A conceptual framework for teaching management accounting

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for teaching management accounting. The framework is rooted in distinguishing organizations from markets and draws on the fast-developing field of “organizational economics.” Market clearing prices, infinitely divisible commodities, and regime of private property rights are three aspects that can theoretically characterize market transactions. This paper argues for conceptualizing the subject matter of management accounting as a response to the relative absence of these aspects of market transactions within organizations. Specifically, management accounting procedures can be classified as instruments that: coordinate the demand and supply of resources in the absence of prices; measure resource consumption given indivisibilities in the cost function; and control resource use when the ownership of assets is separated from its control. This conceptual framework not only lends intellectual coherence to the subject matter of management accounting but also permits its diverse topics to be arranged in a logically articulated manner.