Globalization of Management Accounting Principles

Abstract

The importance of effective management decision-making is obvious in the volatile and unstructured information environment, thus stimulating to revisions of theoretical grounds, concepts and principles of accounting management. The historic evolution of perceptions and visions of management accounting in Ukraine, like in other post-soviet countries, has a difficult path to the ultimate acceptance and recognition due to the efforts of many domestic scientists and practical professionals.   

The conceptual framework of management accounting needs to be created with due consideration to the processes occurring in the internal and external environment of business entities as management objects. 

The system approach to building up the conceptual framework of management accounting and reporting enables to achieve a radically new level today due to the implementation of Global Principles of Management Accounting, elaborated by international organizations. These principles set the criteria which observance enables for growth of company’s value in the conditions of the sustainable economic development.  

Global Principles of Management Accounting, developed by the collaborative effort of two global professional organizations, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (СІМА) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (ІАСРА), are designed to help business entities in overcoming fragmentation and to stimulate integrated thinking, which will enhance the effectiveness of decision making. The document outlines four principles focused on achieving four central goals and closely related with them: (i) communication generates information with impact (where “communication” is the principle and impact is the goal); (ii) information is relevant, i. e. important (“relevance” is the principle, and the goal is to assure the relevance of data); (iii) analysis of the impact on the value (“analysis” is the principle, and the goal is to analyze the business model of an organization); (iv) the intelligent management builds the trust (“trust” is the principle, and the goal is the commitment of  management accounting professionals to the appropriate behavioral norms).

It can be argued that considering the global principles of management accounting, scientific discussions on the conceptual framework of accounting management need to focus on the growth in the business value and sustainable development of business entities, to enable for the sustainable development of the economy. To this end, management accounting needs to be the core of an organization and ensure structured effective decisions in the conditions of uncertainty and growing turbulence. The global principles of management accounting have to lay the basis for not only management accounting in the real sector of the economy, but for competence building in the process of professional training on management accounting in higher education institutions.