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Relevance of
Revisiting the relevance of strategic
strategic management management

accounting research
Md Mamunur Rashid 129
Department of Business Administration, Stamford University Bangladesh,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Received 15 November 2019
Revised 26 March 2020
Accepted 26 March 2020
Md Mohobbot Ali and Dewan Mahboob Hossain
Department of Accounting and Information Systems, University of Dhaka,
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to present a review of the literature on strategic management
accounting (SMA). Specifically, it focuses on the trend of SMA research since the publication of Langfield-
Smith’s (2008) influential paper “Strategic management accounting: how far have we come in 25 years?”
which raised the question of relevance of further SMA research.
Design/methodology/approach – The study reviewed articles published on SMA as a whole
(comprising a set of advanced management accounting techniques) and its specific techniques for the period
of 2008 to 2019 in 23 leading accounting journals.
Findings – The review finds that research on SMA has focused on the contingencies influencing the
adoption and implementation of SMA techniques and the effects of such adoption on various aspects of firm
and employee performance. The renovation and modification of existing practices in attempt to match with
the organizational context has also attracted the attention of several SMA scholars. In addition, a noticeable
shift to the strategic management theory and case study method was observed during the study period.
Originality/value – The study focuses on the trend of SMA research in an attempt to revisit the relevance
of further research in this arena, particularly as a response to the criticism raised by Langfield-Smith (2008).
Keywords Strategic management accounting, Techniques, Practices, Relevance, Literature review
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
In an influential paper[1], Langfield-Smith (2008) challenged the relevance of further
research on the adoption and usage of strategic management accounting (SMA) and its
techniques. Her recommendations were based on the review of scholars work from the
emergence of SMA (by Simmonds, 1981) to 2008. As it is now just over one decade since the
publication of Langfield-Smith’s review, it is a reasonable time to assess how scholars
(academics and professionals) of management accounting (MAC) have responded to her
recommendation. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to review the articles published on

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Research Review. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the
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Vol. 4 No. 2, 2020
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2399-1747
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PRR the SMA and its techniques in the influential accounting journals since 2008 to date
4,2 (November, 2019) to revisit the relevance of studying SMA and its techniques. Although a
good number of scholars (Shields, 1997; Ittner and Larcker, 1998; Scapens and Bromwich,
2001; Hesford et al., 2007; Zawawi and Hoque, 2010) has conducted reviews on management
control system, MAC and its innovation, the review of SMA and its techniques, to the best of
our knowledge, is very limited particularly for the time period (2008-2019) of the study. The
130 present review used the analytical framework of Shields (1997) and Zawawi and Hoque (2010).
Simmonds (1981), in an influential paper published in the UK professional magazine
Management Accounting, introduced the term “SMA,” which includes the provision of analyzing
competitors data in developing and monitoring business strategy (Simmonds, 1981). Since then,
researchers (Bromwich, 1990; Shank and Govindarajan, 1992; Hoque, 2001; Roslender and Hart,
2003) have attempted to define the term from their own perspectives due to the non-existence of a
generally accepted conceptual framework (Tomkins and Carr, 1996; Langfield-Smith, 2008;
Nixon et al., 2011). Moreover, the extant literature demonstrates variations in representing the
concept “SMA” such as strategic cost management (SCM) (Shank, 1989; Shank and
Govindarajan, 1993) and accounting for strategic management (SM) (Roslender and Hart, 2010).
Despite these variations in defining the concept, researchers came up with new
innovations in the field to restore the lost relevance of MAC and to meet up the information
needs of changed business environment. These new innovations include a wide range of
MAC techniques including activity based costing/management (ABC/M) (Cooper and
Kaplan, 1988), target costing (TC) (Monden and Hamada, 1991) and balanced scorecard
(BSC) (Kaplan and Norton, 1992).
The use of the term “SMA” to represent these new innovations in the field of MAC leads to the
emergence of one major question: “how did researchers isolate SMA techniques from traditional
MAC techniques?” More specifically, “what criteria will tell us whether a particular MAC
technique is traditional or strategic?” The proponents of SMA attempted to respond to such
question by specifying several criteria for isolating SMA from traditional Management
Accounting Practices (MAPs). For instance, Guilding et al. (2000) suggested that to be qualified as
SMA techniques, one or more of the following orientations should be exhibited: focus on
environmental (marketing/external) factors, focus on competitors, long-term orientation and
forward-looking approach. Majority of the empirical research studies to date (Guilding et al., 2000;
Cravens and Guilding, 2001; Cadez and Guilding, 2007, 2008, 2012; Cinquini and Tenucci, 2007,
2010; Turner et al., 2017; Oboh and Ajibolade, 2017; Pavlatos and Kostakis, 2018) have used these
criteria in isolating SMA techniques from traditional MAC techniques.
In this paper, we used the following criteria (based on the literature cited above) in
isolating SMA techniques from traditional MAC techniques:
 Focusing on the organizational external environment or context.
 Long-term or forward looking approach (consider information beyond the financial year).
 Focusing on both financial and non-financial information.

