The development of the management accountant's role revisited: An example from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency

Abstract

This study traces the development of the management accountant (MA) role at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SIA). In 2012, the agency began a reformation by implementing the Lean management system in hopes of increasing customer trust. The results of this study show that the authority of the MA rests on decentralization and the proximity of MAs to managers, as previous research has shown, and more specifically on a definitional and a moral prerogative that may or may not be awarded to MAs enabling them to act as de facto managers. The study shows how the role of the SIA's operative level MAs changed into a helpdesk function with the role of assisting other groups to help themselves, in this case operative‐level teams that had begun performing management accounting tasks. Thus, this study bears witness not to the expansion and hybridization of existing MA roles, but to the reduction in authority and de‐hybridization of the MA role, from business partner to a pedagogical role on a consultative basis.

Digital technology and changing roles: a management accountant’s dream or nightmare?

“…The roles of management accountants have been researched intensively in recent decades (Burns and Baldvinsdottir 2005;Byrne and Pierce 2007;Granlund and Lukka 1998;Weber 2011) and it remains an ongoing area of research (Goretzki et al 2017;Goretzki et al 2013;Holmgren Caicedo et al 2018;Moll and Yigitbasioglu 2019;Rieg 2018;Schäffer and Brückner 2019). A number of these studies have adopted an understanding of accounting as a social practice that provides legitimacy and supporting claims of rationality (Miller and Hopwood 1994), rather than a functionalist perspective.…”

“…This study contributes to the management accounting literature in a number of ways. First, it explores how digital technology contributes to changes in the roles of management accountants and how digital technology can contribute to narrower and more specialized roles nuancing descriptions of expanding and broader roles (Goretzki and Messner 2019;Holmgren Caicedo et al 2018;Horton and Wanderley 2018;Rieg 2018). Second, by taking a perspective based on competition of professions (Abbott 1988) the study finds that digital technology influences intra-organizational competition between professions and thus contributes to changes in management accountant roles.…”

Twenty‐five years of studying new public management in public administration: Accomplishments and limitations

“…Decreased public spending is not always aligned with increased customer satisfaction and vice versa. The discussion of moving away from NPM toward a new public governance “paradigm” (Holmgren Caicedo, Mårtensson, & Tamm Hallström, ; Osborne, , ; Wiesel & Modell, ) touches upon this, but fails to recognize the inherent difference of understanding efficiency (Hyndman & Liguori, ). It is furthermore common that the role of accounting is not fully recognized in such settings (Bracci, Maran, & Inglis, ; Mennicken, ; Pallott, ).…”

Chief financial officers’ perceptions of their roles inside nonprofit organizations

“…Furthermore, NPM was found to initially increase management accountants’ participation in decision‐making at regional and local management levels at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Paulsson, 2012). Later, applying the Lean management reforms of NPM, accountants’ roles reduced in authority with a contraction of the business partner role and an emphasis on a consultative, “help desk” function (Holmgren Caicedo, Mårtensson, & Tamm Hallström, 2018). At a local authority, service managers were trained in financing and budget management, which led to finance staff being viewed as not necessary unless they were able to help sustain or contribute to service transformations (Ahrens, Ferry, & Khalifa, 2018).…”