Prelims

Half Title Page

ADVANCES IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

Series Page

ADVANCES IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

Series Editors:

Volumes 1–25: Marc J. Epstein and John Y. Lee

Volumes 26 and 27: Marc J. Epstein and Mary A. Malina

Recent Volumes:

Volumes 1–27: Advances in Management Accounting

Title Page

ADVANCES IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING VOLUME 28

ADVANCES IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

EDITED BY

Mary A. Malina

University of Colorado Denver, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2017

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78714-530-6 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-529-0 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-963-2 (Epub)

ISSN: 1474-7871 (Series)

List of Contributors

Editorial Board

• Christopher Akroyd

  Oregon State University, USA

• Shannon W. Anderson

  University of California Davis, USA

• Jacob G. Birnberg

  University of Pittsburgh, USA

• Jan Bouwens

  University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• Adriana Rejc Buhovac

  University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

• Laurie Burney

  Baylor University, USA

• Clara X. Chen

  University of Illinois, USA

• Donald K. Clancy

  Texas Tech University, USA

• Antonio Dávila

  University of Navarra, Spain

• Nabil S. Elias

  University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA

• K. J. Euske

  Naval Postgraduate School, USA

• Eric G. Flamholtz

  University of California, Los Angeles, USA

• George J. Foster

  Stanford University, USA

• Dipankar Ghosh

  University of Oklahoma, USA

• Frank G. H. Hartmann

  Erasmus University, The Netherlands

• James W. Hesford

  University of Lethbridge, Canada

• Robert Hutchinson

  Michigan Tech University, USA

• Larry N. Killough

  Virginia Polytechnic Institute, USA

• Leslie Kren

  University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA

• Raef Lawson

  Institute of Management Accountants, USA

• Anne M. Lillis

  University of Melbourne, Australia

• Raj Mashruwala

  University of Calgary, Canada

• Ella Mae Matsumura

  University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA

• Lasse Mertins

  Johns Hopkins University, USA

• Sean A. Peffer

  University of Kentucky, USA

• Mina Pizzini

  Texas State University, USA

• Arthur Posch

  Vienna University, Austria

• Frederick W. Rankin

  Colorado State University, USA

• Karen L. Sedatole

  Michigan State University, USA

• Lourdes F. White

  University of Baltimore, USA

• Sally K. Widener

  Clemson University, USA

• Marc Wouters

  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Statement of Purpose

Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) is a publication of quality applied research in management accounting. The journal’s purpose is to publish thought-provoking articles that advance knowledge in the management accounting discipline and are of interest to both academics and practitioners. The journal seeks thoughtful, well-developed articles on a variety of current topics in management accounting, broadly defined. All research methods, including survey research, field tests, corporate case studies, experiments, meta-analyses, and modeling are welcome. Some speculative articles, research notes, critiques, and survey pieces will be included where appropriate.

Articles may range from purely empirical to purely theoretical, from practice-based applications to speculation on the development of new techniques and frameworks. Empirical articles must present sound research designs and well-explained execution. Theoretical arguments must present reasonable assumptions and logical development of ideas. All articles should include well-defined problems, concise presentations, and succinct conclusions that follow logically from the data.

Review Procedures

AIMA intends to provide authors with timely reviews clearly indicating the acceptance status of their manuscripts. The results of initial reviews normally will be reported to authors within eight weeks from the date the manuscript is received. The author will be expected to work with the Editor, who will act as a liaison between the author and the reviewers to resolve areas of concern. To ensure publication, it is the author’s responsibility to make necessary revisions in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Manuscript Form Guidelines

1. Manuscripts should include a cover page that indicates the author’s name and affiliation.

2. Manuscripts should include a separate lead page with a structured abstract (not to exceed 250 words) set out under four to seven sub-headings; purpose, methodology/approach, findings, research limitations/implications (if applicable), practical implications (if applicable), social implications (if applicable), and originality/value. Keywords should also be included. The author’s name and affiliation should not appear on the abstract.