Using these criteria, the present study identified 17 MAC techniques (Table 3) under the umbrella
of SMA. Out of these 17 SMA techniques, 16 were in consistent with Cadez and Guilding (2007,
2008). One more SMA technique added to this list was “ (ABC/M).” Cadez and Guilding (2007,
2008) excluded ABC from the list of SMA techniques on the ground that “ABC is more concerned
with costing accuracy rather than the adoption of a strategic orientation” (Cadez and Guilding,
2007, p. 132). However, Tayles (2011) included ABC/M to the list of SMA techniques on the
ground that ABC has moved to activity-based management (ABM), which focused on more
general managerial control and decision support rather than focusing merely on costing accuracy.
Bjornenak and Mitchell (2002) provided evidence in support this movement of ABC to ABM by Relevance of
reviewing the literature on ABC between1987 and 2000. Bjornenak and Mitchell (2002, p. 504) strategic
suggested that ABM application has been broadened “to different types of business, to different
functional specializations within business and to the complementarities of ABC/M to other new
management
high-profile management and accounting techniques.” Moreover, Cinquini and Tenucci (2007,
2010) included ABC/M in the list of SMA techniques on the ground that ABC/M focus on the
management of activities (Cooper and Kaplan, 1999), which assists in defining actions required to
achieve competitive advantage (Palmer, 1992). These arguments motivated us to include ABC/M 131
to the list of SMA techniques.
Though several other research studies included value stream costing (Amanollah Nejad
Kalkhouran et al., 2017) and shareholder/economic value analysis (Tayles, 2011) to the list of SMA
techniques without providing strong arguments as to why such techniques should be considered
under the umbrella of SMA. Therefore, we excluded such techniques from the list of SMA.
The present review intends to make an incremental contribution to the extant literature
of SMA by exploring the state of research on SMA and its techniques during the past
decade. The study also aims to identify the likely trend of SMA research during the past
decade specifically the scholars’ response to the recommendation of Langfield-Smith. The
extant reviews focused on specific MAC innovations (Zawawi and Hoque, 2010); therefore
the present study attempts to provide additional findings on specific SMA techniques and
SMA techniques as a package.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 focuses on the review
method used in this paper. Section 3 discusses the trend, topics, research settings, research
methods, theories used and the findings of the study. Finally, Section 4 outlines conclusion
and avenues for future research. The limitations of the study are also highlighted here.

2. Review method
As mentioned earlier, the present review used the analytical framework of Shields (1997) and
Zawawi and Hoque (2010). We reviewed 23 leading accounting journals, which follow a rigorous,
double blind peer review process in publishing articles. Of these 23 journals, 22 are similar to the
journals reviewed by Zawawi and Hoque (2010). We added one more journal to the list namely
Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management (QRAM) considering its influence [2] and
weight in this field of research. We visited all the issues of these 23 accounting journals published
between 2008 and 2019 (up to November) to ensure the inclusion of all the articles published on
SMA and its techniques. Additionally, we searched for any article published outside these 23
leading accounting journals on SMA during the period using search engines such as Google,
Google Scholar. Table 1 reports the results of the above searches.
As seen in Table 1, the search found 150 articles published on SMA as a package and on
its several techniques during the period of 2008-2019, both years inclusive.
Of these 150 articles, 136 have been published in 23 accounting journals. As expected,
journals on cost and MAC published comparatively large number of articles on SMA and its
techniques as compared to their counterparts. For example, Cost Management (previously
Journal of Cost Management), a journal of practitioner, published the highest number of
papers (24) on SMA techniques, followed by Journal of Accounting and Organizational
Change (JAOC) (22), Advances in Management Accounting (AMA) (17) and Management
Accounting Research (MAR) (11). The more generalist accounting journals such as
Accounting, Organization and Society (AOS) (7), ABACUS (3), Accounting and Business
Research (ABR) (3) published relatively few articles on SMA and placed more weight on
issues such as financial reporting, audit and taxation. Surprisingly, some of these generalist
accounting journals (Accounting and Finance, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal
PRR Journals Coverage Articles selected Rank
4,2
ABACUS 2008-2019 3 10
ABR 2008-2019 3 10
Accounting and Finance 2008-2019 0 13
Accounting Horizons 2008-2019 2 11
Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 2008-2019 3 10
132 Accounting, Organizations and Society 2008-2019 7 6
AMA 2008-2019 17 3
Behavioral Research in Accounting 2008-2019 3 10
British Accounting Review 2008-2019 9 5
Contemporary Accounting Research 2008-2019 4 9
Critical Perspective on Accounting 2008-2019 2 11
European Accounting Review 2008-2019 6 7
Journal of Accounting and Economics 2008-2019 0 13
Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change 2008-2019 22 2
Journal of Accounting Education 2008-2019 1 12
Journal of Accounting Literature 2008-2019 0
Journal of Accounting Research 2008-2019 3 10
Journal of Cost Management/Cost Management 2008-2019 24 1
Journal of MAR 2008-2019 7 6
MAR 2008-2019 11 4
Review of Accounting Studies 2008-2019 0 13
The Accounting Review 2008-2019 5 8
QRAM 2008-2019 4 9
Othersa 2008-2019 14
Total 150

