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

Article review of “The balance of balanced scorecard”: for Advanced management accounting study

Article review of “The balance of balanced scorecard”

 

How to present this article in Harvard reference format?

Nørreklit, H., 2000. The balance on the balanced scorecard – a critical analysis of some of its assumptions. Management Accounting Research, 11(1), pp.65–88. https://doi.org/10.1006/mare.1999.0121

 

What are the key research issues the article wants to address?

The article aims to address the following key research issues:

1.    Validity of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Model: The paper examines whether the balanced scorecard is a valid model for achieving the results it promises, considering it is widely used as both a performance measurement and strategic management control system. It critically investigates some of the key assumptions underlying the BSC, especially those related to causal relationships among measures and its ability to function as a feed-forward control system.

2.    Alignment of Strategy and Actions: The study explores whether the balanced scorecard can effectively align the strategy as planned with the strategy as actually executed through organizational actions, including whether it can handle the problem of strategy implementation.

3.    Causality Among Measures: It questions the assumption of causal linkages among the balanced scorecard’s perspectives (organizational learning and growth, internal business processes, customer perspective, and financial measures), suggesting that these linkages may be more logical than causal, which has implications for performance anticipation and management control.

4.    Organizational and Environmental Rooting: The paper investigates whether the balanced scorecard ensures sufficient rooting both within the organization (employee and managerial buy-in) and in relation to the external environment. It highlights concerns about the top-down, hierarchical nature of BSC implementation and the resulting gap between planned strategy and actual strategic behavior within firms.

5.    Improving and Developing the BSC Model: The research also looks to contribute to enhancing the clarity and conceptual foundations of the balanced scorecard and to suggest theoretical directions for developing the model to reduce existing problems and increase its validity as a strategic management control tool.

In summary, the article focuses on critically analyzing the assumptions underpinning the balanced scorecard, especially regarding causality, strategic implementation, organizational acceptance, and overall validity as a strategic control and measurement system.

 

Describe two main theories employed in this article.

The article primarily employs the following two main theories:

1.    Balanced Scorecard Theory (Kaplan and Norton, 1996): The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategic performance measurement and management control system that translates an organization's vision and strategy into a coherent set of performance measures. It integrates financial and non-financial measures across four perspectives — financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth. The BSC aims to link outcome measures and their performance drivers in a causal chain, thus functioning as a feed-forward control system. It also seeks to align departmental and individual goals to overall organizational strategy, providing both strategic measurement and control.

2.    Porter's Competitive Strategy Theory (Porter, 1980, 1985): The article relies on Michael Porter's concept of strategy, which emphasizes that competitive strategy formulation involves relating a company to the competitive forces in its industry environment. According to this theory, strategy should be based on competitive market segments to be served, followed by identification of the internal business processes the firm must excel at to deliver value to customers. Thus, competitive strategy is seen as environment-driven rather than driven by core competencies or internal resources, which should be adapted to fit the environment.

These two theories underpin the article’s critical analysis of the balanced scorecard. The article evaluates whether the BSC's assumptions about causal linkages among perspectives and its strategic control effectiveness hold true when strategy is understood as environment-driven, competitive positioning à la Porter.

 

Describe 3 main claims of the article in terms of Toulmin's model of argument.

Applying Toulmin's model of argument, the article presents the following three main claims, along with their supporting grounds, warrants, and qualifiers:

1.    Claim 1: The cause-and-effect relationships among the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard are problematic and may not validly exist in practice.

• Grounds: Kaplan and Norton’s balanced scorecard is based on the assumption of causal chains linking financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth measures, but these cause-and-effect relationships are difficult to empirically prove at the firm level and may be ambiguous or based on concepts like finality rather than clear causality.
• Warrant: A feed-forward control system like BSC requires valid causal assumptions to anticipate performance accurately; invalid causal assumptions lead to faulty performance indicators and dysfunctional organizational behavior.
• Qualifier: This claim is made with the qualification that causality is difficult to firmly establish and the model’s ambiguity weakens its predictive and control power.

2.    Claim 2: The balanced scorecard is not a fully valid strategic management control tool because it does not ensure organizational or environmental rooting, leading to a gap between planned strategy and actual strategic actions.

• Grounds: The BSC’s hierarchical top-down implementation approach struggles to engage lower-level managers and employees effectively, risking poor internal acceptance and implementation. Moreover, it inadequately addresses environmental dynamics like external shocks or strategic leaps requiring interactive and adaptive control.
• Warrant: Effective strategic control requires both internal commitment and environmental responsiveness; tools lacking these will fail to align strategy with realized actions.
• Qualifier: The claim acknowledges that while BSC takes some strategic momentum control into account, it does not sufficiently handle dynamic or unexpected environmental changes.

3.    Claim 3: The balanced scorecard needs theoretical and methodological adjustments to improve its validity and usefulness as a strategic control tool.

• Grounds: The invalid assumptions about causality and the hierarchical control approach in the BSC result in suboptimal performance and limited impact; suggestions include adopting more interactive control processes, improving environmental and organizational rooting, and refining concepts used in the model.
• Warrant: Refining the control methods and conceptual clarity will make the BSC more realistic and effective in managing strategy and performance.
• Qualifier: These are proposed theoretical directions rather than fully empirically tested solutions.

