Management accounting for lateral organisations (part 2)

4.    Accounting concepts incorporating lateral dimensions

Chenhall (2008, p. 522 emphasis added) suggests that “[t]he key to horizontal accounting is the intent to incorporate accounting thinking into organizational change programs that are based on aligning work and structural arrangements laterally”. This section hopes to address this statement in a wider consideration than Chenhall (2008) considered appropriate (based on his consideration of how much of the value chain various strategic MA practices considered), given the ‘surprising’ forms MA can take (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009). It seeks to explore MA practices which “images the firm and its entities as ‘no islands’ but connected relations, a network.” (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006 p. 268)

Thus, this section highlights various MA practices and processes which incorporate lateral dimensions in different operational considerations, and the perceptions of their conflicting nature, in the following order; (4.1) Operations management, (4.2) Strategic management, (4.3) The BSC and ABCM, and (4.4) Inter-organisational networks.

4.1 Operations Management

The conflict between the traditionally perceived hierarchical orientation of MA and the lateral orientation of both operations management and lean manufacturing are commented on repeatedly in both the accounting and operations literature (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Johnson, 2006, Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009 etc.). Mouritsen and Hansen (2006, p. 272) comment on Scheonberger’s  “monumental and fundamental” critique of accounting, which “ridicules” MA for misrepresenting, mystifying and distorting information, and creating problems rather than solutions. Hutchinson and Liao (2009, p. 28) comment that “[a]ny derivation of capacity accounting is fundamentally incompatible with lean management.” Johnson (2006) comments in a similar vein, and suggests that accounting information can be “fatal” to modern manufacturing organisations, and goes as far as to suggest that it should not be used at all within the operations of manufacturing organisations. Further, he comments that accounting encapsulates a way of thinking which is fundamentally incorrect for organisational management, and suggests that we need to move away from even trying to develop accounting solutions to organisational problems (Ibid., p. 7-8, Hamel and Breen, 2007). Hansen and Mouritsen (2007) summarise the conflict between the lateral conceptualisation of operations management and the hierarchical orientation of management and suggest;

Accounting calculations are presented as enemies of quality, flexibility and even cost reduction because they mystify the affairs of the firm. Instead, non-financial operating data and empowered, competent and self-managing employees are advocated, as they can identify how to improve the business.

(Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007 p. 22)

Despite these criticisms, there are still reasonable amounts of opportunism towards MA within lateral organisations. (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998 p. 369) perhaps highlights the best example of why some financial control and MA is required; they muse about a situation within their case study where a manufacturing department were achieving 100% of producing their orders in full, and on time by actually going out to external retailers and purchasing their own product rather than manufacturing it! Their case studies highlight how an interactive, integrated and supportive culture is needed to change the MA system to be supportive and integrated, but that it can be done; based on improving the social and interpersonal skills of accountants, and creating a supportive integration between functional areas. Hutchinson and Liao (2009) comment that MA is used beneficially in lateral Japanese manufacturing organisations, by accepting that accounting is not the way to manage the organisation. They suggest that Japanese management accountants are more integrated with the rest of the organisation, and that dichotomies and separation of roles are uncommon. Further, they comment that MA is ‘surprisingly simplistic and traditional’ and that the organisational culture encourages MA to be “subservient to corporate strategy, not independent of it.” (Ibid., p. 34) This links back to the concept of equifinality proposed by (Gerdin, 2005) and highlights again the possibility of the same system being used in very different ways under different management styles or organisational/national cultures (Ansari and Euske, 1987, Tayeb, 1987).