Notes: a Baltic Journal of Management 1, Industrial Management and Data Systems 1, International Journal
Production Economics 1, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 2, Journal of
Applied MAR 1, Management Decision 1, Asian Review of Accounting 1, Future Business Journal 1, Review
Table 1. of MAR 1, International Journal of Hospitality Management 1, International Journal of Contemporary
Distribution of Hospitality Management 1, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 1 and
journals International Journal of Production Economics 1

of Accounting Literature and Review of Accounting Studies) did not publish any article on
SMA techniques during the period under study.
The remaining 14 articles were published in other accounting and management journals
including International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management (2),
Management Decision (1) and Asian Review of Accounting (1). The details of these journals
and volume of papers are detailed in the note of Table 1.

3. Findings
This section concentrates on the findings of the review by paying particular attention to the
trends of SMA research, the settings used, the topics focused, theoretical frameworks used
and the research methods used. The discussion also includes comparisons, though to a
limited extent, with the previous reviews.

3.1 Trends of strategic management accounting research

Table 2 presents year wise distribution of articles on SMA and its techniques. As can be
seen in the table, the highest number of articles (24) was published in 2012 followed by 18 in
2014 and 17 in 2011. The general trend of the volume of articles published on SMA depicted Relevance of
a fluctuating trend (Figure 1). strategic
However, the table exhibited a sharp increase in the volume of articles from 2009 to 2012
(12, 15, 17 and 24). This continuous increase in the volume of articles on SMA may be taken
management
as a non-response of MAC scholars to the call of Langfield-Smith (2008).
Though the year 2013 (9), 2016 (6) and 2018 (6) demonstrated a sharp decline in the
volume of paper published, the volume again experienced boost in 2014 (18), 2015 (10) and
2017 (16). These results stimulate us to assert that research on SMA as a package and its
133
specific techniques remains unaffected by the criticisms of its opponents.

3.2 Topics
Table 3 reports the distribution of topics of the articles selected for the study. As can be seen
from this table, 20 articles have been published on SMA as a whole, while five are on SCM.
Langfield-Smith (2008) documented that MAC techniques (e.g. ABC, BSC, value chain
costing) that were considered under the umbrella of SMA in UK were considered under the
umbrella of SCM in the USA. Taking this fact into account, the table reported a total of 25
articles published on SMA/SCM as a package during the period 2008-2019, implying that the

Year Frequency

2008 14
2009 12
2010 15
2011 17
2012 24
2013 9
2014 18
2015 10
2016 6
2017 16 Table 2.
2018 6 Year-wise
2019 3 distribution of
Total 150 Articles

30

25
Volume of Articles

20

15
24
10
17 18
15 16
14
5 12
9 10
6 6
3 Figure 1.
0 Trend of articles
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
published on SMA
Year
PRR Topics Frequency
4,2
SMA in general 20
SCM 5
ABC/M 33
Attribute costing 0
LCC 3
134 Quality costing 0
Strategic costing 0
TC 10
Value-chain costing 0
Competitor cost assessment 0
CPM 1
Competitor performance appraisal 0
CPA 4
Lifetime CPA 0
Valuation of customers as assets 0
Benchmarking 0
Brand valuation 0
SPM/IPM/BSC 74
Table 3. Strategic pricing 0
Distribution of topics Total 150

topic did not lose its importance in the field of MAR. Moreover, the volume is considerably
large as compared to those (3) reported by Zawawi and Hoque (2010).
With respect to the specific SMA techniques, BSC has received enormous attention of MAC
researchers. Almost one-half (74 of 150) of the articles have been published on integrated
performance measurement or BSC. This finding is consistent with Hesford et al. (2007) and
Zawawi and Hoque (2010), which documented considerable shift of management control
research in the performance measurement arena. However, majority of these articles focused on
the way the performance measurement is linked to the organizational strategy (Aranda and
Arellano, 2010; Adler, 2011; Francioli and Cinquini, 2014) and factors influencing its adoption in
the organization (Silvi et al., 2015; Chen et al., 2016; Cooper et al., 2017). The adoption and
reformation of public sectors’ BSC/performance measurement also received the attention of
several scholars (Bobe et al., 2017).
Research on ABC also received attention (33 of 150 articles) of several researchers
particularly the adoption and contingency factors (Hoozée and Bruggeman, 2010; Al-Sayed
and Dugdale, 2016), its effect on performance (Krumwiede and Charles, 2014) and the effect
of organizational culture and structure on the success of ABC implementation (Zhang et al.,
2015). Amongst the remaining SMA techniques, only TC has received the attention of MAC
researchers (10 of 150 articles). Customer profitability analysis (CPA) (4), life-cycle costing
(LCC) (3) and competitive position monitoring (CPM) (1) received a very little attention of the
researchers. Surprisingly, the rest of the 11 SMA techniques failed to receive the attention of
scholars in this field. Moreover, the selected leading 23 accounting journals did not publish
any paper on these 11 techniques (e.g. attribute costing, valuation of customers as asset,
lifetime customer valuation).

