The Evolution of Management Accounting

Abstract

Management accounting plays a pivotal role in organisations and the society. It is so important today that if the accountants wrapped up their systems and took them home, the whole process of producing society's material goods and services along with the governance of the social order would grind to a standstill. Banks would close, factories would produce goods at random, supermarkets would be out of many products and overstocked on others, police would arrest and release the wrong people, and the military would not know which way to point their missiles. In this immense organism we call society, management accounting systems are its central nervous system.