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Management Accounting Research 1998, 9, 501-5 13Article No. mg980081

Management accounting practices inEurope: a perspective from the StatesMichael D. Shields

I provide a perspective from the States on four questions primarily based oninformation in Management Accounting: European Perspectives edited by A1 Bhimani(1 996). First, seven factors are identified as having shaped management accountingpractices in European nations-academics, education, government, professional ass-ciations, consultants, technology, and the inter-nation transfer of information. Sec-ond, evidence supports the view that, across European nations, more changes areoccurring in management accounting practice terminology and techniques than in thepurposes and styles of using management accounting techniques. Third, evidenceindicates that there is convergence across European nations in management account-ing practices, especially in terminology and techniques, but less convergence in thepurposes and styles of using techniques. Fourth, management accounting practices inEuropean nations, particularly terminology and techniques, is converging on a globalmanagement accounting practice model. I propose that management accountingpractices-particularly terminology and techniques-is converging across nations (atleast for those firms that are affected by the global economy) and diverging acrossindustries both within and between nations. 998 Academic PressKey words: convergence; globalism; management accounting; management account-ing in European nations.

1 IntroductionDuring the 1980s a n d 1990s ther e has been a lot of talk in th e practice a nd scholarlyliteratures in the U.S. about how management accounting practices (e.g. costaccounting systems, performance measurement systems) are ineffective in the con-temporary business environment. Th er e has concurrently been change in the contentsof many cost a nd m anageme nt accounting textbooks an d teaching cases that high-light th e alleged deficiencies of, a nd prop osed improve ments t o these practices. Th er ealso have be en actions by ma nage men t accountin g professional organizations (e.g.IMA), industry grou ps (e.g. CAM-I), education associations (e.g. management ac-counting section of the AAA , an d consultants both to spread the view that manage-

Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824,U.S.A.Accepted 12 May 1998.

1044-5005/98/040501+13 30.00/0 998 Academic Press

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502 M. D. Shieldsment accounting practices are ineffective and to propose new and improved prac-tices. Despite these efforts to call attention to alleged problems with and solutions tomanagement accounting practices) not much evidence exists that most businesses inthe U.S. are making major changes to their management accounting practices. Thereis more evidence of changes in the terminology (e.g. cost driver, value chain) andtechniques (e.g. activity-based costing (ABC)) of management accounting practicesthan in their purposes (e.g. strategic management) operational control, productcosting, process improvement) investment justification) and styles of use (e.g. flex-ibility in application, time horizon emphasized) centralization) integration with otherorganizational processes and information).

The contemporary condition of management accounting practices in other nations,particularly nations in which English is not the official language) however, are not asapparent to me for at least two reasons. One is my limited ability to read aboutmanagement accounting in languages other than English. The other reason is thedearth of such published information) in English or other languages. The lack ofinformation about the current condition and trends in management accountingpractices in other countries is unfortunate because it limits (at least my) opportunityto learn the extent to which management accounting practices are a local versusglobal phenomenon. It also hinders understanding of whether any changes that areoccurring in a nation's management accounting practices are caused by factorsparticular to that nation or are consistent with changes, and the forces for change,that are present in other nations. There also is a lack of information about the extentof changes in management accounting practice terminology) techniques) purposes oftechniques) and styles of how techniques are used.

I have historically had difficulty finding information about historical and contem-porary management accounting practices in European nations, differences in man-agement accounting practices across European nations and the factors that createdthese differences) and what, if any, changes in management accounting practices areoccurring in these nations. Fortunately) the publication of Management Accounting:European Perspectives (1996) edited by A1 Bhimani provides much of this missinginformation. This publication makes an excellent contribution to the managementaccounting practice and scholarly literatures by providing) for each of 11 Europeannations, a description of each country's historical development of managementaccounting practices) education) and research) the institutional forces that haveshaped management accounting) trends in practice) and a discussion of emergingdevelopments.

I will use information in Bhimani (1996) to provide a perspective from the Stateson four questions:'

1.2 .3.

