Robin Roslender

In search of strategic management accounting: theoretical and field study perspectives

Despite being introduced into the literature as a potentially exciting development over twenty years ago, there is still little or no agreement about what constitutes strategic management accounting. The term itself is open to a number of interpretations, something that is reflected in the varied nature of the research associated with it. In our view, however, strategic management accounting is best understood as a generic approach to accounting for strategic positioning. It is defined by an attempt to integrate insights from management accounting and marketing management within a strategic management framework. To date, the attribute costing technique has been the most compelling development within strategic management accounting. Its focus on costing the benefits associated with products and their attributes necessitates contributions from both disciplines. The findings of an exploratory field study of practices at the interface between management accounting and marketing management affirm strategic management accountings limited impact on practice in the UK. In those cases where interfunctional cooperation is most advanced, there are indications that a new subset of strategic management accounting developments may be emerging as accountants and marketers begin to measure the performance of brands.

Thinking critically about intellectual capital accounting

The measurement and reporting of intellectual capital has recently attracted a growing interest from accounting researchers, promoting a lively and far‐reaching debate. Two related issues have informed this debate. It is possible to identify these issues as exemplifying financial reporting and management accounting perspectives on the emergence of intellectual capital. Provides a commentary on the progress of the debate to date, while also attempting to contextualise some of the issues it entails in both earlier and wider debates. In an effort to progress the project of accounting for intellectual capital, suggests the adoption of a critical accounting perspective. This would entail exploring the possibilities of intellectual capital providing its own accounts, rather than remaining imprisoned within accounts devised by others.

Accounting for the worth of employees: A new look at an old problem

Accounting for the worth of employees has long posed a challenge to the accountancy profession. Despite the attention it has received over the past 30 years, the subject has failed to develop much in the way of practical applications and as a result it is effectively a non-issue today. This is rather disturbing since the 1990s are a time when accounting for the worth of employees is probably more necessary than ever. The present paper seeks to rejuvenate interest in the subject and to see it returned to the research agenda. It proposes a third approach to the subject, one which overcomes the shortcomings of previous efforts and which constitutes a much needed breakthrough in its development. Underlying the paper is the belief that accounting for the worth of employees will benefit from a major paradigm shift away from the narrow economic-accounting perspective of the past, to a broader social scientific perspective, one which is consistent with a more strategic emphasis and the proposal to generate softer accounting numbers rather than those required to put people on the balance sheet.

Intellectual Capital Accounting as Management Fashion: A Review and Critique

There is growing interest in the new techniques of intellectual capital accounting (ICA) as a method of measuring and reporting the range of human and knowledge-based factors that create sustained economic value. This paper suggests that viewing ICA as an aspect of expanded forms of management knowledge, and in particular as a ‘management fashion’, provides critical insight into the techniques occupational and organizational roles. The fashion perspective emphasizes the symbolic means of establishing the appeal of ideas to particular audiences, as well as the social mechanisms by which the dissemination of ideas takes place. The paper reviews the emerging debate on ICA, and interprets the professional literature as a narrative that reveals accountancys keen interest in ICA as a mechanism of exploiting tacit knowledge. The suggestion is that the disciplines concerns with its own occupational situation and corporate relevance may be a reflection of the appeal of a development like ICA as much as any simple views of efficacy.

Employee wellness as intellectual capital: an accounting perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify employee wellness as a further component of intellectual capital and to illustrate how it might be possible to account for it in ways that depart from accountings traditional focus on costs and valuations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is discursive in approach, considering a range of ideas relevant to visualising employee wellness as intellectual capital and how to account for it as such.Findings – Employee wellness a component of primary intellectual capital, being something that employees bring to their organisations together with their experience, expertise, know‐how, leadership skills, creativity, etc. It is also a component of secondary intellectual capital envisaged as initiatives designed to promote greater levels of health and fitness among employees. While it is not possible to place financial valuations on employee wellness, individual or collectively, it is possible to develop metrics that will communicate useful information to a var...

Theoretical perspectives on intellectual capital: a backward look and a proposal for going forward

Abstract In recent years the intellectual capital literature has exhibited relatively few new theoretical contributions, in contrast to the flurry of such work in the period 1996–2003. The purpose of the present paper is to revisit a number of the major theoretical contributions to the intellectual capital field in order to identify where any renewal of theoretical endeavour might be targeted. The greater part of the existing theoretical corpus is found to have a normative quality, something particularly evident in policy-oriented contributions on accounting for intellectual capital. The continued absence of a critical perspective on intellectual capital is identified to be a worrying lacuna, and thereby a potentially valuable space for a further round of theoretical activity.

Rethinking the dissemination of management fashion: accounting for 'intellectual capital' in UK case firms

In research on management knowledge, a tension often exists between perspectives that stress the effects of structural and institutional forces on the spread of new knowledge within managerial communities versus a more action-focused and organizationally embedded perspective on dissemination. This article contributes to the critique of dissemination theory by exploring the fashion for Intellectual Capital Accounting. ICA is a set of accounting models for managing knowledge-based assets and represents a poorly institutionalized variable type of fashion. The findings from case studies of ICA in six UK firms are at variance with the image of packages of knowledge being transferred into organizations. They confirm a process of dissemination that was much more a function of operational constraints and the level to which internal controls had developed; firms seemed to come to ideas via distinctive processes internally constructed around current problems and agendas, technical constraints, and the actions of a range of sponsoring groups.

The prospects for satisfactorily measuring and reporting intangibles: Time to embrace a new model of (ac)counting?

Purpose – This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of approaches to measuring and reporting on intangibles since the mid‐1990s, and to identify intellectual capital self‐accounts as a possible means of continuing this process in a beneficial way.Design/methodology/approach – Principally a literature review, the paper provides the opportunity to extend earlier, initial thoughts on the promise of intellectual capital self‐accounts.Findings – Given the importance of primary intellectual capital (“people”) in the creation of intangibles (secondary intellectual capital), the paper draws attention to the limited role hitherto ascribed to people in reporting on intangibles in particular.Originality/value – The value of the paper lies principally in the identification of possible content for self‐accounts in the context of brands and health and wellbeing as important intangibles.

Utilising narrative to improve the relevance of intellectual capital

Purpose – The intellectual capital (IC) paradigm appears to be stuck at a crossroads of relevance. This paper aims to explore a way forward by examining the power of IC narratives. The prevailing use of narrative as an explanation for the reasons underpinning an organisations management of IC is too narrow since narrative can have an emancipatory impact. This enhanced view of narrative allows the opportunity to explore how narrative may be used to understand and mobilise IC both inside and outside organisations and thus improve its relevance as a working discipline.Design/methodology/approach – An analysis of three case studies is presented, each offering different insights on the emancipatory potential of IC narratives.Findings – In order to progress IC beyond the crossroads of relevance, organisations should not blindly implement “frameworks” or “guidelines” that seek to measure and control IC as if it were any other asset (or liability). Instead organisations may benefit from considering how the devel...

So tell me again … just why would you want to account for people?

Purpose – The paper sets out to identify the key role that Jan‐Erik Grojers work on human resource costing and accounting played in linking initial developments in accounting for people with the more recent advances associated with the emergence of the intellectual capital concept.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is in the form of an essay that briefly considers the history of approaches to the challenge of accounting for people.Findings – The recent developments associated with intellectual capital highlight the importance and value of adopting a rather wider conception of accounting for people.Originality/value – The paper provides a provocative introduction to the topic of accounting for people and as such may be of value to both newcomers to the field and those who are simply intrigued by the idea itself.