Mouritsen and Hansen (2006) suggest that whilst the aforementioned perception of MA as conflicting with modern manufacturing requirements is supported by survey analysis, they suggest that the changing role and scope of MA is better captured through case-study analysis. They suggest that in case-study analysis, MA has been extended both within, and beyond, the organisation and that “roles of accounting have been identified that add not only to the operations management literature but also significantly to the body of MA knowledge.” (Ibid., p. 283) They suggest that these ‘profound roles’ of MA are more conceptual (Miller and O'Leary, 1994, Miller et al. 2008), and argue that through the separation of executional decisions (at employee/operational level) and structural decisions[13] (at upper management/strategy level), accounting can significantly contribute to lateral organisations. They suggest that executional decisions are one-dimensional (e.g. less waste, less time, higher quality), and that non-accounting measures and incentives may be more appropriate in these circumstances to encourage innovation, team-work, information sharing etc. However, they argue that structural decisions create the ‘manufacturing space’ in which these one-dimensional decisions can be made (Mouritsen and Dechow, 2001); structural decisions such as, should the factory be built in location A, B, or C, how many machines should we employ, how many staff shall we have, how much shall we invest into R&D etc., must be decided before executional decisions; less waste, higher quality, higher productivity etc., can be made. Thus, they suggest that accounting calculations are ‘invisible’ to operations management because these decisions are made before the factory exists (Miller and O’Leary, 1994, Mouritsen and Dechow, 2001). They also suggest however, that accounting is still used in some instances within the factory; perhaps because managers to do not fully trust non-financial information (and rightly so in light of the anecdote of Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998), or that accounting takes on forms ‘beyond expectations’; which could mean both advanced technical or conceptual uses, or even simplistic uses (such as in Hutchinson and Liao, 2009).

The above literature highlights that MA may have at least three roles within laterally structured and lean manufacturing organisations; (i) the ability to assist in multi-dimensional decisions at a structural level, (ii) the ability to create the space for executional level decisions to be made on a uni-dimensional level, and (iii) the ability to assist in monitoring and decision making, even at an executional level, if the culture and environment is inclusive and supportive of integration between different approaches to decision making.

4.2  Strategic Management

Shank (2006) echoes many of the concerns for MA that were raised some 25 years ago in relation to losing relevance for management (Johnson and Kaplan, 1991). He suggests that; “[t]here is very little emotional energy left for strategic accounting transformation after all the [regulatory] requirements are met.” (Shank, 2006, p. 362) He paints a fairly negative picture for MA, and particularly strategic MA, and suggests that most academics and practitioners prefer the simpler world of MA in comparison to the embedded, holistic and interconnected world of strategic accounting (Ibid., p. 356)

He suggests that a lack of integration between management accountants and other functional areas is a major problem (supported by Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Lord, 2007 etc.), and again comments on a focus on executional level costs within MA, whilst commenting that developments in structural costing have largely been advanced by scholars outside MA (Anderson, 2007), such as in areas of organisational structure. Shank comments on the need to move away from ‘functional silos’ and to integrate into strategic and holistic thinking, not just in accounting, but within other functional areas as well, and also outside the limited functional boundaries of the organisation (Kraus and Lind, 2007). Northcott and Alkaraan (2007) suggest some possible solutions to this integration problem through actual integration with other areas and by including non-financial measurements; they show how strategic management can incorporate a number of functional areas and help them to communicate; suggesting that this allows for a more balanced, and therefore inclusive, approach.

Anderson (2007) also uses the Shank and Govindarajan (1993) distinction between executional costs and structural costs, and again suggests that MA has overly focused on executional cost management (Shank, 2006), despite it being more relevant to structural decisions (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007). She suggests that there has been a lack of research focusing on structural decision making within MA, and hints that executional focused research out with MA has often taken for granted the structural cost decisions which create the space in which executional decisions can be uni-dimensional; i.e. the structure of the factory itself. She argues that “much of what constitutes modern cost management is found in the choices about organizational strategy and structure” (Ibid., 484) since much of the cost of production is committed pre-production (Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007 p. 743). She comments that there has been little MA research focusing on these decisions within this structural space[14].

Again, the Miller et al. (2008) concept of the hybrid ability of MA relates to strategic management and supports Northcott and Alkaraan (2007) on hybrid practices being formed from interaction with a number of different areas of expertise, and this having benefits in terms of communication, inclusivity, balanced measurement, team-building etc. Extending this view, (Modell, 2012) suggests that strategy has an institutionalisation effect, which could further the move to lateral conceptualisation of the organisation; as the strategy changes, the mode of logic of the employees and managers changes (given the potential for strategy changes to institutionalise). Thus, it could be suggested that explicit strategy changes involving the MA system could be employed as a tool to institutionalise a move to lateral conceptualisation of the organisation and its environment. However, as (Modell, 2012) highlights, institutionalisation is difficult to control and unintended consequences can occur. Burns and Baldvinsdottir (2007) comment optimistically on the role of accountants becoming more integrated and involved with other function areas, and how the discourse of accounting is permeating into other function areas without being overtly resisted (Miller et al. 2008, Kaplan and Porter, 2011, Kurunmäki and Miller, 2011). Their findings support (Pierce and O'Dea, 2003, and Byrne and Pierce, 2007) on the move of management accountants from ‘bean counters’ to ‘consultants’ and hints at their move to a more lateral and holistic conceptualisation of the organisation.