3.3 Settings
The distribution of settings is presented in Table 4. The table reported the dominance of
manufacturing industry (37 of 150) followed by service industry (26) and multiple industries (16)
Topics Frequency
Relevance of
strategic
Single industry 3 management
Manufacturing 37
Service 26
Specific industry 2
Multiple industries 16
Generic 5 135
Public sector 8
Inter-organizational 2
International 1
Multinational 4
Specific country 2 Table 4.
No setting or other settings 44 Distribution of
Total 150 settings

in the field of SMA research. Heavy emphasis on MAC practices in the manufacturing industries
is historically evidenced in the MAC literature (Shields, 1997; Scapens and Bromwich, 2001;
Zawawi and Hoque, 2010). Moreover, the applicability of majority of the SMA techniques is
greater in the manufacturing industries as compared to their counterpart, service industry.
However, several SMA techniques such as ABC and BSC also experienced incremental
application in the service industry. This is also consistent with the findings of Hussain and Hoque
(2002), Lapsley and Wright (2004) and Zawawi and Hoque (2010). Surprisingly, the application of
several SMA techniques particularly BSC in the public sector was notable as a response to the
reformation in the sector (Hutaibat et al., 2011; Chiwamit et al., 2017; Bobe et al., 2017).
However, research on SMA techniques using other settings could not attract MAC
scholars at large. More surprisingly, a considerable number of articles did not use any
particular setting (44 of 150) majority of which are conceptual in nature.

3.4 Theories
Table 5 reported the distribution of theories used in the articles reviewed in the present study.
The results demonstrated the supremacy of “Strategic Management (SM)” theory (51), followed
by contingency theory (15). Interestingly, the rest of the theories could not attract researchers in
this field to a greater extent. Amongst the remaining theories, psychology (7), institutional
theory (5) and sociological theories also attracted researchers to a limited extent. However, 38
articles did not use any explicit theory. Zawawi and Hoque (2010) held that sociology theories
have been derived, predominantly in MAC innovation research, from a wide-range of theories
including actor-network theory, innovation diffusion theory, stakeholder theory, structuration
theory. The key finding of this review in terms of theoretical framework used is the substantial
shift to “SM” theory from that of contingency or sociology theory. For example, Shields (1997)
documented the dominance of economics theory in the North American MAC research whereas
Zawawi and Hoque (2010) reported the overriding use of sociology theory in the management
accounting innovation (MAI) research. This might be attributed to the dominance of strategic-
oriented performance measures such as BSC research in this field, specifically the effort to link
strategy to organizational performance measurement system. Nevertheless, the continuous use
of contingency theory in MAC (Shields, 1997), MAI (Zawawi and Hoque, 2010) and SMA
research (this paper) signified the majesty of this theory in tracing out the factors associated
with the adoption and implementation of specific as well as overall MAC techniques and their
effect on firm’s performance. Institutional theory, particularly New Institutional Sociology, has
PRR Topics Frequency
4,2
Economics 1
Contingency theory 15
Organizational behavior 1
Production and operations management 4
Psychology 7
136 SM 51
Economics and organizational behavior 0
Organizational behavior and sociology 0
Economics and sociology 0
Economics and POM 0
Economics and contingency theory 0
Organizational behavior and POM 0
Organizational behavior and psychology 1
Sociology and psychology 4
SM and contingency theory 1
Practicetheory 1
Upper echelon theory 1
Institutional theory 5
Institutional and critical theory 1
Othersa 19
No explicit theory 38
Total 150
Table 5. Notes: aDiffusion of innovation theory, grounded theory, corporate governance theory, Person-
Distribution of organization fit theory, inscription theory. Actor-network theory, configurational theory, self-determination
theories theory, fuzzy set theory, inequity theory, dynamic capabilities theory and general diffusion theory

attracted several MAC scholars in investigating how the institutional factors brought changes
in the particular SMA technique.
-In addition to the specific theory cited in Table 5, research on SMA techniques also used
several other theories including diffusion of innovation theory, grounded theory, corporate
governance theory, person-organization fit theory, inscription theory, actor-network theory
and general diffusion theory.

