•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Bureaucracy has co-existed with forms of management accounting [MA] from the time of ancient civilizations. In this paper, we review literature in a wide variety of scholarly journals and books to provide an overview of this co-existence. We trace the historical evolution of MA and how it was influenced by bureaucracy from 1700 to the present. We do so through four time periods, designated classical, modern, post-modern and contemporary. For each of these periods, evolving understandings of bureaucracy were linked to changes in the practice and conceptualization of MA. In the classical period (1700 – 1950), developments in MA corresponded to a prevailing positive understanding of bureaucracy. In the modern period (1951 – 1980), theoretical elaborations of MA assimilated a post-bureaucratic posture. In the post-modern period (1981 – 1990), changes in MA practice partially mirrored ongoing criticism of bureaucracy. In the contemporary period (1991 – present), MA practices have reflected a more favorable disposition to the idea of bureaucracy.

References

Abdel-Kader, M., and R. Luther. 2006. IFAC's Conception of the Evolution of Management Accounting: A Research Note. Advances in Management Accounting, 15, 229–247.

Adler, P. 1992. The Learning Bureaucracy: New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. Los Angeles: University of Southern California.

Adler, P. 1993. Time-and-Motion Regained. Harvard Business Review, 71 (1), 97–108.

Adler, P., and B. Borys. 1996. Two Types of Bureaucracies: Enabling and Coercive. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41 (1), 61–89.

Agostino, D., I. Saliterer, and I. Steccolini. 2022. Digitalization, Accounting and Accountability: A Literature Review and Reflections on Future Research in Public Services. Financial Accountability & Management, 38, 152– 176.

Alexander, J. R. 2002. Accounting in history. Association of Chartered Accountants in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.uctoonline.sk/home/images/history of accounting.pdf

Amat, J., S. Carmona, and H. Roberts. 1994. Context and Change in Management Accounting Systems: A Spain Case Study. Management Accounting Research, 5, 107–122.

Ashton, D., T. Hopper, and R. Scapens. 1995. The changing Nature of Issues in Management Accounting. In D. Ashton, T. Hopper, & R. Scapens (Eds.), Issues in Management Accounting, 1–20. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.

Asrofah, T., S. Zailani, and Y. Fernando. 2010. Best Practices for the Effectiveness of Benchmarking in the Indonesian Manufacturing Companies. Benchmarking, 17 (1), 115–143.

Beetham, D. 1996. Bureaucracy. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Boer, G. 2000. Management Accounting Education: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Issues in Accounting Education, 15 (2), 313–334.

Bromwich, M., and R. W. Scapens. 2016. Management Accounting Research: 25 Years On. Management Accounting Research, 31, 1–9.

Buble, M. 2015. Tendencies in Evolution of the 21st Century Management. Management, 20, 1–17.

Buchanan, J., and G. Tullock. 1965. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Burns, J., and R. Scapens. 2000. Conceptualizing Management Accounting Change: An Institutional Framework. Management Accounting Research, 11 (1), 3–25.

Callon, M. 2002. Writing and (re)writing Devices as Tools for Managing Complexity. In Law, J. & Mol, A. (eds) Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices, 191–217. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Carvalho, J. M., L. L. Rodrigues, and R. Craig. 2007. Early Cost Accounting Practices and Private Ownership: The Silk Factory Company of Portugal, 1745–1747. The Accounting Historians Journal, 34 (1), 57–89.

Cervantes, G., D. Porter, R. Skinnell, and K. Wisecup. 2018. Bureaucracy: A Love Story. Texas: University of North Texas.

Chandler, A. D. 1977. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Clegg, S., and D. Courpasson. 2004. Political Hybrids: Tocquevillean Views of Project Organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 41 (4), 525–547.

Clegg, S., M. Kornberger, and T. Pitsis. 2016. Managing and Organizations: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. London: Sage.

Cooper, R. 2000. Cost Management: from Frederick Taylor to the Present. Journal of Cost Management, September/October, 4–9.

Cooper, R., and R. Kaplan. 1991. Profit Priorities from Activity-Based Costing. Harvard Business Review, 69 (3), 130–135.

Crooks, P., and T. H. Parsons. 2016. Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Craig, T. 1995. Achieving Innovation Through Bureaucracy: Lessons from The Japanese Brewing Industry. California Management Review, 38 (1), 8–36.