The hybrid ability of MA means there are many ways in which MA can be used to enhance a holistic view of the organisation, through enabling; integration between processes, departments and teams; being holistic in its approach; communicating across areas and teams, particularly into spaces in which it has been resisted; including financial and non-financial information to promote balanced decision making; integrating and encouraging inclusivity through participatory involvement in MA process developments; assisting in structural decision making, and in creating the executional space; and an ability to effect and assist in institutionalised change programs.

4.3  The BSC and ABCM

One of the first MA innovations which embraced the lateral conceptualisation of the organisation was the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) (Kaplan and Norton, 1992 etc.). Norreklit and Mitchell (2007, p. 175) confirm the difficulty of implementing balanced and correctly aligned measures, since “the outputs from performance measurement systems are notorious for the capacity to mislead and confuse the user and to produce unintended and often dysfunctional consequences”. Lee and Yang (2011) comment that integrated measures are more prevalent in ‘organic’ (which is similar to lateral organisations here) compared to ‘mechanistic’ organisations, and that under higher competition, there is a positive relationship between organisational performance and the level of integration and sophistication of the performance measurement system (the BSC). They also find that integration (Shank, 2006, Lord, 2007 etc.). is more relevant to mechanistic organisations than to organic ones. But adoptions of new and innovative performance measurement systems require organic structures, which conflicts with the hierarchical requirement for their effective implementation and utilisation; thus, hybrid forms of organisation are best suited to develop and implement innovative performance measurement systems (Miller et al., 2008, Lee and Yang, 2011). 

(Chenhall, 2008) comments, on a theoretical level, on how innovations within MA, such as the BSC and ABCM, are complementary to ‘horizontal organisations’. He comments that there has been little supplementary innovations or uptake from MA within horizontal organisations, despite the holistic and lateral attempts included in the BSC and ABCM. He proposes that the reasons for this conflict are that accounting numbers continue to be difficult to understand (Johnson, 2006), that management accountants are not perceived as strategic (Anderson, 2007), that MA is not relevant to operational decision making (Johnson and Kaplan, 1991), and that there is a continuing conflict between the hierarchical orientation of MA and its lack of integration (Shank, 2006, Lord, 2007) with other function areas. He also comments on advocates of the horizontal organisation seeing little use for accounting. But there is little empirical support of the propositions and little consideration of Mouritsen and Hansen’s (2006) thoughts on the benefits of differentiating between executional and structural decisions. He also focuses narrowly on the concepts of the BSC and ABCM, which may not be broad enough given the relevance to structural decisions (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006) and evidence that accounting may be used in a ‘surprisingly’ simplistic manner in lateral manufacturing organisations (Hutchinson and Liao, 2009).

Concepts such as the BSC and ABCM demonstrate hybrid and holistic dimensions of MA innovations and suggest that MA could be used in a multitude of ways within a lateral organisation, through; balancing financial and non-financial information into a formalised measurement tool; integrating areas, processes, and teams to a common focus; promoting a formalised measurement tool to promote trust, fairness, and accountability; promoting a common understanding of organisational goals and how activities link to these goals etc.

4.4 Inter-organisational Networks

Another area of MA which supports a lateral conceptualisation of the organisation is the inter-organisational network literature. The lateral conceptualisation of organisations and their environments is clearly central to inter-organisational control. (Hopwood, 1996) provided the impetus for exploring the MA practices and processes which are evident throughout the management of laterally connected organisations through network and supply-chain analysis. A plethora of research has come from this and explored open-book accounting (Mouritsen et al., 2001, Kajüter and Kulmala, 2005, Windolph and Moeller, 2012), information exchanges (Baiman and Rajan, 2002, Caglio and Ditillo, 2012), value and supply chain analysis (Anderson, 2007, Fayard et al., 2012), overlapping accountabilities (Hakansson and Lind, 2004, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005), trust (Tomkins, 2001, Jakobsen, 2010, Kroeger, 2012), control system characteristics (Dekker, 2004, Kraus and Lind, 2007), dyadic networks (Dekker, 2004, Hakansson and Lind, 2004), interconnected and embedded networks (Tomkins, 2001, Kajuter, 2005, Mouritsen and Thrane, 2005, Caglio and Ditillo, 2012) etc. 