3.5 Research approach

Table 6 presents the distribution of research methods used in the articles reviewed. As seen
in the table, the most frequent methods used were the survey and case study methods (50
articles each), followed by the conceptual/practical insight (26 articles) and experimentation
(10) methods. The remaining methods (e.g. mathematical analytic (4), archival (1) and
multiple research (1) methods) failed to receive the attention of the scholars in the SMA
research. The widespread use of case study method appears to be the most important shift
in the MAC research from that of the review of Shields (1997) and Zawawi and Hoque (2010).
This shift may be considered as the response of MAC scholars to the call of Langfield-Smith
(2008) as she recommended conducting more case study research in this arena.
Nevertheless, the survey method did not lose its appeal in this field of research as the table
showed that the equal number of articles used the survey method. This finding is fairly
consistent to the finding of Zawawi and Hoque (2010), which also documented the dominant use
of this method in MAI research. However, Zawawi and Hoque (2010) cited several shortcomings
of survey method including controversies of bias, data collection procedure, response rate and
Research method Frequency
Relevance of
strategic
Survey 50 management
Conceptual/practical insight 26
Case study/field study 50
Multiple research methods 1
Archival 1
Experimentation 10 137
Mathematical analytic 4
Literature review 6
Action research 0 Table 6.
Mixed (survey and archival) 2 Distribution of
Total 150 research methods

inconsistencies of findings with theories used and prior research studies. To overcome these
shortcomings, they recommended the use of a careful and appropriate procedure in the design of
survey such as Dillman’s (1983) total design method.
With respect to the use of case study method, the review found an extensive focus on the
development of model (Englund and Gerdin, 2014; Barros and Ferreira, 2017; Cooper et al.,
2017) and implementation process of a particular SMA technique (Herath et al., 2014; Cooper
et al., 2019; Baharudin and Jusoh, 2019) in a particular organizational setting.

3.6 Results of previous research

The discussion on the results of prior research has been categorized into two groups,
namely:
(1) SMA practices as a whole/package; and
(2) specific SMA practice such as ABC, BSC, TC.

