NEW MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS - SOME EVIDENCE OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF UK MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING PRACTITIONERS

During the 1980s European manufacturing companies faced significant an d radical changes in both manufacturing technologies and the level and nature of competition. Critics have argued that management accounting has hindered rather than helped these changes to come about. It is cl aimed that management accounting has failed to make visible and theref ore governable the detailed work processes of a modern manufacturing o rganisation. Most of the literature relating to the impact of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) on management accounting systems re sults from the views expressed by academics rather than management acc ountants working in an AMT environment. To remedy this deficiency and to ascertain the extent to which management accounting systems have ch anged or are likely to change a questionnaire survey was undertaken wh ich sought to obtain the perceptions of and practices adopted by exper ienced management accountants in UK manufacturing companies. The paper reports on the systems in current use for costing, performance measur ement, control and investment appraisal. It incorporates the opinions of practitioners on a range of common assertions relating to the moder n manufacturing and competitive environment and through the use of ope n-ended questions provides the opportunity for direct practitioner inp ut to the debate on the relevance of management accounting. The paper enables some conclusions to be drawn but also raises important questio ns on the extent to which manufacturing is hindered by inappropriate o r delayed development of management accounting systems.