The inter-organisational network literature is one of the few areas in which the role of MA within a laterally structured and conceived network of organisations is viewed positively and as providing support to the network, despite a strongly lateral structure. Kraus and Lind (2007) and Caglio and Ditillo (2008) summarise the literature on inter-organisational relationships and controls, and highlight that the aspects of MA which are found to be useful for decision-making and control within inter-organisational networks range from conceptual levels of building trust (Tomkins, 2001, Kroeger, 2012), and ‘mapping’  the network (Kajüter and Kulmala, 2005), to social, behavioural and outcome specific controls such as creating overlapping accountabilities (Hakansson and Lind, 2004, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005), and open-book accounting (Carr and Ng, 1995).

Caglio and Ditillo (2008) comment on the need to focus on the interconnected and embedded nature of inter-organisational relationships and for future research to explore this. They comment that firm-level factors are important and influence the amount of information sharing, which continues the importance of a contingency perspective. (Jakobsen, 2012) comments on the need for honesty and transparency within inter-organisational relationships, especially relating to costing information and supports suggestions as to the importance of trust (Tomkins, 2001, Kroeger, 2012).

The key principle of MA within inter-organisational relationships is to consider the holistic, embedded and interconnected nature of the environment in which the organisation operates. Within this network, accounting can be used beneficially in a number of ways (as highlighted above) to enhance the performance of the network, facilitate information sharing, reveal compatibilities, and create the rules and space for the network to function (Miller and O’Leary, 1994, Mouritsen and Dechow, 2001, Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006 etc.), which suggests a number of ways that MA could be used within a lateral organisation, particularly given the focus of lateral organisations on the interconnected and embedded nature of the team-based units within the network of their organisation; an intra-organisational network.

5.    How accounting might be used within lateral organisations and subsequent research questions

From the above studies it is clear that despite concerns as to the relevance and applicability of MA to the lateral focus of many contemporary organisations (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Johnson, 2006, Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Shank, 2006, Anderson, 2007, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009 etc.), there are many areas where MA has lateral dimensions.

The key areas from the preceding section are summarised and aligned within three sub-categories which are reviewed in the following order;

(i)              balancing strategies and promoting integration (hybrid nature of MA; balancing financial and non-financial information; integrating processes, teams and areas; facilitating communication; enhancing participation and involvement of employees; assisting in institutionalised change programs etc.),

(ii)            (ii) operational and structural decisions (structural decisions themselves; how structural decisions create the executional space for operational decision;, executional decisions themselves etc.) and,

(iii)           (iii) ­intra-organisational networks (holistic, interconnected and embedded considerations; formalise and create spaces prior to their existence; use at structural and executional level; facilitate information sharing and promote trust etc.)

These categories suggest the need for, and provide a framework under which we might analyse, an empirical investigation of the formation, role and use of MA within lateral organisations. These categories capture the five areas in which lateral organisations have concerns related to MA, as outlined in section 3.2 and summarised at the end of sections 4.1-4.4. This section summarises and aligns the relevant information from the previous sections and presents some research questions based on this synthesis.