3.6.1 Strategic management accounting as a package. As can be seen in Table 3 (already cited
in Section 3.2), there are 20 articles on SMA and five articles on SCM as a whole. These papers
focused on a wide-range of issues including the paradox of SMA, factors influencing their
adoption and implementation and the effect of adoption on performance. For example, Nixon and
Burns (2012) explicated why SMA techniques have not been adopted widely in the context of
evolution of SM literature. They showed that majority of the SMA techniques have been
developed based on the narrow, first-era, view of SM literature, which got maturity with the
industry analysis model and generic competitive strategies of Michael Porter. They further held
that the extant SMA literature has neglected the second era view of SM that broadly focused on
internal structure and organizational resource. They call for more research on SMA, specifically
“research that aims to strengthen the links among SMA, SM, practice, cognate areas and SMA
techniques” (Nixon and Burns, 2012, p. 241).
Several other studies have focused on the contingent factors influencing the adoption and
implementation of SMA techniques. For example, Pavlatos and Kostakis (2018) explored that
various top management team (TMT) characteristics such as education, tenure and creativity and
historical financial performance affects the extent of adoption and usage of SMA tools.
Amanollah Nejad Kalkhouran et al. (2017) documented significant positive effect of CEO
education and networks on the usage of SMA tools. The other contingent factors that influence
the adoption and uses of SMA techniques were environmental uncertainty, structure, quality of
PRR information system information, organizational life cycle stages (Pavlatos, 2015), strategy and
4,2 company size (Cadez and Guilding, 2008; Cinquini and Tenucci, 2010; Pavlatos, 2015).
The use of SMA in the higher educational institute (Hutaibat et al., 2011), hotel industry
(Pavlatos, 2015; Turner et al., 2017), public sector (Cuganesan et al., 2012), hospital
(Lachmann et al., 2013) and theater producer (Lapsley and Rekers, 2017) was also evident in
the extant SMA literature. Appendix provides the details of these 20 articles that described
138 SMA as a set of advanced MAC tools.
3.6.2 Specific strategic management accounting techniques. Amongst the specific SMA
techniques, BSC, ABC and TC have received substantial attention of the researchers as seen
earlier in Table 3. Considering the misery of other SMA techniques usage rate, this section
grouped them under the head “other SMA techniques”.
3.6.3 Integrated performance measurement/balanced scorecard. Integrated performance
measurement and BSC was at the top of the list of SMA techniques to the MAC researchers
since 2008 to 2019 and addressed a wide-range of issues raised by academics and
practitioners. Survey on BSC concentrated on several issues including the purposes (e.g.
decision-rationalization, coordination, self-monitoring) and drivers of using BSC (Wiersma,
2009), the identification of contingent factors affecting the use and implementation (Chiang,
2008; Ho et al., 2014), the extent of adoption and its alignment with strategy (Silvi et al., 2015;
Chen et al., 2016), as a tool for strategy evaluation (Tayler, 2010), the outcome of adoption on
employee performance (Burney and Widener, 2013), the mediating role of several factors
(Burney et al., 2009) and even, in measuring the performance of board members (Northcott
and Smith, 2011). Case studies on the BSC mostly focused on how it is used in management
decision and control processes (Sundin et al., 2010), the process of change in the performance
measurement system (Munir et al., 2013) and how its use changed actors’ perception and
action (Seal and Ye, 2014). Studies focusing on public sectors principally dealt with how
reformation of a particular sector fostered the redesign of its performance measurement
system, specifically how political ideology facilitated its adoption to align with strategic
policy goals and policy implementation and, at the same time reduce the management
discretion to bring functional integration to the BSC framework (Bobe et al., 2017).
Conceptual papers (Herath et al., 2014) primarily focused on the development of the original
model proposed by Kaplan and Norton (1992) to include additional perspective such as
environmental performance (Perego and Hartmann, 2009; Alewine and Miller, 2016) and to examine
the applicability of such model in a particular organizational setting (Alewine and Miller, 2016).
3.6.4 Activity-based costing/management. Studies focusing on ABC have addressed a
variety of issues including the extent of adoption, adoption process, contingent factors affecting
the successful adoption and the effects of adoption on various aspects of firm’s performance.
Maiga and Jacobs (2008), for instance, documented that the extent of ABC usage is associated
with quality improvement, cost improvement and cycle-time improvement and that these
variables act as intervening variables between the extent of ABC use and profitability. The effect
of other contingent variables such as perceived innovation attributes, organizational factors,
perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) (Al-Sayed and Dugdale, 2016) organizational culture
and structure (Zhang et al., 2015), product diversity and advanced manufacturing technology
(Schoute, 2011) and top management support (Byrne, 2011) on successful implementation of ABC
have also been studied. The effect of using ABC on several aspects of firm performance such as
identification of core supply chain inefficiencies (Masschelein et al., 2012) and profitability while
using with customer service as strategic priority (Krumwiede and Charles, 2014) were also
addressed. An appropriate definition of ABC (Brierley, 2011) and its diffusion in less developed
economies (Nassar et al., 2011) were also addressed in the literature.
 Apart from these issues, time-driven ABC has also received the attention of several scholars. Relevance of
Specifically the suitability and complexity of time-driven ABC (Barros and Ferreira, 2017) and the strategic
role of collective worker participation and leadership style on its design (Hoozée and Bruggeman,
2010) have been explored in the literature. In addition, Lelkes (2014) discussed the technical
management
efficiency of duration-based costing system as an alternative to ABC.
3.6.5 Target costing. TC has also received the attention of MAC scholars to a limited extent.
The issues covered in the articles published on TC were considerably diversified. For instance,
Yasukata et al. (2013) documented, using a case study, that the diffusion of TC was a result of 139
deliberate managerial activity, while Kee and Matherly (2013) showed that the interdependence
between product and production affect the usage of TC. Woods et al. (2012), using a case study of
MNC, documented how economic value added is introduced in TC system and provided
preliminary evidence on how TC can, while using with other SMA techniques, play the bridging
role in connecting strategic process and profit generation. Baharudin and Jusoh (2019)
demonstrated how a non-Japanese company (Malaysian automotive manufacturer) modified the
fundamental steps of TCM to match with its resources, processes and strategic routines.
3.6.6 Other strategic management accounting techniques. Amongst the remaining SMA
techniques, CPA, LCC and CPM have also received MAC scholars’ attention, but to a very
limited extent. With respect to the CPA, Fish et al. (2017) documented how the power and
political capital, beliefs and intuition of executives affect the design of CPA using a case
study of a manufacturing company in USA. De La Villarmois and Levant (2009) focused on
the development of CPA method in bringing simplicity in evaluation, while Roslender and
Hart (2010) presented review and critique of extant customer accounting techniques and
noticed the fundamentals of how to take the customers into account.
Dunk (2012) documented how LCC analysis, while using with customer involvement and
cost management, enhance the competitive advantage of a firm. Knauer and Möslang (2018)
examined the factors affecting the adoption of LCC and its effect on the achievement of cost
management goals. They reported significant positive effect of the magnitude of guarantee
and warranty costs and ecological sustainability cost on the extent of LCC adoption and the
benefits of LCC adoption on various aspects of cost management, the most imperative one of
those benefits was the identification of cost drivers. The remaining SMA techniques such as
value chain costing, brand valuation, strategic pricing. could not attract the attention MAC
scholars particularly the contributors of the selected 23 leading accounting journals.

