This book provides students and managers with an understanding of and appreciation of the strengths and limitations of an organisation’s accounting system. A key goal of the book is to allow them to be intelligent and critical users of the system. An analytical framework for organisational change is used throughout the book to underscore how organisations must adapt to create customer and organisational value. The text highlights the role of management accounting as an integral part of the organisation’s strategy and not a set of individual concepts and computations.

Organisational success is linked to the existence of an appropriate management accounting system. The book is framed within the context of a global economy, one increasingly affected by technological change, customer needs, regulatory requirements and competition. In such an environment, organisations must continue to evolve to keep pace with these major forces. Whether the accounting system is used for making planning decisions or used to measure and/or influence behaviours as part of the organisational control system, its purpose overall is to help the organisation create value through improved decision making and control.