A note on literature review practice for doing course assignments: for advanced management accounting students

A note on literature review practice for doing course assignments: for advanced management accounting students

 

My undergraduate Accounting and Finance students need to do course assignments, e.g., on the subject of advanced management accounting. Partly due to the inexperience on doing literature review and partly due to the "sophisticated" discussion in the academic articles, it would be useful to offer some straightforward guidelines to help them cope with the challenges of conducting literature review for doing their course assignments. Please suggest 3 advices to the students.

Three practical advices

1.    Turn the assignment topic into a small set of guiding questions.
Do not begin by reading everything available. First, write one main question and two or three sub-questions. For example, for activity-based costing, ask: What problem does ABC address? How does it differ from traditional overhead allocation? What benefits and limitations do studies identify? These questions give each article a clear purpose and prevent the literature review from becoming a list of unrelated summaries.

2.    Read each article in layers, not from beginning to end.
Academic articles can be dense, so start with the abstract, introduction, conclusion, section headings, and tables or figures. Then identify four items in simple language: the article’s purpose, its key argument or finding, the evidence used, and its relevance to the assignment question. Only afterwards should students read difficult sections closely. This “big picture first” approach helps them cope with technical language and decide whether an article is worth using.

3.    Build the review around comparison and application, rather than description.
Use a simple evidence table with columns such as: author/year, main idea, evidence or context, limitation, and relevance to the chosen management-accounting issue. Then group articles by themes—for instance, claimed benefits of balanced scorecards, implementation barriers, and effects on managerial decision-making. In the written review, use linking phrases such as “similarly,” “in contrast,” and “however,” before explaining what the combined evidence implies for a real organisation. Literature reviews should synthesise sources and connect them to the assignment, rather than summarise one article at a time.

 

Take for an example, if the assignment is about "how management accountants can encourage SME corporate senior management to make use of strategic management accounting to enhance their strategic management competence in Hong Kong". Roughly, how to employ your 3 advices in this case?

Applying the advice

Treat the assignment as an argument-building exercise: students need to explain how management accountants can influence SME leaders, not merely list strategic management accounting (SMA) techniques. SMA extends management accounting beyond internal financial data to include external and non-financial information relevant to strategy.

1. Turn the topic into questions

Start by narrowing the broad topic into manageable review questions:

• What SMA information or techniques are most useful to Hong Kong SMEs, such as competitor analysis, customer profitability analysis, benchmarking, strategic pricing, or scenario planning?
• Why might senior managers in SMEs hesitate to use SMA—for example, limited time, skills, data, or perceived cost?
• What can management accountants do to overcome these barriers and become credible strategic business partners?
• How could SMA improve strategic-management competence: better market understanding, more informed choices, implementation, and performance monitoring?

These questions mirror the major themes commonly used in SMA research: techniques, conditions influencing use, and performance implications.

2. Read articles selectively

For each journal article, students should make a short “article card” rather than trying to understand every technical detail immediately:

Item	Student’s note
Purpose	What question did the researchers investigate?
Setting	Was it about SMEs, a particular country, or large firms?
Finding	What does the study say about SMA use, barriers, or outcomes?
Relevance	Does it help explain Hong Kong SMEs or the accountant’s role?
Caution	Can its findings be transferred directly to Hong Kong? Why or why not?

For example, when reading an SME study, students should first locate its abstract, findings, and conclusion, then ask: “Does this finding describe a barrier that a Hong Kong management accountant could address?” This prevents a literature review from becoming a difficult article-by-article paraphrase. The strategic accountant’s role includes analysing financial and non-financial data to advise leaders on planning and performance management.

3. Organise by themes

Instead of writing “Author A said…, Author B said…,” students could use three thematic sections:

1.    Why SME leaders need SMA
Link uncertain competition, customer needs, costs, and growth decisions to the need for forward-looking internal and external information.

2.    Why SME leaders may not use it
Synthesize evidence on resource constraints, limited expertise, weak information systems, short-term orientation, and resistance to unfamiliar techniques. Do not assume these barriers apply in Hong Kong; use Hong Kong-specific sources, where available, to test the fit.

3.    What management accountants can do
Develop a practical argument: translate technical analysis into plain-language options; begin with a small, decision-relevant tool; combine financial and non-financial indicators; facilitate management discussions; and monitor agreed strategic measures. This fits the “business partner” role, in which accountants support strategy creation, delivery, value creation, and informed decision-making.

A possible working claim is: management accountants can encourage adoption when they make SMA simple, relevant to an immediate SME decision, and visibly useful to senior management, rather than presenting it as an expensive accounting system.

** reference:  a collection of management accounting notes