Strategic Management Accounting – Evolution of the concept

Abstract

Management accounting being grounded in the operational reality is among the field studies that is best suited to help the organizations of all kind to make the best use of those three crucial challenges of the contemporary social and economic realities – globalization, IT and sustainable development. This in turn creates the need for a single theory that integrates the basic leading-edge techniques of today’s management accounting concerning the formulation and implementation of an organization strategy. However, the efforts during the last 40 years have proven that it is very difficult to devise a theory to describe the strategic management accounting all in one go. Instead, it turns out to be more easily to break up the problem up into bitsand to try to solve follwoing a stepwise pattern. The object of the paper is to study the evolution of the concept of SMA, as a new accounting concept worldwide and especially as a brand new concept in Albania. The aim is to define SMA based on a systematic literature review of the historical and logical evolution of its concept. Although there is no consensus on the methods used in accounting studies, it has always been appropriate to analyse the problems within a general philosophical framework. Parallel to that, tthe paper aims to offer a historical perspective of the concept and focuses more on definitions, processes, features and future research directions.