Management Accounting Research: 25 Years On

This Editorial introduces and comments on the implications of the papers presented at the 25th Anniversary Conference of Management Accounting Research which was held at the London School of Economics and Political Science in April 2015. It first examines the context in which Management Accounting Research was founded in 1990 and then introduces the six invited review papers. These papers cover a wide range of subjects comprising critical and social theory, managerialist studies, contingency theory, experimental behavioural research and intra-organisational management accounting. Amongst various other recommendations, some of the authors suggest that there is a need for research in management accounting to more effectively build on prior research so as to accumulate knowledge about specific issues and problems. In addition, they suggest that researchers in the different areas (or sub-disciplines) of management accounting should talk to each other more. For instance, insights and findings from qualitative research could be used to inform quantitative studies and vice versa. The later parts of this Editorial discuss opportunities and challenges for management accounting research in the future. In particular, it is pointed out that, compared to when Management Accounting Research was founded in 1990, researchers now have highly theorised understandings of management accounting practices, and one challenge is to use these understandings to try to close the ‘practice-research gap’. It is argued that management accounting theories have had a relatively limited impact on practice and, as there are increasing pressures on universities to demonstrate the impact and value of university research, some suggestions are made about ways of increasing the impact of management accounting research.