Craig, R., and J. Amernic. 2021. Decoding CEO-speak. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Crozier, M. 1965. The Bureaucratic Phenomenon: An Examination of Bureaucracy in Modern Organizations and its Cultural Setting in France. Social Forces, 43 (4), 596–597.

Daily, B., and J. Bishop. 2003. TQM Workforce Factors and Employee Involvement: The Pivotal Role of Teamwork. Journal of Managerial Issues, 15 (4), 393–412.

De Landa, M. 2000. A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. New York: Swerve Editions.

DiMaggio, P. J., and W. W. Powell. 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review, 48 (2), 147–160.

Downs, A. 1965. A Theory of Bureaucracy. American Economic Review, 55 (1/2), 439–446.

Drucker, P. 1993. Post-Capitalist Society. New York: Harper and Row.

Du Gay, P. 2005. The Values of Bureaucracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Farrell, C., and J. Morris. 2003. The "Neo-Bureaucratic" State: Professionals, Managers and Professional Managers in Schools, General Practices and Social Work. Organization, 10 (1), 129–156.

Feldman, M. S. 2000. Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change. Organization Science, 11 (6), 611–629.

Ferguson, K. E. 1984. The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Ferner, A. 2000. The Underpinnings of "Bureaucratic" Control Systems: HRM in European Multinationals. Journal of Management Studies, 37 (4), 521–539.

Flamholtz, E. G. 1992. Relevance Regained: Management Accounting - Past, Present and Future. Advances in Management Accounting, 1, 21–34.

Fleischman, R., and L. Parker. 1990. Managerial Accounting Early in the British Industrial Revolution: the Carron Company, A Case Study. Accounting and Business Research, 20 (79), 211–221.

Floyd, S. W., and B. Woolridge. 1994. Dinosaurs or Dynamos? Recognizing Middle Management's Strategic Role. Academy of Management Executives, 8 (4), 47–57.

Garston, N. 1993. Bureaucracy: Three Paradigms. New York: Kluwer Academic.

Gerth, H. H., and W. Mills. 1946. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Giddens, A. 1999. Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our Lives. London: Profile Books Ltd.

Gosselin, M. 1997. The Effect of Strategy and Organizational Structure on the Adoption and Implementation of Activity-Based Costing. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 22 (2), 105–122.

Grey, C. 2005. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations. London: Sage.

Guillén, M. F. 1994. Models of Management: Work, Authority, and Organization in a Comparative Perspective. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Ghartey, J. B. 1985. Accountability, the Threshold of Political Instability and Underdevelopment Misery: The Case of Africa. The International Journal of Accounting and Education Research, 21, 143-58.

Hales, C. 2002. "Bureaucracy-lite" and Continuities in Managerial Work. British Journal of Management, 13, 51–66.

Handy, C. 1989. The Age of Unreason. London: Business Books.

Henczel, S. 2002. Benchmarking: Measuring and Comparing for Continuous Improvement. Information Outlook, 6 (7), 12–20.

Hill, S., R. Martin, and M. Harris. 2000. Decentralization, Integration and the Post-Bureaucratic Organization: the Case of R & D. Journal of Management Studies, 37 (4), 563–585.

Hill, S., and A. Wilkinson. 1995. In Search of TQM. Employee Relations, 17 (3), 8–25.

Hofstede, T., and J. Kinard. 1970. A Strategy for Behavioral Accounting Research. The Accounting Review, 45 (1), 38–54.

Hopper, T., M. Tsamenyi, and D. Wickramasinghe. 2009. Management Accounting in Less Development Countries: What is Known and Needs Knowing. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 22 (3), 469-514.

Horngren, C., S. Datar, and M. Rajan. 2012. Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis (14th ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Iedema, R. 2003. Discourses of Post-Bureaucratic Organization. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ishikawa, K. 1985. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Johnson, H. 1972. Early Cost Accounting for Internal Management Control: Lyman Mills in the 1850's. Business History Review, 46 (4), 466–474.

Johnson, H., and Kaplan, R. 1987. Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Johnson, P., et al. 2009. The Rise of Post-Bureaucracy Theorists' Fancy or Organizational Praxis? Journal of International Sociology, 24 (1), 37–61.

Kallinikos, J. 2004. The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Order. Organization, 11 (1), 13–36.

Kamal, S. 2015. Historical Evolution of Management Accounting. Cost and Management, 43 (4), 12–19.