What factors have shaped, and currently influence) management accountingpractices in Europe?What, if any, changes are occurring in management accounting practices inEurope?Are management accounting practices converging or diverging across Euro-pean nations?

'1 do not address the more fundamental questions of what, if any, is the relationship between managementaccounting practices and business success and whether this relationship varies across European nationsbecause the chapters in Bhimani (1996) do not provide evidence on them.

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504 M. D. Shields3. What factors have shaped, and currently influence, managementaccounting practices in Europe?The chapters in Bhimani (1996) identify seven factors that have shaped, andcurrently influence, management accounting practices in European nations. Thesefactors are:

1.

2 .

3.

4.5.6.

7 .

academics whose writings influence debate and practice (e.g. whether full orvariable costing should be used, relevant costs for decisions) and, in somecountries, champion particular practices;education of students and employees to particular views about managementaccounting, including the influence some textbooks and teaching cases have onthe development and diffusion of management accounting practices;government intervention and regulation to control cost-based pricing andprofits to ensure a desired type and level of competition (particularly whenthere were supply-demand imbalances in a national economy) and, duringWWI and WWII, to ration resources and reduce war profiteering;professional associations which advocate particular management accountingpractices;consultants who advocate particular management accounting practices and/orhelp firms design and implement practices;technology, in particular the computerization of accounting systems, whichallows more information to be collected, processed, and communicated cheaperand quicker; andtransfer of management accounting ideas and practices across national boun-daries by academics, education, consultants, and multi-national businesses.

There clearly is variation in the nature, timing, and potency of these factors acrossnations in explaining the development of, or changes in management accountingwithin a nation. However, while there are differences across nations in managementaccounting, I am struck by the similarities-in many, if not most of these 11countries, most of these seven factors played a role in shaping management account-ing. Some of these similarities stem from the historical transfer of managementaccounting across national boundaries. Examples include the influence of Germanmanagement accounting on Scandinavian and Dutch management accounting beforeWorld War I1 and the influence of U.S. management accounting education andliterature on Belgian, Italian, Dutch, and Scandinavian management accounting afterWorld War 11.

4. What, if any, changes are occurring in management accounting practicesin European nations?Almost all of the chapters in Bhimani (1996) provide anecdotal and/or surveyevidence which supports the view that, across Europe, businesses are changing theirConsistent with the general orientation of related literature on management accounting, the chapters inBhimani (1996) provide much more evidence on the determinants of management accounting, in contrastto the effects of management accounting, for example, on individuals, organizations, or nations.

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Management Accounting Practices in Europe 505management accounting practices-especially terminology and techniques, with ap-parently less change in the purposes and styles of using techniques. The center ofdiscussion in most chapters is the emergence of ABC. Most chapters provide adiscussion of how ABC terminology and ABC as a technique are trickling intopractice, but there is less discussion of the purposes of ABC and styles of how it isused.

The anecdotal and survey evidence presented indicates that many firms in manycountries are making changes to their management accounting practices by imple-menting new terminology and techniques. This evidence, however, provides lessinsight into whether changes are occurring in the purpose of management accountingtechniques and how they are used. The evidence presented also does not providemuch insight into whether the techniques that are changing have the same content(e.g. components, relationships among components). For example, when surveysindicate that ABC exists, it is unclear whether ABC across firms has similar elementsand architecture (e.g. definition of activity cost pools and cost drivers, hierarchy ofcost drivers, allocation stages), extent of diffusion (e.g. percentage of overhead costsaccounted for with ABC), and effects (e.g. decisions, performance). The surveyevidence presented also does not provide much insight into whether these reportedchanges in techniques are in fact changes in substance or rhetoric.

Surveys of practice would be more valuable if they are designed to provideevidence on explicit aspects of management accounting practices-in particular,terminology, techniques (and their contents), purposes of techniques, and styles ofusing techniques. Such evidence would provide insight into what about managementaccounting practice is changing and whether changes are changes in substance ormerely rhetoric (e.g. socially desirable response, impression management, bandwagoneffect).