5.1 Balancing strategies and promoting integration

Despite concerns (Shank, 2006, Lord, 2007 etc.), it has been suggested that MA and management accountants can have a beneficial role in increasing balanced and integrated processes, departments and teams (Northcott and Alkaraan, 2007). Accounting has the ability to both integrate (Miller et al. 2008) and promote integration (Shank, 2006, Lord, 2007, Northcott and Alkaraan, 2007, Lee and Yang, 2011). (Northcott and Alkaraan (2007) suggest that actual balance and integration with other units is possible from the MA function, and that it has many positive outcomes. They comment that MA has the ability to interact and integrate with other functional processes to create a balanced decision making process and to promote a culture of communication, inclusivity and information sharing through participation and involvement. Proponents of the BSC comment on its ability to integrate and balance financial and non-financial information, to identify cause and effect relationships, and to clarify strategy. Lee and Yang (2011) support this view and comment on increased amounts of integrated and balanced performance indicators within organic organisations’ BSCs, and suggest that MA has a role in supporting this integration. Chenhall and Langfield-Smith (1998) and Hutchinson and Liao (2009) highlight the importance of the organisational culture in determining how involved, balanced and integrated the MA system is, and suggest that under a supportive, inclusive and involving management culture, MA can be used to assist in integrating processes, functional areas and teams, as well as creating balanced strategies.

Miller et al. (2008) highlight the ability of MA to hybridise, which can again increase its ability to integrate and promote integration. Kurunmäki and Miller (2011) highlight that accounting information can be implemented into areas in which it is traditionally resisted (i.e. public health care) focusing on its integration, hybridisation and balancing abilities, and perhaps hint towards how it can be used as a tool to implement and support institutionalised change (Modell, 2012)[15].

Balancing and aligning strategy, and integrating processes, functional areas and teams remain challenging areas for MA research (Shank, 2006, Lord, Norreklit and Mitchell, 2007). Exploring the balance between, and integration of, financial and non-financial information in MA systems within lateral organisations, the reasons for these choices, and any perceived, or real, compatibility issues is an interesting topic (Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007, Lee and Yang, 2011). Further, investigating how MA is used, and indeed if it is, to integrate processes, functional areas and teams at an executional level, and whether or not there is a relationship with the above point (integration), would also prove fruitful (Hutchinson and Liao, 2009). Any integration between executional and structural dimensions and the impact of, and implications for, MA within this context is also a largely under-researched area (Anderson, 2007). Finally, investigating the level of integration at both structural and executional levels, and exploring the impact of lateral structures and conceptualisation, on the MA system would also prove insightful (Shank, 2006, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009, Kurunmäki and Miller, 2011).

5.2 Operational and Structural decisions

Mouritsen and Hansen (2006) comment that MA is ‘invisible’ to operations management since it does not operate within the operational, or executional, space. They comment that it is invisible in this space because it is more concerned with creating this space at a structural level where multi-dimensional decisions are required to be made.

MA has a clear role in structural decision making (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006), despite this being an under-researched area (Anderson, 2007, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007). There is much scope for relevant and interesting research into the way MA is used to inform structural decisions; both the structural decisions themselves, and in exploring how MA is involved in creating the spaces in which executional decisions can be made on a uni-dimensional level. Anderson (2007) highlights that the structural decisions which create the executional space, and which involve MA, are often taken for granted by those exploring executional operational decisions, and there is a pressing need to explore how MA is implicated with structural decision making, in terms of; how information is used to inform structural cost decisions and how this impacts on the executional space, how integrated these two spaces are through MA, and how MA is used to conceptualise and create the executional space for operational, uni-dimensional decision making.

Johnson (2006) comments that MA should not be used at all on an executional level, and suggests it can be ‘fatal’ to organisational success despite MAs focus on developing costing techniques at these levels of decisions (Shank, 2006, Anderson, 2007). Despite this, there is evidence that MA is still used at an executional level since there may be a lack of trust towards purely non-financial information (Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007). Further, recent evidence suggests that MA can be used at an executional level in a simplistic form, under a supportive and open culture where MA is seen as integrated with other paradigms of decision making, and is a ‘servant’, not a ‘master’ of production (Hutchinson and Liao, 2009).

There are a large number of areas in which an empirical investigation into the operational and structural dimensions of lateral organisations, and their impact on the MA system, would prove insightful. Particularly, exploring how MA is implicated in integrating the structural and executional levels, or whether these two dimensions are kept separate (Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009) is largely unexplored. Further interest lies in exploring MA at an executional level within lateral organisations, since there is conflicting commentary on this topic (Johnson, 2006, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009); the formation and use of MA with respect to the culture of the organisation would prove particularly insightful (Cooper and Slagmulder, 2004, Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2009, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009). Finally, the role of MA within lateral organisations would also explore some conflicting commentary in the literature and give insights into some of the above; exploring how much role definition and multi-tasking are evident, and the level of frequency with which roles change might provide insights into the perception of MA within lateral organisations and perhaps hint at why it might be used as a ‘servant’, rather than as a ‘master’ (Pierce and O’Dea, 2003, Burns and Baldvinsdottir, 2007, Byrne and Pierce; 2007, Hutchinson and Liao, 2009).