Kaplan, R., and A. A. Atkinson. 1998. Advanced Management Accounting. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Kaplan, R., and R. Cooper. 1998. Cost and Effect: Using Integrated Cost Systems to Drive Profitability and Performance. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kaplan, R., and D. Norton. 1992. The Balanced Scorecard Measures that Drive Performance. Harvard Business Review, 70 (1), 71–79.

Kärreman, D., and M. Alvesson. 2004. Cages in Tandem: Management Control, Social Identity, and Identification in a Knowledge-Intensive Firm. Organization, 11 (1), 149–175.

Littler, C. P. 1978. Understanding Taylorism. The British Journal of Sociology, 29 (2), 185–202.

Ma, Y., and M. Tayles. 2009. On the Emergence of Strategic Management Accounting: an Institutional Perspective. Accounting and Business Research, 29 (5), 473–495.

Maniha, J. K. 1975. Universalism and Particularism in Bureaucratizing Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 20 (2), 177–190.

Marini, F. 1971. Toward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook Perspective. Scranton, PA: Chandler.

Martin, J., K. Knopoff, and C. Beckman. 1998. An Alternative to Bureaucratic Impersonality Aad Emotional Labor: Bounded Emotionality at the Body Shop. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43 (2), 429–469.

Merton, R. 1940. Bureaucratic Structure and Personality. Social Forces, 18 (4), 560–568.

Merton, R., et al. 1952. Reader in Bureaucracy. Glencoe, III: Free Press.

O'Leary, D. E. 2022. Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation in Accounting, Electronic Commerce, and Supply Chains. Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, 1– 10.

Otley, D. 1978. Budget use and managerial performance. Journal of Accounting Research, 16 (1), 122–149.

Ovunda, A. S. 2015. The Development of Cost and Management Accounting: A Historical Perspective. European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 34 (1), 1884–1899.

Parker, R. 1969. Management Accounting: An Historical Perspective. London: Macmillan.

Parker, R., and L. Bradley. (2004). Bureaucracy or Post-Bureaucracy? Public Sector Organisations in a Changing Context. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 26 (2), 197–215.

Perrow, C. 1986. Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay. New York: Random House.

Porter, M. E. 1998. Clusters and the New Economics of Competition. Harvard Business Review, 76 (6), 77–90.

Robertson, M., and J. Swan. 2003. "Control – What Control?" Culture and Ambiguity within a Knowledge Intensive Firm. Journal of Management Studies, 40 (4), 831–858.

Ron, A. 2008. Power: A Pragmatist, Deliberative (and Radical View). Journal of Political Philosophy, 16 (3), 272-292.

Salaman, G. 2005. Bureaucracy and Beyond: Managers and Leaders in the "Post-Bureaucratic" Organization. In P. Du Gay (Ed.), The Values of Bureaucracy, 141–164. New York: Oxford University Press.

Simmonds, K. 1981. Strategic Management Accounting. Management Accounting, 59 (4), 26–29.

Sohal, A., and M. Morrison. 1995. TQM and the Learning Organization. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 5 (6), 32–34.

Stinchcombe, A. 1959. Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production: a Comparative Study. Administrative Science Quarterly, 4 (2), 168–187.

Styhre, A. 2007. The Innovative Bureaucracy: Bureaucracy in an Age of Fluidity. London and New York: Routledge.

Taylor, F. W. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management. Reprint. Washington: Kessinger Publishing, 2010.

Thompson, P., and M. Alvesson. 2005. Bureaucracy at Work: Misunderstandings and Mixed Blessings. In P. Du Gay (Ed.), The Values of Bureaucracy, 89–113. New York: Oxford University Press.

Von Mises, L. 1944. Bureaucracy. USA: Yale University Press.

Weber, M. 1922. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Trans. G. Roth and C. Wittich as Economy and Society. Reprint. California: University of California Press, 1978.

Woodward, J. 1958. Management and Technology. Indiana: HM Stationery Off.

Zainuddin, Z. N., and S. Sulaiman. 2016. Challenges Faced by Management Accountants in the 21st century. Procedia Economics and Finance, 37 (16), 466–470.

Zhang, Y. F., Z. Hoque, and C. R. Isa. 2015. The Effects of Organizational Culture and Structure on the Success of Activity-Based Costing Implementation. Advances in Management Accounting, 25, 229–257.

Zhang, M., T. Ye, and L. Jia. 2022. Implications of the "Momentum" Theory of Digitalization in Accounting: Evidence from Ash Cloud, China Journal of Accounting Research, 15 (4), 100274.

Download

Share

COinS