9TH CONFERENCE ON NEW DIRECTIONS IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING -
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, DECEMBER 15-17, 2014

CHAIRPERSONS:
Kari LUKKA (Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland)
Michael SHIELDS (Michigan State University, U.S.A.)

SPONSORED BY:
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

The rate of change in the practice of and research on management accounting appears to be increasing. Many organisations are attempting to change their existing, or implement new and innovative, management accounting systems and practices, based on new management accounting and business ideas, strategies, technologies, structures, processes, operative locations, and information. A number of new challenging objects of planning, control and measurement have recently emerged, including intellectual capital, networks of organisations as well as environmental, social and organizational sustainability. The roles and designs of budgeting systems appear to be changing and the significance of performance management and measurement in many variations is increasing. While much of this innovation and implementation concentrates on new costing or performance management or measurement systems and practices, there are also changes related to the roles of management accountants in organisations. Current developments such as those outlined above provide many new and exciting opportunities for innovative management accounting research, and for a fruitful integration of existing accounting knowledge and the currently emerging practice issues. There are indications of increased collaboration between researchers and practitioners in the spirit of engaged scholarship, too.

The purpose of this conference, like its seven predecessors, is to examine innovative management accounting practices and innovative ideas about how to conduct research on them. The conference will consist of plenary sessions and research paper presentations. The general theme for the next conference is "Innovations in management accounting practice and research”.

The invited plenary speakers are:

  • Mats ALVESSON, University of Lund, Sweden
  • Joe FISHER, Indiana University, USA
  • Frank MOERS, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands
  • Karen SEDATOLE, Michigan State University, USA

Their presentations will cover issues like challenging dominant assumptions in field research, innovations in budgets and budgeting, the design and performance of management accounting practices as packages or systems, and advantages of multi-theoretical perspectives for research on management accounting.

PRACTICE: 

  • Innovative management accounting practices in particular parts of the world 
  • Management accounting in new organizational designs (e.g., flat, horizontal, hybrid, matrix, network, virtual, team) 
  • Management accounting systems for big data, enterprise resource planning systems, e-commerce, digitalized data
  • interchange, electronic meetings, customer relationship management, and supply chain management 
  • Value chain and inter-organizational accounting 
  • New management accounting techniques, processes and information 
  • Linkages between competitive strategy and management accounting
  • Integration and disintegration of management accounting 
  • Challenges of globalization for management accounting 
  • Changing roles of management accountants in organizations 
  • Information about what practitioners expect management accounting researchers to do

RESEARCH: 

  • Role of social sciences and other theoretical perspectives in researching innovative practices
  • Comparative analyses of various theoretical approaches 
  • New theories for researching innovative practices 
  • Ways of improving the relevance, validity, and reliability of theory-based empirical research 
  • Role of research design in management accounting studies 
  • Research method issues in researching innovative practices 
  • Innovative ways of conducting management accounting research
  • _______________________________________________________________________

The conference will start on Monday December 15, 2014 early afternoon and is scheduled to end at approximately 5 p.m.on Wednesday, December 17, 2014


LOCATION :

The whole workshop will take place in the Hotel Métropole in which the EIASM premises are located (Place De Brouckère-plein 31, 1000 Brussels).

The Hotel Métropole is marvelously well located right in the historical centre of Brussels, just a few steps away from the “Grand-Place”, the “Bourse” and the “Theatre de la Monnaie” and close to the central and north railway stations, that each have direct connections to Brussels International airport.