5.3 Intra-organisational networks

Given the lateral structure and conceptualisation of lateral organisations, the inter-organisational relationship literature – which focuses on many of the same principles – provides a number of interesting propositions as to the potential formation, role and use of MA within lateral organisations. The inter-organisational relationship literature has shown that accounting can be used to encourage trust within a lateral network (Tomkins, 2001, Jakobsen, 2010, Kroeger, 2012) through information sharing (Mouritsen et al., 2001, Kraus and Lind, 2007, Caglio and Ditillo, 2012), overlapping accountabilities (Hakansson and Lind, 2004, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005), that it can be used at executional and operational level through OBA, life-cycle costing, target costing etc. (Carr and Ng, 1995, Cooper and Slagmulder, 2004, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005, Windolph, 2012), and to involve and integrate non-financial information (Dekker, 2004, Mouritsen and Thrane, 2005, Hansen and Mouritsen, 2007).

The concept of intra-organisational networks remains an interesting research area, certainly within organisations engaged in a number of inter-organisational relationships, but perhaps more so in lateral organisations specifically employing a network view intra-organisation. Exploring whether the lateral organisation itself is viewed, by the members, as an interconnected and embedded network would provide an interesting starting to explore how the MA system within the organisation responds to these requirements; whether or not there is any cross-over of techniques from the inter-organisational control literature (such as accounting being used to encourage trust between departments by sharing accounting information, using overlapping accountabilities between departments (Hakansson and Lind, 2004, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005), any evidence of executional level controls such as in Cooper and Slagmulder (2004), the use of gradings and non-financial information (Mouritsen, 2001, Caglio, 2012), how MA is used to map the network (Miller and O’Leary, 1994, Mouritsen and Dechow, 2001, Kajuter and Kulmala, 2005, Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006), how MA is used in controlling interconnected and embedded networks of actors (Caglio and Ditillo, 2008) etc.), would all be interesting areas. Comparison between intra and inter-organisational MA, with regards to formation and use, would provide further interest and highlight any practices being used intra-organisation which have similarities, or differences, to inter-organisational controls, and reasons for these differences could be commented on.

6.    Conclusions

6.1 Overview and Closing remarks

The lateral dimension is becoming more popular in a wide variety of areas, practices and concepts. Many organisations are moving towards this lateral dimension in the face of increasing competitive pressure and hope to incentivise, motivate, empower and encourage employees to be innovative, problem solving, networked and to share information – to encourage a ‘management innovation’. Despite criticism of the incompatibility between MA and this lateral dimension, this review has shown that there are a number of areas in which MA incorporates lateral dimensions, and proposed ways in which MA could be used, and some related issues, under this conceptualisation.

The above review has highlighted some of the diverse ways in which MA could be used within a lateral organisation, the impact of contingent and contextual factors on the MA system, and has suggested a number of avenues for potential future research. A number of scholars have called for more research on the lateral dimension of MA within a number of different fields, and this paper hopes to have synthesised a number of these calls and suggested ways in which MA might continue to be relevant to modern organisations’ adopting a lateral dimension and focus, whilst also suggesting other potential avenues to explore, and a need to explore this phenomenon empirically.

This review hopes to have illustrated the pressing need for an empirical study investigating the formation, use and role of MA within lateral organisations. It has been show that there are different MA systems for different organisational structures and requirements, and that lateral organisations have different requirements to traditionally structured organisations in a number of ways (sections 2 and 3). Further, the traditional conflict between MA and lateral dimensions has been explored and commented on to show that there are many aspects of MA which incorporate lateral dimensions (section 4). Finally, the review has built a framework to suggest what we might expect the formation, use and role of MA to be in lateral organisations given a review of accounting concepts which incorporate lateral dimensions (section 5). These sections together seek to highlight the need to explore the highlighted issues through an empirical study addressing the three issues raised in sections 5.1-5.3, and expanded upon into a preliminary draft interview schedule in Appendix A below.