The overall implication I derive from these chapters is that while evidence ofchanges in management accounting practices-terminology and techniques in partic-ular-exists, the scope, depth, and content of these changes possibly arelimited-particularly for the purposes and styles of using techniques. Change inmanagement accounting practices appears to be primarily limited to the introductionof new terminology and techniques in a small per cent of firms in a country and, inmany firms, change is limited to selected management accounting techniques (e.g.ABC) applied to selected products and organizational units.

5 Are management accounting practices converging or diverging acrossEuropean nations?As national barriers in Europe decrease, the question of what is common ground andwhat are significant differences in management accounting practices across Europeneeds to be investigated seriously-instead of just taking answers for granted. Anexample of this need for a comparative investigation is the continued potency ofnational culture in influencing variation in management accounting practices acrossEurope. In several chapters in Bhimani (1996)) assertions are made that managementaccounting practices in a particular country are idiosyncratic, stemming from thatcountrys unique culture (e.g. customs, education, history, laws). Yet, for the mostpart, these chapters offer little, if any evidence about how the unique aspects of a

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506 M. D. Shieldscountrys culture are related to (i.e. cause) unique aspects of its managementaccounting practices. I have had a similar experience in which the role of nationalculture is privileged in explaining management accounting practices in Europe.Several management accounting professors employed at European universities havetold me that management accounting practices differ significantly across Europeancountries because of variation in national cultures. I am sometimes left with thefeeling that this cultural explanation is supposed to be self-evidently true since little,if any, evidence is offered to support these assertion^.^Convergence in terminology and techniquesIn considering whether there is convergence in management accounting practices inEurope, I distinguish between convergence in terminology and techniques andconvergence in the purpose and use of techniques. Evidence in Bhimani (1996) issufficient to support the interpretation that there historically have been inter-nationdifferences in terminology and techniques. Turning to contemporary practice, how-ever, a different interpretation follows from the evidence presented. The surveyevidence in these chapters describes the extent to which management accountingterminology and techniques have existed and currently exist in each nation. Thesesurveys almost exclusively provide evidence on the number and percentage of firmsthat report having various techniques, cost accounting in particular, from nationalsamples that vary in randomness and size. These surveys report quantitative differ-ences in the extent to which various management accounting techniques exist in the11 countries. My overall qualitative interpretation of this survey evidence, however, isthat there increasingly is more similarity than difference in management accountingterminology and techniques across European nations.

Most chapters present evidence on the extent of diffusion of the New Costingterminology and techniques such as ABC, ABM, cost of quality, life-cycle costing,etc. The interpretation I derive from this evidence is that in most European countriesthere is a slow, but increasing trickle of similar terminology and techniques intopractice. For example, in Norway, a country not included in Bhimani (1996)) ABCalso is alive as the survey of Bjornenak (1 997) of 75 Norwegian manufacturing firmsindicates that 53 have knowledge of ABC and 30 are adopters of ABC.

Evidence in Bhimani (1 996) supports the interpretation that the historically sig-nificant differences in management accounting terminology and techniques acrossEuropean nations is diminishing. The direction of change today seems to be conver-gence on similar terminology and techniques. Many firms in several Europeancountries-particularly those that significantly participate in the global economy-in-creasingly have similar management accounting terminology (e.g. cost driver, cost ofquality) and techniques (e.g. cost accounting systems, responsibility accounting,budgets, performance measures). The similarities in this terminology and the designof these techniques across nations are increasingly outweighing the differences.3M y experience is that national cultures within Western Europe differ but these differences are smallcompared to differences between the cultures of Asia and Europe. Indeed, most of the national culture-based research in management accounting has investigated differences between Anglo-American andAsian cultures and many predicted differences were not detected and many detected differences were notpredicted (Chow et al. in press, Harrison and McKinnon, in press). The possibility exists, however, thatthe results of these studies are an artifact of almost complete reliance on the theoretical model of Hofstede(1980, 1991) of work-related national culture. This extant research and my own experience leaves mewondering about the nature and relevance of the relationship between national culture and managementaccounting practices.

