Introduction

Abstract

Over the last thirty years management accounting has developed as a practical aid to business managers and as a subject for academic teaching and research. Currently, the management accounting textbooks written by academics describe a coherent set of concepts and techniques which are available to management accountants in practice. Unfortunately, in a number of respects, the practical nature of the subject differs quite considerably from these textbook concepts and techniques. It could be said that there is a gap between the ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ of management accounting — a gap which is quite wide, particularly when ‘theory’ includes the various mathematical and statistical techniques available for financial decision making — for example, linear programming and statistical decision theory. However, contemporary developments in management accounting research have provided a basis for understanding the usefulness of textbook concepts and techniques. This book reviews these contemporary developments.