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Into the light and engagement: 20 years of the AAAJ
Edited by Lee Parker, James Guthrie and Markus Milne
Introduction
In 1981, Simmonds published a paper in the UK professional magazine, Management Accounting, in which he presented a strong case for the adoption of strategic management accounting (SMA) ([74] Simmonds, 1981, p. 12). Many professional and academic papers continued this theme, culminating in an influential paper by [16] Bromwich (1990) and the book Pathways to Progress ([18] Bromwich and Bhimani, 1994) At the same time in the USA, influential academics such as Robert Kaplan, Robin Cooper and John Shank were vocal critics of the state of management accounting and urged us to improve our relevance by adopting strategic cost management (SCM).
On both sides of the Atlantic, case studies were published that demonstrated the superiority of SMA or SCM over traditional forms of management accounting, and the need to take a strategic perspective to management accounting became the accepted wisdom. However, various surveys of practice in the 1990s indicated that the uptake of SMA was slow. Some commentators asked whether SMA was "a figment of academic imagination" ([56] Lord, 1996) and others questioned whether accountants had the capacity or the skills to make SMA a success ([25], [26] Cooper, 1996a, b). Despite the evidence, several commentators continued to believe that it was only a matter of time before SMA was adopted widely across industry and that it would emerge as a major force in shaping modern management accounting ([18] Bromwich and Bhimani, 1994; [30] Dixon and Smith, 1993; [63] Roslender, 1995).
As it is now just over 25 years since Simmonds first introduced the concept of SMA, it is a reasonable time to assess its progress. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the origins of SMA and to assess the extent of adoption and "success" of strategic management accounting. As well as reviewing empirical papers which have directly researched these issues, prior reviews of SMA adoption and implementation will also be utilized. Thus, in some respects this paper is a "review of reviews" of SMA. As well as assessing the extent of adoption of SMA and the reasons underlying an apparent low adoption rate, the role of accountants in adopting...