3. Tables, figures, and exhibits should appear on a separate page. Each should be numbered and have a title.

4. In order to be assured of anonymous reviews, authors should not identify themselves directly or indirectly.

5. Manuscripts currently under review by other publications should not be submitted.

6. Authors should e-mail the manuscript in two WORD files to the editor. The first attachment should include the cover page and the second should exclude the cover page.

7. Inquiries concerning Advances in Management Accounting should be directed to:

Mary A. Malina

mary.malina@ucdenver.edu

Introduction

This volume of Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) represents the diversity of management accounting topics, methods and author affiliation which form the basic tenets of AIMA. Included are papers on traditional management accounting topics such as management control systems and performance measurement, as well as articles on broader topics of interest to management accountants such as corporate social responsibility, sunk costs and the integration of financial and management accounting policies. The papers in this volume utilize a wide-variety of methods, including archival data analysis, literature reviews, experiments, and framework development. Finally, the diversity in authorship is apparent with affiliations from Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Republic of Korea, and the United States.

This volume begins with a paper developing a framework integrating topics in the ethics and management control literatures. At the 3^rd AIMA World Conference on Management Accounting Research in May 2016, Kenneth Merchant presented a compelling session on this topic. The paper by Merchant and White is the product of that plenary session. The article brings to light the many topics where ethics and management control converge. By linking these topics, organizations can provide a framework to promote behavior that both contributes to the achievement of the organization’s objectives and also follows ethical principles. This is clearly a fruitful area for research and for integration in the classroom.

The next two papers explore the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how we, as management accounting researchers, can leverage our expertise to advance knowledge in CSR/sustainability. Ella Mae Matsumura presented a plenary session at the 3^rd AIMA World Conference on Management Accounting Research. The paper by Kim and Matsumura is the product of that plenary session. Kim and Matsumura build a framework for analyzing CSR issues and Soderstrom, Soderstrom and Stewart conduct a literature review linked to the framework proposed in Kim and Matsumura. Both papers identify numerous research opportunities available for those interested in the intersection of management accounting and CSR/sustainability.

The fourth paper in the volume revisits Simons’ Levers of Control (LoC) framework. Curtis, Lillis, and Sweeney draw researchers back to the conceptual underpinnings of the LoC framework in order to advance the development of management control theory. The authors focus on the way the LoC have been operationalized in practice, the separate trajectories of the qualitative and quantitative literatures which often do not “speak” to each other and the potential to build a more coherent literature by drawing attention back to the conceptual core of the framework.

Reinstein, Bayou, Williams, and Grayson provide a summary of various literatures dealing with the age-old issue of sunk costs. The paper presents the impasse or conflict that exists between accounting/economic theories that sunk costs ought not to be brought into incremental decision-making and what actually happens in practice as reported in the organizational behavior literature. The authors bring together the various literatures in a coherent way so as to provide guidance to future research and practice.

The sixth paper by Schmidt examines the effects of various aspects of firm complexity on the alignment between firms’ financial and management accounting systems. The author tackles the difficult issue of understanding some firm-level determinants of integrated financial and management accounting systems. This is an interesting topic and the author utilizes a novel approach based on reported financial information to examine this issue.

The final paper by Roberts, Neumann, and Cauvin investigates the potential characteristics, causes and boundaries of the financial measures bias. The authors develop a theoretical model to explore evaluators’ choice and use of the most important performance measurement criterion among financial and non-financial measures. They run an experiment to provide direct evidence of participants’ experience and attitudes about the relative accounting qualities of financial and non-financial measures and links them to their choice of the most important performance measures.

The seven papers in Volume 28 represent relevant, theoretically sound, and practical studies that can greatly benefit the management accounting discipline. They manifest the journal’s commitment to providing a high level of contribution to management accounting research and practice.

Mary A. Malina

Editor