How to de-bias investment judgements–unpacking bias and possible remedies in a capital investment context

PurposeResearch on biases in investment decision-making is indubitably important; however, studies in this context are relatively scarce. Unpacking bias has received attention in the psychological literature yet very little attention from management accounting research. This bias suggests that the perceived probability that an event will occur generally increases when the event's description is unpacked into a disjunction of subevents. The authors hypothesize that for a capital investment decision context, managers' judgement of the probability of a future event depends on whether the event is described as one packed event or is unpacked into several disjoint subevents. Additionally, the authors propose that altering the format of the description of an event's occurrence from percentage values to relative frequencies reduces unpacking bias.Design/methodology/approachTo test the study’s hypotheses, the authors conducted two experiments based on a 3 × 2 mixed experimental design in which manager participants were asked to estimate the failure probabilities of technical systems in the context of an investment decision.FindingsThe authors provide evidence that unpacking bias occurs in an investment scenario, which can be characterized as a high-stakes decision context. Changing the format in which probabilities are presented from percentage values to relative frequencies significantly reduces the bias.Research limitations/implicationsAdditional instructions did not further reduce unpacking bias.Practical implicationsFor investment decisions under uncertainty, performance indicators in management templates should be presented in relative frequencies to improve managerial decision-making. The fact that the authors could not show an additional effect of instructions in management accounting reports indicates that it is challenging for management accountants to reduce the biased decision-making of managers by “teaching” them through the provision of instructions.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to accounting research by illustrating unpacking bias and by deriving a debiasing mechanism in a capital investment decision context.

Contextual factors moderating the impact of strategic management accounting on competitive advantage

PurposeThis study investigates the influence of six interrelated contextual factors, namely organisational structure, quality of information technology, business strategy in terms of deliberate strategy-formulation, market orientation, market competition and perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU), on the usage intensity of innovative management accounting techniques commonly referred to as strategic management accounting (SMA); the impact of SMA usage on competitive advantage; and the moderating influence of the contextual factors on the relationship between SMA usage and competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were obtained through a structured questionnaire from publicly listed manufacturing companies on the main board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and moderated regression were used to analyse data. Both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to examine the validity and reliability of variables as first and second order of analysis. Structural equation modelling (SEM) (maximum likelihood estimation method) was applied to assess the robustness of result.FindingsMarket orientation and deliberate strategy-formulation emerged as significant determinants of SMA usage intensity. Although there is a significant relationship between SMA usage and competitive advantage, the strength of the relationship is moderate. Organisational structure, deliberate strategy-formulation and PEU significantly moderate the relationship between SMA usage and competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsThe emergence of deliberate strategy-formulation, as both a significant predictor of SMA usage intensity and as the strongest moderator of the relationship between SMA usage and competitive advantage, establish that it is organisations that take a proactive approach to strategy issues that may derive the most benefit from SMA utilisation.Practical implicationsThe result from this study brings to fore the need to involve management accountants in strategy-formulation and implementation in order to leverage their competence in deploying SMA techniques to enhance organisational competitiveness.Originality/valueThe current study is the first, to the researcher's knowledge, to specifically examine interrelated contextual factors distinctively affecting SMA usage and organisational competitiveness in a developing country. Whilst these six factors have been stressed as important determinants of the adoption of innovative management accounting techniques, the study provides empirical evidence on the extent to which they exert on SMA. The study presents empirical evidence on the relevance of market orientation—a construct which has surprisingly received little research attention in management accounting literature—as a variable which could affect the adoption of management accounting innovation.

A Data Science Approach to Cost Estimation Decision Making - Big Data and Machine Learning

Cost estimation may become increasingly difficult, slow, and resource-consuming when it cannot be performed analytically. If traditional cost estimation techniques are usable at all under those circumstances, they have important limitations. This article analyses the potential applications of data science to management accounting, through the case of a cost estimation task posted on Kaggle, a Google data science and machine learning website. When extensive data exist, machine learning techniques can overcome some of those limitations. Applying machine learning to the data reveals non-obvious patterns and relationships that can be used to predict costs of new assemblies with acceptable accuracy. This article discusses the advantages and limitations of this approach and its potential to transform cost estimation, and more widely management accounting. The multinational company Caterpillar posted a contest on Kaggle to estimate the price that a supplier would quote for manufacturing a number of industrial assemblies, given historical quotes for similar assemblies. Hitherto, this problem would have required reverse-engineering the supplier’s accounting structure to establish the cost structure of each assembly, identifying non-obvious relationships among variables. This complex and tedious task is usually performed by human experts, adding subjectivity to the process. La estimación de costes puede resultar cada vez más difícil, lenta y consumidora de recursos cuando no puede realizarse de forma analítica. Cuando las técnicas tradicionales de estimación de costes son utilizadas en esas circunstancias se presentan importantes limitaciones. Este artículo analiza las posibles aplicaciones de la ciencia de datos a la contabilidad de gestión, a través del caso de una tarea de estimación de costes publicada en Kaggle, un sitio web de ciencia de datos y aprendizaje automático de Google. Cuando existen muchos datos, las técnicas de aprendizaje automático pueden superar algunas de esas limitaciones. La aplicación del aprendizaje automático a los datos revela patrones y relaciones no evidentes que pueden utilizarse para predecir los costes de nuevos montajes con una precisión aceptable. En nuestra investigación se analizan las ventajas y limitaciones de este enfoque y su potencial para transformar la estimación de costes y, más ampliamente, la contabilidad de gestión. La multinacional Caterpillar publicó un concurso en Kaggle para estimar el precio que un proveedor ofrecería por la fabricación de una serie de conjuntos industriales, dados los presupuestos históricos de conjuntos similares. Hasta ahora, este problema habría requerido una ingeniería inversa de la estructura contable del proveedor para establecer la estructura de costes de cada ensamblaje, identificando relaciones no obvias entre las variables. Esta compleja y tediosa tarea suele ser realizada por expertos humanos, lo que añade subjetividad al proceso.