4. Conclusions and future research

The aim of the present study was to present a review of the literature on SMA as a whole and its
techniques based on the articles published in the leading 23 accounting journals over the past 12
years (2008-2019). The inclusion of organizational external environment, long-term orientation
and use of non-financial information were used as the criteria for isolating SMA techniques from
the traditional MAC tools. The overall findings of the review revealed that research on SMA has
focused on the contingencies influencing the adoption and implementation of SMA techniques
and the effect of such adoption on various aspects of firm and employee performance. The
renovation and modification of existing practices in the endeavor to match with the
organizational context has also attracted the attention of several scholars. However, akin to the
findings of Zawawi and Hoque (2010), this study also found that the innovations in the SMA
arena remained stagnant.
With respect to the focus of the selected journals, cost and management journals (e.g. Cost
Management and AMA) emphasized more on publishing articles on SMA, whilst generalist
accounting journals are found to accentuate more on tax, audit, financial reporting and corporate
governance issues. This finding was in line with the findings of Zawawi and Hoque (2010). The
PRR trend of the volume of articles published showed a fluctuating trend, with the highest number of
4,2 articles published in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2017. In regard to the topics covered, BSC and ABC
were at the center of attention of MAC scholars with trifling focus on TC and CPA. However,
manufacturing sectors remained at the top of the priority list of MAC scholars with substantial
focused on service and public sector enterprises. Surprisingly, there seemed to be a generous shift
to the SM theory from other organizational and sociological theories in the SMA research. In
140 respect of research method used, case study method received immense attention of the scholars
with equal weight given to the survey method. This finding was a clear move from prior studies
such as Zawawi and Hoque (2010) and shields (1997).
The continuous publication of articles on SMA and its several techniques by leading
accounting journals signified that research on SMA has not been languished as suggested
and presumed by several scholars (Langfield-Smith, 2008; Lord, 1996). However,
comparatively less number of articles has focused on the adoption rate of SMA as a whole
and its specific techniques, which may be taken as a partial response to the call of Langfield-
Smith (2008), which suggested limited value on such research. With respect to future
research in this field, we suggest researchers to look at the following areas.

4.1 Nature and extent of strategic management accounting practices in the developing
economies
Very little is known till date with respect to the adoption/implementation of SMA
techniques, specifically SMA as whole. Considering the positive effect of the use of several
SMA techniques on firm and employee performance, it is imperative to explore the nature
and extent of SMA practices in the developing economies.

4.2 Environmental (external) contingencies

The findings of the present review suggested that the extant literature principally focused
on the organizational contingencies that influence the adoption and implementation of
particular SMA techniques. Several environmental contingencies such as intensity of
competition (Cadez and Guilding, 2008), environmental uncertainty (Zawawi and Hoque,
2010) and national culture are yet to be addressed in this field of research.

4.3 Investigating the adoption of unexplored strategic management accounting techniques

Several SMA techniques such as strategic pricing, brand valuation, quality costing
remained unexplored in the context of both developed and developing economy. Therefore,
researchers have to devote their efforts in exploring these practices in the further research.

4.4 Development of new practices

The present review revealed that innovations in the field of SMA remained stagnant. SMA
scholars have to devote their efforts in developing innovative techniques to meet the
information needs of the business operating in the face of fourth industrial revolution.

4.5 Role of professional management accounting bodies

The role of professional cost and MAC bodies (e.g. The Chartered Institute of Management
Accountants, Institute of Management Accountants) in popularizing SMA tools might be
the subjects of future research. Specifically, the approach professional bodies followed or to
be followed to inform organizational actors about the benefits of using particular SMA
techniques may be of particular interest.
 The study suffers from a number of limitations. First, the study is based on literature review Relevance of
and suffers from the lack of empirical observation using either survey or case study. Second, the strategic
existence of four perspectives of SM and 10 school of strategy (Nixon and Burns, 2012) limits the
relevance of criteria used in the study, and therefore bound to be subjective due the non-existence
management
of a generally acceptable conceptual framework of SMA. Third, the study reviewed articles
published only in 23 leading accounting journals (with partial focus on few non-accounting
journals); therefore articles published on SMA in other non-accounting and management journals
such as production and operation management, public sector management and logistics 141
management journals remained outside the scope of review of the present study. Nevertheless, we
believe that our study has provided a number of grounds for future SMA research.

Notes
1. The word “influential” is used considering the impact factor of the journal and the scholars
contributing in the journal. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability is a journal published by
Emerald Publishing Limited and the impact factor of the journal is 2.537 (2018) and five-year
impact factor is 4.397 (November, 2019).
2. Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management (QRAM), a journal published by Emerald
Publishing Limited, has also received the attention of famous MAC scholars such as Lee Parker,
Zahirul Hoque and Christopher S. Chapman. Also, the cite score of the journal was 1.98 (2018).