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Management Accounting Practices in Europe 507Less convergence in the purposes and styles of using techniquesMost chapters in Bhimani (1996) do not provide much evidence on the purposes ofmanagement accounting techniques or styles of how these techniques are used. Iconjecture that there is less convergence in the purposes of management accountingtechniques and how they are used than there is in management accounting termi-nology and techniques. Whether differences in the purposes and styles of usingtechniques stems from variation in national culture, capital structure, organizationaldesign, organizational size, technology, education systems, senior management lead-ership style, regulations, uncertainty, competition, or other differences is an openquestion deserving of an answer.

My search of the literature did not find much direct contemporary evidence on theextent of inter-nation variation in the purposes or styles of using managementaccounting techniques. Ahrens (1 996, 1997) provides a detailed analysis of how thestyle of using management accounting for accountability purposes has historicallydiffered between Germany (with an operations style) and the U.K. (with a financialand marketing style). Why and how these two nations developed historically differentstyles of using management accounting techniques, however, is not fully explicated.Ahrens (1 996) speculates that historically different styles of using managementaccounting for accountability purposes between British and German firms might benarrowing-a converging of styles-because of their binational operations and theadoption of global practices.

Sheridan (1 995) argues that while British- and Continental- based global corpora-tions historically have had relatively similar management accounting techniques,there has been more divergence in their purpose and how they are used. However,consistent with Ahrens (1 996)) Sheridan argues that common forces (i.e. market andtechnology changes, cost and performance pressures, enterprise information systems,coordination of global operations) currently are driving these firms to converge notonly on the same management accounting techniques, but also on increasinglysimilar ways in which these techniques are used.

There is a dearth of evidence available on the rate and level of convergence acrossEuropean nations concerning the purpose and style of using management accountingtechniques. Comparative studies which focus not only on management accountingterminology and techniques, but also on the purpose and style of use of thesetechniques would be valuable. Comparative surveys would be more valuable if theyprovide evidence on how terminology, techniques, purpose, and style relate toorganizational context, design, processes, and performance. Surveys focused ontechniques could provide comparative evidence on the extent to which selectedtechniques are used (e.g. per cent of total cost that is processed by a cost system), thenature of their architecture (e.g. for cost accounting systems, evidence on theboundaries and types of cost pools, number and types of allocation bases, andnumber of cost allocation stages), evidence that the various terms used in a surveyhave common meaning to all respondents, and the purposes and styles of usingtechniques. Comparative evidence on the determinants and effects of managementaccounting practices would also be valuable.

6. Are management accounting practices in European nations converging ordiverging with management accounting practices in other nations?The weight of the evidence supports the view that management accounting practices

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508 M. D. Shields-especially terminology and techniques-in European nations is converging withmanagement accounting practices in other nations, at least for those firms that areaffected by the global economy. In the ensuing subsections, I will discuss forcescreating national convergence and the nature of this global management accountingpractice. The perspective presented is that while there is national convergence onglobal management accounting practices (i.e. national differences are diminishing),there will be divergence in management accounting practices across industries bothwithin and between nations. The joint effect of national convergence and industrydivergence increasingly is more similarity in management accounting practices withinindustries across nations than in management accounting practices across industrieswithin nations.Evidence o national convergenceThe idea of national convergence in management accounting practices is not new.Historical examples include the adoption by Japanese firms before WWII of Germancost accounting techniques, to be overlaid by American practices after WWII; andnow the reverse flow of Japanese target costing to America and Germany. Theinfluence of American costing techniques in France and Germany in the 1920s) inresponse to Fordism and Taylorism (Locke, 1984)) is somewhat similar to theadoption of ABC today by French and German firms. As previously noted, withinEurope there were cross-border influences on management accounting practices. Forexample, there was the influence of German costing accounting on Dutch andScandinavian costing before WWII, which was replaced by U.S. influence afterWWII.