The role of management accounting in the development of supply chain performance in logistics manufacturing companies

The supply chain has been a major component of competitive strategy to enhance organizational productivity and profitability, and the supply chain is a relatively new and rapidly expanding discipline that is transforming the way that manufacturing and non-manufacturing operations meet the needs of their customers. This study aims to establish the role of management accounting in the development of supply chain performance in logistics manufacturing companies. The study applies a quantitative research methodology and uses a questionnaire method to collect the data. The study sample consists of 181 respondents. This study analyzes the data using the (SPSS) program. The results reveal a statistically significant relationship at the significance level (α≤0.05) between the management accounting, including the “target cost, value chain costing and quality costing” and supply chain performance in logistics manufacturing companies.

Pengaruh Sistem Akuntansi Manajemen Terhadap Kinerja Manajerial Dengan Strategi Bisnis Sebagai Variabel Pemoderasi

This study aims to determine the effect of the management accounting system on managerial performance with business strategy as a moderating variable. The type of research in this study is causal associative. The population in this study is a hotel in the city of Palembang. The sample selected is 3 to 5 star hotels. The sample technique used in this study is purposive sampling and the samples used in this study were 63 samples. Hypothesis testing was carried out using the moderation regression analysis method with the help of SPSS ver 26. The results obtained showed that business strategy was not able to strengthen the relationship between management accounting systems and managerial performance.

The implementation of activity-based costing by a local government: an actor-network theory and trial of strength perspective

Purpose Some public sector organizations have decided to implement activity-based costing (ABC), a new cost calculation device and management accounting innovation initially designed for the private sector. The purpose of this study is to better understand the translation of this new calculation device in the context of a local government and to identify the trials of strength that actors faced during the implementation. Design/methodology/approach Building on actor-network theory and the concept of “trial of strength,” this study examines how a major change in a large local government’s structure, the merger of several cities, led to the adoption of ABC. This case study provides a setting for conducting a longitudinal analysis of the translation of a cost management innovation, ABC, in a public sector organization. Findings This study highlights how human and non-human actors interact when implementing a management accounting innovation in a local government and the trials of strength that they face. It also shows that although ABC helped the local government deal with issues such as setting fees, assessing outsourcing opportunities, increasing accountability and improving processes, the oversophistication of the technology used to implement the ABC model and the lack of links between the costing device and the budgeting process provoked a struggle among these two networks, leading actors to choose the budget over ABC. Originality/value This study’s findings extend the work on trials of strength of Christensen et al. (2019) and Laguecir et al. (2020). While those two studies focused on the struggles existing between opposing networks of human actors regarding the strategic orientation or the mission of public sector organizations, this study highlights that trials of strength may also occur when actors agree on the objectives of the new accounting innovation but not on how it is implemented.

From ‘Traditional’ Budgeting to ‘Better’ Budgeting: Navigating through ‘Stability’ and ‘Change’

Faced with criticisms on traditional budgeting, contemporary organisations have moved towards better budgeting and beyond budgeting practices. Drawing evidence from Citrus Lanka, a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturing firm in Sri Lanka, this paper explores amid limitations of traditional budgeting, how and why the firm moved to better budgeting rather than embracing beyond budgeting. It adopts the qualitative methodology and case study approach and mobilises the theoretical notions; ‘stability’ and ‘change’ under institutional theory. The field data illustrate how Citrus Lanka instigated evolutionary changes (towards better budgeting) rather than revolutionary changes (towards beyond budgeting), witnessing ‘stability’ of budgeting and ‘change’ towards better budgeting. This paper contributes by adding to the burgeoning budgetary control literature and extends the use of institutional theory in management accounting research by espousing how the notions of ‘stability’ and ‘change’ can co-exist. The better budgeting practice presented in this paper is a pragmatic approach. It offers practitioner pointers to managers grappling with limitations of traditional budgeting and practical difficulties of beyond budgeting on improving budgetary control through better budgeting approaches. Such an understanding is useful for managers beyond the case study firm to those across different industries and nations in adapting to the ever-changing business environment by drawing on management accounting insights.