These claims clarify the article’s critical evaluation of the balanced scorecard’s assumptions and practices, proposing directions for improvements grounded in theory and analytical reasoning.

** reference:  a collection of management accounting notes

A collection of literature review notes on advanced management accounting articles

A collection of literature review notes on advanced management accounting articles (making use of the Toulmin's model of argument)

1. “On the emergence of strategic management accounting”
2. “The balance of balanced scorecard”

*** a relevant reading: how to conduct literature review for doing assignments.

Article review of “On the emergence of strategic management accounting”: advanced management accounting

Article review of “On the emergence of strategic management accounting”

 

How to present this article in Harvard reference format

 

Ma, Y. & Tayles, M., 2009. On the emergence of strategic management accounting: an institutional perspective. Accounting and Business Research, 39(5), pp.403-430.

 

What are the key research issues the article wants to address?

 

The key research issues the article aims to address are:

1.    How Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) practices have been adopted within the processes of management accounting change in an organization.

2.    What kind of change process the case company experienced during the adoption of SMA practices.

3.    What causes or influences the change in management accounting practices, particularly the evolving strategic role of management accountants.

4.    Understanding how accountants engage with strategic issues beyond merely reporting financial data.

5.    The influence of organizational environments and actions on the adoption and diffusion of SMA practices, moving beyond popularity to explaining why certain practices are adopted or rejected.

These issues are highlighted as gaps in prior research which mostly focused on describing popular SMA practices without sufficient analysis of the underlying adoption processes, organizational contexts, and role changes of management accountants

 

Describe two main theories employed in this article.

The article employs two main theoretical perspectives:

1.    Neoinstitutional Theory:

• This is the primary theoretical framework used to analyze management accounting change and SMA adoption in the case company.
• Neoinstitutionalism focuses on how organizations are embedded in wider social, economic, and institutional fields or populations and how institutional pressures (coercive, mimetic, normative) influence organizational behaviors and change processes.
• The theory stresses that management accounting change is not only a technical matter but also involves social and political dynamics, power relations, and value commitments within organizations.
• The article applies neoinstitutional concepts such as archetypal templates (organizational configurations shaping values and privileges), value commitments, and capacity for action to explain how SMA practices emerged as administrative innovations influenced by both external pressures (market competition, regulation) and internal organizational actions.

2.    Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) Theory:

• SMA itself is treated as a conceptual framework or body of management accounting concerned with generating strategically oriented information that supports decision-making and control.
• SMA emphasizes a broader business perspective beyond traditional financial measures, incorporating non-financial, competitor-related, and long-term oriented information for strategy formulation and implementation.
• The article reviews the SMA literature, its contested definitions, and its intent to elevate the role of accountants to strategic partners who actively participate in decision-making rather than only producing routine financial reports.
• SMA theory provides the substantive content of the management accounting changes observed in the company, framing these changes as comprising competitor performance appraisal, customer profitability analysis, and forward-looking strategic measures.

Together, neoinstitutional theory offers the lens for understanding the processes and contextual drivers of change, while SMA theory provides the content and direction of the management accounting change under study.

 

 

 

Describe 3 main claims of the article in terms of Toulmin's model of argument.

Using Toulmin's model of argument—which consists of Claim, Data (Evidence), and Warrant (the reasoning that links data to claim)—three main claims from the article can be described as follows:

1.    Claim 1: The adoption of Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) practices is influenced by both organizational environments and organizational actions, and is not merely a matter of popularity or technical implementation.

• Data: The case study showed that SMA adoption depended on external pressures such as market competition and internal factors like strategic alignment and managerial support, rather than just the existence of SMA techniques. Resistance within the organization also affected adoption. Existing survey evidence showed low adoption rates and limited awareness of SMA, despite perceived merits.
• Warrant: Understanding SMA adoption requires examining the organizational context and human agency within firms, as SMA practices emerge as administrative innovations shaped by these factors, rather than from simple diffusion or technical characteristics.

2.    Claim 2: SMA adoption and management accounting change can be better understood through a neoinstitutional theoretical framework, which links organizational contexts to organizational actions.

• Data: The article draws on neoinstitutionalism to explain how power relations, value commitments, and capacity for action within the organization influenced the emergence of SMA practices in the case company, such as the role of senior managers and cross-functional cooperation programs (e.g., IBP).
• Warrant: Neoinstitutional theory provides a richer explanation of management accounting change by accounting for social, political, and institutional dynamics, thereby illuminating why and how organizational actors embrace or resist new SMA practices.

3.    Claim 3: Effective SMA implementation involves a shift in the role of management accountants from routine financial reporting towards strategic involvement in decision-making supported by non-financial and forward-looking information.

• Data: Evidence from the case showed management accountants acting as 'sparring partners' or strategic advisors, being embedded within marketing teams, and producing reports featuring competitor, customer, and long-term indicators rather than only historical financial data. This change improved cooperation between finance and other business functions and supported strategic goals.
• Warrant: SMA’s strategic orientation requires new roles and skills for accountants to contribute meaningfully to strategy formulation, thus moving beyond a traditional bean-counter image towards becoming integral to business decision processes.

These claims together address the article’s principal arguments about the nature, causes, and implications of SMA adoption and management accounting change.

 

** reference:  a collection of management accounting notes