The most direct contemporary evidence on national convergence supplied by thechapters in Bhimani (1 996) is their discussion of the New Costing of ABC, etc. Aninteresting part of many chapters is a discussion of the extent to which the NewCosting terminology and techniques are emerging in these countries. In general,these chapters provide evidence that firms are beginning to experiment (or at leasttalk about experimenting) with these techniques, although there is little evidence oftheir substantive or widespread implementation and sustained use. Some chapterscontain a discussion of how these new techniques, ABC in particular, are-inhindsight at least-parts of the management accounting techniques that have existedfor a long time in a particular country. While it may be, for example, that the costsystems in some countries had some of the same technical details as does ABC, theimportant point is that the emergence of ABC quickly caused firms around the worldto re-evaluate their cost systems, while these previously developed cost systemslargely remained national phenomena without a global following. Some chaptersimply that there is nothing new in ABC4 except clever packaging by Cooper andKaplan and dramatic sales pitches by consultants. The important point, however, isthat these chapters focus on the emergence of the same new techniques (e.g. ABCfrom the U.S., target costing from Japan).

There is evidence of convergence between European and non-European manage-ment accounting practices, typically illuminated by comparisons of managementaccounting practices-techniques-in the U.S. and in European nations. For exam-4W hat is new about ABC is designs of cost pools based on activities instead of resource inputs (e.g.machines) or service or producing departments, and the extensive use of multiple non-volume cost drivers.

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Management Accounting Practices in Europe 509ple, Yakhou and Dorweiler (1 995) provide evidence on the implementation of severalcost management techniques (i.e. ABC, ABM, ABBY arget costing, life-cycle costing,value-chain costing, backflush costing, operations costing). Their survey shows thatsuch techniques are more widely implemented in the U.S. than in England orFrance. However, their evidence also shows that differences in the levels of imple-mentation are a matter of quantitative degree, with all three countries adopting thesetechniques at a qualitatively similar, albeit low level.

Some recent literature compares ABC, as a new American technique, to Germancost accounting and concludes that they are similar (and identical in some analyses),both being theoretically sound and appropriate for capacity and product decisions(Scherrer, 1996; Gaiser, 1997; Kloock and Schiller, 1997). A related detailed analysisby Boons et al. (1992) of German and German/Dutch cost-pool costing and ABCidentifies some micro differences, but at a macro level, their analysis indicates thesetechniques are quite similar. They suggest that between-company differences within anation may be larger than between-nation differences in stylized or textbookdescriptions of these three cost accounting techniques.

Consistent with this national convergence perspective, Gaiser (1 997a, b arguesthat German firms began in the late-1980s changing their cost management practicesto include ABC and ABM from America and target costing from Japan (which is alsorapidly spreading in the U.S.) in response to the similar business and competitiveenvironments faced by firms in these three countries. ABC in Germany, however, ismodified to fit the full cost systems already in use (e.g. extensive use of cost pools).Gaiser (1 9 9 7 ~ ) otes that while the current use of ABC is more widespread in theU.S., its adoption in Germany is accelerating due to the incorporation of ABC intoSAP software.

Lebas (1996) reports survey evidence that ABC is widely known in France, manyfirms have implemented or are considering implementing ABC, and there is widevariation across industries in the diffusion of ABC. However, as Lebas notes, there isconsiderable confusion about the terminology of ABC which creates ambiguity aboutexactly what these survey results mean. In contrast, Bescos and Mendoza (1995)claim that there is a low level of use of ABC in France because there is a high degreeof similarity between the traditional French full-costing technique and ABC, thusfirms have little to gain from implementing ABC. These contrasting views highlightthe difficulty of sorting out the nature of management accounting practices acrossnations. Lebas position is that while many firms claim to be aware of or involvedwith ABC, there is ambiguity about whether these firms are in fact talking about thesame techniques (label or content) due to variation in the meaning of terminologyacross languages.Forces fo r nationa l convergenceBased on the evidence I am aware of, my belief is that management accountingpractices in European and other nations that significantly participate in the globaleconomy are converging. Convergence is more advanced for terminology and tech-niques than for the purposes and styles of using of these techniques. I believe thereare six forces for national convergence:

1. The increased levels of competition experienced by many firms around the

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M. D. Shields10

2 .

