Discuss the conceptual framework of strategic management accounting (SMA)
Roslender & Hart, 2003
SMA is best understood as a generic approach to accounting for strategic positioning. It is defined by an attempt to integrate insights from management accounting and marketing management within a strategic management framework.
To date, the attribute costing technique has been the most compelling development within SMA. Its focus on costing the benefits associated with products and their attributes necessitates contributions from both disciplines.
As a consequence of theway in whichSMAis interpreted in the study, it is assumed to be underpinned by well-established patterns of interfunctional cooperation between management accountants and marketing managers. These patterns of cooperation, and the relationships they embody, are regarded as acting as critical facilitators for practices such as SMA.
A strong cross-functional interest in brands and their management evident in some companies was, however, accompanied by a number of developments that might be termed brand management accounting. In our view, such developments may constitute an additional subset of techniques to be included within the generic SMA approach.
Evolution of SMA:
What differentiated SMA from many parallel developments was its external orientation, hence Bromwich and Bhimani’s observation that it provided a means of releasing management accounting from the factory floor (Bromwich and Bhimani, 1989). Using the term strategic to name the approachwas also intended to convey thatSMAincorporated a longer term outlook, as well as a broader emphasis than the greater part of management accounting.
Simmonds (1981, 1982). It was again used to identify an externally oriented approach that entailed collecting and analysing data on costs, prices, sales volumes, market shares, cash flows and resource utilisation, for both a business and its competitors.
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