Recent Progress in Research in Management and Accounting

The realms of management and accounting have witnessed significant advancements in recent years. As organizations grapple with complex challenges, researchers delve into multifaceted topics at the intersection of these fields. Let’s explore some of the recent progress:

1. Management Accounting and New Product Development

To efficiently implement Early Supplier Involvement (ESI) in New Product Development (NPD), literature examined the contribution of its success factors to NPD project performance [1]. New product development (NPD) stands as a cornerstone of competitive advantage for companies. Yet, the interplay between management accounting practices and NPD remains a fertile ground for exploration. While industry conventions underscore the imperative for firms to accelerate their new product development (NPD) speed in order to maintain competitive advantage, especially when they face intense competition, extant literature has afforded relatively scant attention to the phenomenon of competitive intensity as a driver of NPD speed [2]. Recent research has shed light on this nexus, addressing critical questions:

• Fragmentation and Knowledge Gap: The existing literature on management accounting in NPD is fragmented due to diverse research settings, methodologies, and focuses. Researchers have sought to consolidate evidence and provide a coherent view.
• Threefold Identity: A conceptual framework emerges, recognizing three dimensions of management accounting research in NPD:
  1. Technical-Oriented Aspects: Examining management accounting techniques and calculations.
  2. Information Types and Roles: Investigating the role of management accounting information in NPD.
  3. Sociological-Oriented Aspects: Understanding the involvement and roles of management accountants in NPD environments.
• Research Avenues: These dimensions serve as guideposts for future research, offering pathways for scholars to contribute to this evolving discourse.

2. Themes in Management Accounting Research

While extant literature on decoupling tends to focus on for-profit organizations, this paper examines the non-profit context, where donors are the most salient stakeholders and accountability to donors is paramount [3]. A review of recent literature reveals key themes in management accounting research:

• Experimental Research: Scholars increasingly turn to experimental methods to explore deviations from economic theory predictions within organizations. This approach strengthens causality links.
• Positive Health Assets: While not directly accounting-related, recognizing positive psychological well-being (e.g., optimism, life satisfaction) informs management practices.
• Behavioral Trends: Understanding digital behavior, behavioral economics, and social norms shapes effective management strategies.
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Researchers collaborate across disciplines to tackle complex challenges.

3. Strategic Management Accounting

Strategic management accounting (SMA) remains a critical area of study. Although many motivating factors can influence the use of SMA, recent digitalization trends, particularly the application of big data, have the potential to enhance SMA implementation. However, factors such as managers’ perceptions of SMA, knowledge of big data, accountants, corporate culture, enterprise size, networking, information system (IS) quality, and market competition may also significantly impact the adoption of SMA techniques [4]. Recent research highlights:

• Techniques: SMA techniques play a pivotal role in organizational decision-making.
• Contingency Factors: Researchers explore how contextual factors influence SMA usage.
• Performance Implications: Understanding the impact of SMA on organizational performance is crucial.

Strategic management accounting (SMA) is a development step of traditional management accounting with future orientation and outward-looking information, helping to greatly support the strategic management of businesses in a competitive economy [5].

4. Changing Landscape

Accounting cannot be separated from the social interactions that take place in and around organizations. Accounting research has long been concerned with communication and reporting, negotiations and agreements, interactions with external parties, organizational culture, social and economic impacts, professional roles and ethics [6]. Recent years have witnessed shifts in both management accounting research and practice. Organizations grapple with digital transformation, sustainability, and evolving stakeholder expectations. Researchers and practitioners alike face exciting challenges:

• Agility and Adaptability: Organizations must adapt swiftly to changing landscapes.
• Evidence-Based Decision-Making: Rigorous research informs strategic choices.
• Organizational Resilience: Navigating uncertainties requires robust management accounting practices.

Conclusion

As the business landscape evolves, management accounting and research play pivotal roles. From NPD to SMA, interdisciplinary collaborations, and behavioral insights, scholars continue to illuminate the path forward. The pursuit of knowledge remains ceaseless, shaping the future of organizations worldwide.

List of top most journals in Management and Accounting (2024)

What is open access journal?

An open access journal is an academic journal that publishes scholarly papers and makes the content available for access, download, reading, and distribution without charging subscription fees. People commonly refer to open access journals as “free journals” since users do not have to pay to read or use their contents. In the general context, it is somehow correct. But technically, most open access journals use Creative Commons licenses, which are public licenses that allow content usage and impose certain restrictions, if any. Such restrictions may include attribution, modifications, and non-commercialization. Open access journals are growing in popularity and are well respected in academia. Major databases such as the Directory of Open Access Publishing have begun focusing on indexing and promoting high-quality open access journals. More established databases have also followed suit. The presence of established databases in promoting open access journals is an important validation and recognition of open research.

What is open peer review?

