Management Accountant

Essay , 2015 , 19 Pages , Grade: 1

Business economics - Controlling

Controlling is the process of monitoring and analyzing activities for making sure that they are accomplished as planned and correcting any deviations. However, in the course of time, the area of responsibility of management accountants has changed. In the following essay we show the changing role of management accountants in recent time and in different cultures.

In the first part of our paper we discuss the role of controllers and how it changed in recent time. The second part is about the four types of management accountants, which are the "discrete" type, the "safeguarding" type, the "partner" and the "omnipotent" controller, based on a field study conducted by Lambert and Sponem. With the help of a case study about problems in the daily life of controllers in a french aeronautics firm form Morales and Lambert we will show different inconveniences, which come along frewuently with the modern type of management accounting. Another question we will discuss in this essay deals with the controller's role in different cultures of several countries, where a paper by Granlund and Lukka was taken as the basis. In the last part we included some practical experiences which were gained in a practicum made by Patrick and we try to compare these experiences with the theoretical part of our essay in order to check the findings from the three afore mentioned papers our work is based upon.

Table of Content

1. Introduction

2. Changing role of management acccountants
2.1. Management accountants role in general
2.2. The four types of management accountants

3. Problems with the changing role of management accountants
3.1. Making data reliable
3.2. Producing managerial tools
3.3. Participating in board meetings
3.4. Participating in decision-making

4. Management accountant's role in different cultures

5. Practical experiences
5.1. Overall setting of the department
5.2. Practical problems vs. theoretical problems
5.3. The question of cultural differences

6. Conclusion

7. Sources

• College: University of Innsbruck
• Grade: 1
• Author: Alexander Tauber (Author)
• Publication Year: 2015
• Pages: 19
• Catalog Number: V505803
• ISBN (eBook): 9783346061669
• ISBN (Book): 9783346061676
• Language: English
• Tags: Controlling, management, management accountant, accountant, control