Management accounting: issues in interpreting its nature and change

Studies in the area of management accounting change have proliferated in the past few years. It seems then time for systematizing the analysis of management accounting change along some key dimensions which can prompt some further reflection. This paper proposes to organize such reflection along these dimensions: the agents and object of change; the forms and ratio of change; the space and time of change; and the interplay between change and stability. This systematization, the paper argues, will help us to relate a reflection on the process of change with the nature of management accounting itself. Studying change entails a reflection on what changes and studying what changes implies a reflection on the nature of management accounting and its ability to become what is not, i.e. its change.