3.4.

5.

6 .

world have increased demand for cost, investment, and revenue informationthat can improve performance.The availability of similar operating technologies (e.g. JIT, TQM, FMS) andtechnologies for measuring, processing, communicating, and analysing infor-mation (e.g. bar-code scanners, LANs, WANs, expert systems, executiveinformation systems, enterprise information systems, ABC software).Cheap and fast communication and transportation has spurred the diffusion ofmanagement accounting techniques and information around the world.The increasing global homogenization of management accounting education.In particular, the Horngren text and Harvard cases are widely used in theAmericas, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere. A consequence is that students andemployees attending education programs around the world increasingly arelearning the same management accounting terminology and techniques. Busi-ness schools and their students and curricula also are becoming more globaland thus more homogeneous.The rise of global consulting firms that offer a full line of services in account-ing, information systems, management, and strategy. These consultants havesimilar accounting and business education, in-house training, and practicepolicies and methods. They sell similar products and services (e.g. ABCsoftware, enterprise information systems, process re-engineering, organizatio-nal structures and processes, performance measurement, incentive systems,etc.).Global corporations which have policies of consistent practices and systems intheir worldwide operations and imposing those practices and systems on theirsuppliers and joint-venture partners.

These latter three forces-education, consultants, and global corporations-pro-vide easy means for the language of fashions and fads, such as some consider the newmanagement accounting practices, to be quickly diffused around the world. A similarlist of forces for global convergence in management accounting practices is providedby Granlund and Lukka (1998) based on their institutional theory-based analysis.

A pertinent question is whether national convergence is rhetoric (i.e. everybodyuses the same words and talks about the same changes to their managementaccounting practices) or action/content (i.e. practices have the same definitions,concepts, and designs, and firms really are implementing the same new practices)? Ibelieve we will see more and quicker national convergence in terminology andtechniques-especially rhetoric about having these techniques and using their termsand concepts in conversations-than convergence in the purposes and styles of usingthese techniques. However, the bottom line is that, across time and space there willbe increasing global convergence of management accounting practices-terminology,techniques, purposes, and styles of use-especially for those firms that are affected bythe global economy.

It is interesting to speculate about the path to convergence. I would argue that therate of convergence is increasing, but convergence implies neither a single path norhoning in on a fixed target. Instead, management accounting practices are movingtargets because of the dynamic forces that determine their equilibriums. The paths toconvergence also are not necessarily linear or unidirectional. Rather, I believe we willsee waves of movement towards and away from convergence as firms innovate,

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512 M. D. Shieldsfirms. For example, I expect that while national differences in management account-ing practices will narrow, there will be increasing divergence in management account-ing practices along industry lines. Industry-based differences will stem from variationamong industries in customer demands and preferences) competition) regulation)uncertainty) technology, competitive strategies) and organizational designs. Interest-ingly) this list of forces for industry divergence is almost the same as the list of forcesfor national convergence There is increasing variation in management accountingpractices between industry groupings and between industries within industry group-ings; for example, discrete manufacturing (automobile) aerospace) construction,electronics), process manufacturing (e.g. food, oil, steel), and services (e.g. entertain-ment) financial services) health care, transportation).

Industries vary in several ways that have implications for management accountingpractice terminology) techniques) and the purposes and styles of using techniques.These industry differences include the distributions of revenues) costs, and invest-ments over product life cycles, the length of product life cycles, cost structures)product diversity) the distribution of costs over industry value chains, uncertainty)technology) the type and intensity of competition for inputs and outputs, pricingflexibility) competitive strategies) and organizational designs (hierarchy) networks)decentralization). These differences can be expected to affect the demand for anddesign and use of full versus variable costing, ABC, target costing, product life-cycleaccounting) value-chain accounting) responsibility accounting systems, budgetingsystems, performance measures) performance-based incentives) and transfer pricing.The implication is that to explain variation in management accounting practicesaround the world will require using industry characteristics such as the ones identifiedabove as focal independent variables) with the nation assuming the role of ablocking variable to reduce variance not explained by these industry-related factors.