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Corresponding author
Md Mamunur Rashid can be contacted at: [email protected]
 4,2

146
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on SMA
Table A1.
Attributes of articles
Article Research
Author/year Topic Journal title type Setting Theory method Key findings
Appendix

Cadez and Integrated AOS Empirical Multiple Contingency Survey Strategy type, company size and
Guilding (2008) contingency model industries theory accountants’ participation in strategic
of SMA decision-making positively influence
SMA use. SMA usage has positive
effect on firm performance
Tillmann and SMA and sense- MAR Empirical One Grounded Case Management accountants undertake
Goddard (2008) making in a multinational theory study sense-making activities using several
multinational company strategies and SMA to understand the
company process
Ratnatunga (2008) Carbonomics and Journal of Conceptual Grounded Literature Information provided by SMA
SMA issues applied MAR theory review techniques (e.g. costs of
carbon regularity compliance and
passing
on the increased cost of carbon
regulation
to consumers through higher prices)
may assist in carbon management
Ma and Tayles Emergence of SMA: ABR Empirical One Institutional Case Several SMA techniques have been
(2009) Institutional multinational theory study adopted by the company. Enhanced
perspective company role of management accountants in
strategic decision-making process was
also evidenced
Cinquini and SMA and business JAOC Empirical Manufacturing Contingency Survey The use of several customer and
Tenucci (2010) strategy theory competitor-based SMA techniques in
Italian manufacturing companies.
Defender and cost-leader type strategy
follower use costing-based SMA
techniques
Hutaibat et al. SMA in higher JAOC Empirical Service Grounded Case Strategizing mindset, particularly
(2011) educational institute theory study bureaucratic and entrepreneurial
mindset, encapsulates institutional and
individual stance toward SMA
(continued)
 Article Research
Author/year Topic Journal title type Setting Theory method Key findings

Tayles (2011) General concepts of Review of MAR Conceptual SM Literature Though the adoption rate of SMA
SMA review techniques was low; the scores of
perceived benefits and possibility of
future adoption was promising
Nixon and Burns The paradox of MAR Conceptual SM Literature The extant literature of SMA used the
(2012) SMA review first era concept of SM and ignored the
second era resource-based SM literature
Cuganesan et al. SMA, strategy MAR Empirical Public sector SM Case MAC can positively contribute in
(2012) practices in public study strategizing beyond the typically
sector ascribed functions of decision-
facilitation and decision influencing
Cadez and Strategy, SMA and Industrial Empirical Manufacturing Configurational Survey Various configurations results in
Guilding (2012) performance Management theory varying level of fits and performance.
and Data Configurations that are internally
Systems consistent can lead to higher firm
performance
Lachmann et al. SMA practices in JAOC Empirical Hospital SM Survey SMA techniques are used to a limited
(2013) Hospitals industry extent. Structural characteristics affect
the use of SMA techniques
Carlsson-Wall SMA in close inter- ABR Empirical Manufacturing SM Case SMA in close inter-organizational
et al. (2015) organizational study relationships has several characteristics
relationships parallel to accounting and strategizing
literature with few differences. The use
of SMA techniques provided various
indirect benefits
Pavlatos (2015) Contextual factors, International Empirical Hotel industry Contingency Survey Seven contingent factors affect SMA
SMA usage and Journal of theory usage in hotels including PEU,
historical Contemporary structure, strategy and size. Lagging
performance in Hospitality performance also affects SMA usage
hotels Management but moderated by PEU
Turner et al. International Empirical Hotel industry Contingency Survey Market orientation business strategy is
(2017) journal of theory the key determinant of hotel property
(continued)
strategic

Table A1.
147
Relevance of

management
 4,2

148
PRR

Table A1.
Article Research
Author/year Topic Journal title type Setting Theory method Key findings

The role of SMA in hospitality SMA usage. The relationship between

hotel property management market orientation and firm
performance (IJHM) performance is mediated by SMA usage
and customer performance
Amanollah Nejad CEO characteristics, JAOC Empirical Service Upper echelon Survey CEO education and network are
Kalkhouran et al. SMA usage and and positively associated with SMA usage.
(2017) firm performance contingency The positive effect of SMA usage on
theories firm performance is mediated by CEO
education and network
Lapsley and The relevance of MAR Empirical Service SM Case Strategy is a social process rather than
Rekers (2017) SMA to popular study a practice
culture
Oboh and SMA and decision- Future Business Empirical Service Contingency Survey Registered banks in Nigeria use SMA
Ajibolade (2017) making Journal theories as a principle of operation. SMA usage
has significant positive effect on
strategic decision-making and firm’s
market share
Arunruangsirilert Corporate Asian Review of Empirical Multiple Agency Survey Several corporate governance variables
and governance and Accounting industries theory, resource such as separation of CEO from
Chonglerttham SMA dependency chairman, proportion of independent
(2017) theory and director and frequency of audit
stewardship committee meetings affect positively
theory SMA usage and participation while
board size has negative on SMA usage
Pavlatos and The effect of TMT JAOC Empirical Manufacturing Upper echelon Survey Companies with low past profitability
Kostakis (2018) characteristics and and Role theory makes heavy use of SMA techniques.
historical financial TMT characteristics such as
performance on educational background, tenure,
SMA creativity influence the level of SMA
usage
Alamri (2019) SMA facets and Baltic Journal of Empirical Multiple SM Survey SMA facets have significant effect on
organizational Management industries both financial and nonfinancial
performance organizational performance