change (London : Routledge , 1995) .
Munro , R . J . B . & Hatherley , D . J ., ‘‘Accountability and the new commercial agenda’’ , Critical Perspectives on Accounting , Vol . 4 , No . 4 , 1993 , pp . 369 – 395 .
Neimark , M ., ‘‘Regicide revisited : Marx , Foucault and accounting’’ , Critical Perspectives on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 1 , 1994 , pp . 87 – 108 .
Ouchi , W . G ., Theory Z : How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge , (Reading , Mass . : Addison-Wesley , 1981) .
Pascale , R . & Athos , A ., The Art of Japanese Management , (New York : Penguin Books , 1983) . Pasewark , W . R ., ‘‘The evolution of quality control costs in American manufacturing’’ , Journal of
Cost Management , Spring , 1991 , pp . 46 – 52 . Peters , T . & Waterman , R . H ., In Search of Excellence : Lessons from America ’ s Best Run
Companies , (New York : Harper & Row , 1982) . Porter , M . E ., Competitive Strategy : Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors , (New
York : The Free Press , 1980) . Porter , M . E ., Competitive Advantage : Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance , (New York :
Free Press , 1985) . Poulantzas , N ., Political Power and Social Classes. (London : New Left Books , 1973) . Poulantzas , N ., Classes in Contemporary Capitalism , (London : New Left Books , 1975) . Roberts , J ., ‘‘The possibilities of accountability’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 16 ,
No . 4 , 1991 , pp . 355 – 368 . Rose , N ., Governing the Soul : Technologies of Human Subjectivity , (London : Routledge , 1989) . Roslender , R ., ‘‘Accounting for strategic positioning : responding to the crisis in management
accounting’’ , British Journal of Management , Vol . 5 , No . 1 , 1995 , pp . 45 – 57 . Roslender , R ., ‘‘Critical accounting and the labour of accountants’’ , Critical Perspectives on
Accounting , Vol . 7 , No . 3 , 1996 , pp . 461 – 484 . Sakurai , M ., ‘‘Target costing and how to use it’’ , Journal of Cost Management , Summer , 1989 , pp .
39 – 50 . Schonberger , R . J ., Japanese Manufacturing Techniques : Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity ,
(New York : The Free Press , 1982) . Shank , J . K ., ‘‘Strategic cost management : new wine or just new bottles?’’ , Journal of
Management Accounting Research , Vol . 1 , 1989 , pp . 47 – 65 . Shank , J . K . & Govindarajan , V ., Strategic Cost Analysis , (Homewood , Ill : Irwin Inc ., 1989) . Shank , J . K . & Govindarajan , V ., ‘‘Strategic cost management : the value chain perspective’’ ,
Journal of Management Accounting Research , Vol . 4 , 1992a , pp . 179 – 197 . Shank , J . K . & Govindarajan , V ., ‘‘Strategic cost analysis of technological investments’’ , Sloan
Management Review , Vol . 34 , No . 1 , 1992b , pp . 39 – 51 . Shank , J . K . & Govindarajan , V ., Strategic Cost Management : the New Yool for Competitive
Advantage , (New York : The Free Press , 1993) . Simmonds , K ., ‘‘Strategic management accounting’’ , Management Accounting (UK) , Vol . 59 , No .
4 , 1981 , pp . 26 – 29 . Simmonds , K ., ‘‘Strategic management accounting for pricing : a case example’’ , Accounting and
Business Research , 42 , 1982 , pp . 206 – 214 . Simmonds , K ., ‘‘The accounting assessment of competitive position’’ , European Journal of
Marketing , Vol . 20 , No . 1 , 1986 , pp . 16 – 31 . Simmonds , K ., ‘‘Strategic management accounting : strategy assessment using the relative cost
graph’’ , Mimeo , London Business School , 1992 . Tinker , T . & Neimark , M ., ‘‘The role of annual reports in gender and class contradictions at
General Motors : 1917 – 1976’’ , Accounting , Organizations and Society , Vol . 12 , No . 1 , 1987 , pp . 71 – 88 .
Touraine , A ., The Post - Industrial Society , translated by L . F . X . Mayhew , (London : Wildwood House , 1974) .
Relevance lost and found 561
Turney , P . B . B . & Anderson , B ., ‘‘Accounting for continuous improvement’’ , Sloan Management Review , Vol . 30 , No . 2 , 1989 , pp . 37 – 47 .
Williams , K ., Haslam , C ., Cutler , T ., Johal , S . & Willis , R ., ‘‘Johnson 2 : Knowledge goes to Hollywood’’ , Critical Perspectives on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 3 , 1994a , pp . 281 – 293 .
Williams , K ., Haslam , C ., Johal , S . & Williams , J ., Cars : Analysis , History , Cases , (Providence Berghahn Books , 1994b) .
Williams , K ., Haslam , C ., Williams , J ., Johal , S ., Adcroft , A . & Willis , R ., ‘‘The crisis of cost recovery and the waste of the industrialised nations’’ , Competition & Change , Vol . 1 , 1995 , pp . 67 – 93 .
Willmott , H ., Puxty , T . & Sikka , P ., ‘‘Losing one’s reason : on the integrity of accounting academics’’ , Accounting , Auditing and Accountability Journal , Vol . 6 , No . 2 , 1993 , pp . 98 – 110 .
Wilsom , R . M . S ., ‘‘Strategic management accounting’’ , in D . Ashton , T . Hopper & R . W . Scapens (eds) : Issues in Management Accounting , (Hemel Hempstead : Prentice Hall International , 1991) .
Yuthas , K . & Tinker , T ., ‘‘Paradise regained : myth , Milton and management accounting’’ , Critical Perspectives on Accounting , Vol . 5 , No . 3 , 1994 , pp . 295 – 310 .