Open peer review (OPR), where review reports and reviewers’ identities are published alongside the articles, represents one of the last aspects of the open science movement to be widely embraced, although its adoption has been growing since the turn of the century (Wolfram etal., 2020) [7]. Open peer review refers to various modifications of the traditional scholarly peer review process. These modifications aim to address perceived shortcomings of the conventional system. Here are the three common forms of open peer review:

1. Open Identities:

• In open peer review, authors and reviewers are aware of each other’s identities. Unlike traditional peer review, where reviewers remain anonymous to anyone but the journal’s editors, open peer review allows transparency by revealing reviewer names to authors.
• However, reviewer identities may or may not be disclosed to the public.

2. Open Reports:

• Under this model, review reports are made public, rather than being confidentially shared only with the article’s authors. This includes publishing not only the reviewers’ comments but also the authors’ responses and editors’ recommendations.
• Typically, this applies to articles accepted for publication, not those that are rejected.

3. Open Participation:

• In open peer review, self-selected reviewers (beyond invited experts) can comment on an article. The assumption is that the article’s content is openly accessible.
• These self-selected reviewers may contribute either brief comments or comprehensive reviews.
• The text of the article is openly available, allowing broader community participation in the review process.

The adoption of open peer review aims to enhance transparency, provide incentives, reduce wastefulness, and address issues like bullying and harassment in scholarly communication.

What are the benefits of Open Peer Review?

Open peer review (OPR) is a transparent process that allows scholarly articles to be evaluated by experts in the field, while also revealing the identities of both authors and reviewers. OPR can improve the quality of research by:

• Encouraging constructive feedback: Openness in the identities of authors and reviewers can lead to better quality feedback rather than simply rejecting the paper.
• Reducing bias: Everything is openly available to all, which can reduce the possibility of bias.
• Empowering authors: Authors can lead the process by suggesting reviewers themselves.
• Improving accountability: The quality of current scientific publications is at stake.
• Encouraging collaboration: OPR encourages collaboration and promotes diversity of perspectives, ultimately leading to more robust and credible research outcomes.
• Providing learning opportunities: OPR places a research work in the context of a discussion, and gives authors, readers and others a chance to better understand the process from the initial manuscript submission to final published version.
• Exposing possible conflicts of interest: OPR may help to expose possible conflicts of interest in some cases.

Adoption of OPR by publishers (Wolfram etal., 2020) [7]

A summary of the most prolific publishers contributing to OPR and their headquarters country appears below. Although many journals today attract an international audience and are managed by international teams of researchers, the prevalence of OPR journals associated with publishers based in Europe stands out. Twenty-four of the 38 (63.2%) identified publishers are based in Europe and account for 445 out of the 617 titles (72.1%). Although the publishers are based in Europe, many of the journals they publish may support journals originating from other areas of the world (e.g., Kowsar). Furthermore, 500 of the OPR journals (81.0%) are published by only five publishers (MDPI, SDI, BioMed Central, Frontiers Media S.A., Kowsar). This points to the important role that publishers have played to date in the promotion of OPR (Wolfram etal., 2020) [7].

1. *United Kingdom (19 journals), United States (9), Argentina (1), Bulgaria (1), Canada (1), France (1), Germany (1), Ireland (1), Kenya (1), The Netherlands (1), Switzerland (1)

List of open Peer-review journals in management and accounting (2024)

1. Administrative Sciences (Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/admsci)
2. Sustainability (Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability)
3. Journal of Economics, Management and Trade (Website: https://journaljemt.com)
4. Asian Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting (Website: https://journalajeba.com)

References:

1. Benhayoun, L., Le-Dain, M. A., Schiele, H., & Personnier, H. (2024). How to prevent ruining new product development projects with suppliers? A failure factors’ perspective. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 1-17.
2. Lyu, C., Bao, Y., Zhang, F., Wang, H., Tuo, X., Ou, J., & Lin, D. (2024). How competitive intensity drives firms to speed up new product development? The mediating effect of knowledge integration and the moderating effect of market orientation. R&D Management.

   3. Clerkin, B., Quinn, M., & Connolly, C. (2024). Decoupled accounting in a non-profit context: An explanation for stable management accounting?. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 99, 102721.

   4. Tran, H. N., & Nguyen, H. T. (2024). Strategic management accounting implementation: how the role of big data. Electronic Journal of Applied Statistical Analysis, 17(1), 51-68.

   5. Hoa, P. T. T., & Duong, V. T. Applying Strategic Management Accounting to Influence Business Efficency of Manufacturing Enterprises in Hanoi.

   6. Tjahjono, M. E. S. (2024). THE OTHER FACE OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH: A Perspective From Sociological Theory. JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, ACCOUNTING, GENERAL FINANCE AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ISSUES, 3(2), 516-535.

3. Wolfram, D., Wang, P., Hembree, A. et al. Open peer review: promoting transparency in open science. Scientometrics 125, 1033–1051 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03488-4