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In recent years, the success of Japanese firms in the global market has prompted efforts
to understand the sources of their competitive advantage. It has been suggested that one
such source is the Japanese firms' management accounting systems, and a number of
articles have claimed that important differences do exist between U.S. and Japanese firms
in this area. However, the claims have tended to be supported by anecdotal rather than
systematic, evidence. The objective of this article is to contribute further insights into
similarities and differences between U.S. and Japanese firms' management accounting
practice. Exhaustive search of published surveys in the U.S. and Japanese literatures
(much of which is in Japanese) provided the basis for U.S. - Japan comparisons on six
aspects of management accounting practices. In turn, these comparisons were used for
deriving implications for future research. Two major limitations of extant research and,
thus, directions for future research are identified. First, future research needs to go beyond
the simple use or non-use of techniques to investigate more detailed aspects of technique
use. Second, since management accounting is only one component of a firm's total
management system, attention also needs to be devoted to the organization's context,
process, and goals of a firm's management accoutning practices. |
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