National convergence and industry divergence in management accounting prac-tices will result in variation in management accounting practices) even within indus-tries. Because firms within a global industry will experience different problems andopportunities at various times, they will, at least temporarily) have different manage-ment accounting practices. Another source of diversity in management accountingpractices within industries will be firms propensity to innovate and to imitate, insubstance (action, content) and in rhetoric (talk, labels).

7 ConclusionManagement Accounting: European Perspectives edited by Bhimani (1996) has providedme with a lot of interesting information. I have used the opportunity to learn fromthis book to provide a perspective from the States on four questions. My overallconclusion is that management accounting in European nations is changing-con-verging on a global practices model which varies across industries. Such nationalconvergence and industry divergence will be more visible for terminology andtechniques and less so for the purposes and styles of using these techniques.

I look forward to reading the next edition of this book. I hope that it will providecomparative evidence on management accounting practices) the extent of variation inmanagement accounting practices between and within nations and between andwithin industries) evidence on levels and rates of national convergence in termi-

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Management Accounting Practices in Europe 513nology, techniques) an d t he purposes a nd styles of using these techniques) an dcomparative evidence o n the determinants a nd effects of managemen t accountingpractices.Acknowledgements: I greatly appreciate the comments on an earlier draft of this paper byThomas Ahrens, A1 Bhimani, Michael Bromwich, David Cooper, Markus Granlund, SueHaka, Anthony Hopwood, Joan Luft, Michel Lebas, Kari Lukka, and Bob Scapens.ReferencesAhrens, T., 1996. Styles of accountability, Accounting Organizations and Society 21, 139-173.Ahrens, T., 1997. Talking accounting: an ethnography of management knowledge in BritishBescos, P. and Mendoza, C., 1995. ABC in France, Management Accounting (U.S.), 76,Bhimani, A. (ed.), 1996. Management Accounting: European Perspectives Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press.BjQrnenak, T., 1997. Diffusion and accounting: the case of ABC in Norway, ManagementAccounting Research 8, 3-1 7.Boons, A., Roberts, H. and Roozen, F., 1992. Contrasting activity-based costing with theGerman/Dutch cost pool method, Management Accounting Research 3, 97-1 17.Chow, C., Shields, M. and Wu, A., in press. The importance of national culture in the designof and preference for management controls in multi-national operations, Accounting

Organizations and Society.Gaiser, B., 1997a. German cost management systems, Journal of Cost Management 11Gaiser, B., 19976. German cost management systems (part a), Journal of Cost ManagementGranlund, M., and Lukka, K., 1998. It is a small world of management accounting practices,Harrison, G. and McKinnon, J. in press. Cross-cultural research in management controlHofstede, G., 1980, Cultures Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related ValuesHofstede, G., 199 1, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind London, McGraw-Hill.Kloock, J. and Schiller, U., 1997. Marginal costing: cost budgeting and cost variance analysis,

Management Accounting Research 8, 299-323.Lebas, M., 1996. Management Accounting Practice in France, in Bhimani, A. (ed.) Manage-ment Accounting: European Perspectives Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 74-99.Locke, R., 1984, The End of the Practical Man: Entrepreneurship and Higher Education inGemany France and Great Britain 1880-1940 Greenwich, CT, JAI Press.Scherrer, G., 1996. Management Accounting: A German Perspective, in Bhimani, A. (ed.)Management Accounting: European Perspectives Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp.100- 122.Sheridan, T., 1995. Management accounting in global European corporations: Anglophoneand continental viewpoints, Management Accounting Research 6, 287-294.Yakhou, M. and Dorweiler, V. 1995. Advanced cost management systems: an empiricalcomparison of England, France, and the United States, Advances in International Acconnt-ing 8, 99-127.

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35-41.11,41-45.working paper, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration.system design: a review of the current state, Accounting Organizations and Society.Beverly Hills, CA, Sage Publications.