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Since its birth, management accounting has played an important role in enterprise management. At present, the research and application of management accounting in China are facing great challenges and crises, and also have good development prospects. This paper attempts to analyze the present situation of management accounting and look forward to its development direction.

From the late 1970s to the present, the popularization and application of management accounting in China has gone through three stages: propaganda and introduction, absorption and digestion, and reform and innovation. At the same time, due to various reasons, China lacks due attention to the research of management accounting theory, and there is a big gap between China's management accounting and the United States, Britain and other western developed countries in both theoretical research and practical application. It can be said that management accounting in China has encountered great challenges and crises in recent years, and also has excellent opportunities and development prospects. This paper intends to make a preliminary discussion on the research and application status of management accounting in China and the development direction of management accounting theory research in China in the future.

First, the research and application of management accounting in China

Since the end of 1970s, a large number of western management accounting have been introduced into China's accounting academic circles. In the early and mid-1980s, the accounting theorists in China had a wide and heated discussion on the reference and application significance of western management accounting in China. However, since the late 1980s, management accounting has been gradually neglected in China. Its performance is as follows:

(A) academic research interest is not high. Since the end of 1990s, the research focus of accounting scholars in China has mainly focused on the field of financial accounting, and the research papers on management accounting account for a small proportion compared with the former. According to the statistical data of Accounting Research, a magazine with the highest research level in the accounting field in China, in the past 10 years, among the academic papers published in Accounting Research, there were about 465 papers related to the financial accounting field, while there were about 7 1 papers related to management accounting and cost accounting, and the latter only accounted for about15 of the former. On the other hand, judging from the international and domestic academic conferences held in Chinese mainland in the past 65,438+00 years, there are few academic conferences devoted to management accounting. If we look at the topics selected by master students and doctoral students majoring in accounting, there are few problems in the field of management accounting as graduation thesis. All the above indications show that management accounting research has been obviously neglected in China, which is undoubtedly a main reason for the low level of management accounting research in China in recent years.

(B) The theoretical system of management accounting is incomplete and the discipline system is not standardized. Incomplete theoretical system of management accounting and nonstandard discipline system are also the reasons for the stagnation of theoretical research of management accounting. First of all, the system of management accounting theory has major defects: first, it lacks a clear research object, thus forming different viewpoints such as cash flow theory, value difference theory and total capital movement theory. Secondly, because the research object is vague, the function of management accounting is unclear. Third, the goal is unclear, whether to improve production and work efficiency, improve economic benefits, or maximize value-added. There is no unified and clear statement in theory and practice. Secondly, the discipline system of management accounting is fragmented and there is no systematic and complete framework structure. In practice, there are even cases of management accounting.

(C) The practical circle lacks the attention and systematic application of management accounting theory. It has been more than 30 years since China introduced the knowledge system of management accounting from the west in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, in recent years, all kinds of investigation results of accounting scholars at home and abroad and in Hong Kong and Taiwan show that management accounting has not been widely valued and systematically applied in enterprises in China. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: the concept of enterprise leaders or financial leaders is outdated, and they only pay attention to post-event accounting and reimbursement, but not to management accounting; Enterprise accountants have limited knowledge of management accounting, and a considerable number of accountants do not understand management accounting at all, which has not attracted the attention of most enterprises in China. Some methods of management accounting, such as short-term business decision-making, volume-cost-profit analysis and responsibility accounting, have been applied in enterprises, but generally speaking, the application of management accounting in enterprises in China is limited. According to the investigation on the application of management accounting in some large and medium-sized enterprises, the answers are basically consistent with the above conclusions. Some chief accountants believe that there are many knowledge points in the current management accounting textbooks, but the practical application of enterprises is limited. They strongly advocate that the teaching materials of management accounting in China should include some typical cases of application of management accounting in some enterprises in China, so as to facilitate accountants to learn from and operate.

(D) The existing management accounting application experience needs to be summarized and improved. China began to introduce the knowledge system of western management accounting in the late 1970s, and now it has become a compulsory course for accounting majors in many universities, and the research on management accounting in Chinese academic circles has reached a certain depth. From the practical point of view, some enterprises in our country have already had successful experiences in developing management accounting, such as three-level accounting of factory department, workshop and team in the early 1950s, hierarchical management of planned prices and funds in the factory in the 1960s, internal settlement in Daqing Oilfield in the 1970s, outsourcing, insurance and auditing of Jilin Factory Bank and Shougang in the 1980s, and "simulated market accounting and cost elimination" implemented by Handan Iron and Steel Company in the 1990s. Regrettably, however, there is a clear lack of systematic research and summary on some typical successful cases in practice in China's accounting field. So far, only a few cases have been systematically studied and summarized. The lack of typical case study reports with demonstration or model is an important reason why management accounting has not been effectively popularized and applied in enterprises in China.

It can be seen from the published literature and materials that some enterprises in China used to introduce the experience of management accounting mainly by practitioners. Without the participation of academic circles, it is difficult to systematically summarize and summarize their experience in theory, and it is also difficult to widely popularize and apply their experience. Although the academic circle has the specialty of theoretical research, due to various reasons, it lacks the practice of understanding the application of management accounting in enterprises. The investigation and research are mainly based on questionnaires, and the research of management accounting is inevitably empty and divorced from reality. Therefore, an important task of carrying out management accounting research in China is to carry out typical case studies involving academic and practical circles. This can not only effectively solve the problem of separating academic circles from practical circles to carry out management accounting research, but also theoretically summarize and improve typical case experiences, thus forming a systematic case study report. This not only plays an important demonstration role in practice, but also contributes to the popularization and application of management accounting in enterprises in China, which greatly promotes the future research of management accounting in China accounting academic circles.

Second, the future development of management accounting research in China

(A) management accounting theory and practice. From the experience of foreign countries, the focus of management accounting research carried out by foreign accounting circles has obviously shifted to the typical case study of management accounting. In recent years, case studies have been widely used and become the most important method in empirical research. The main reason for its popularity is that it can draw general conclusions from ordinary cases, which is helpful for popularization and application and has high use value. However, if there is no good cooperation and coordination between academia and practice, it is difficult to carry out typical case studies of management accounting. China accounting academic circles will work closely with practical circles to systematically summarize the experience of China enterprises in applying management accounting through typical case studies of large and medium-sized enterprises in different industries in China, and upgrade it to theory, with the ultimate goal of establishing a management accounting theory and method system with China characteristics through this activity.

(B) the implementation of strategic management accounting. The management strategy of modern enterprises will turn to long-term planning and pursue global development in order to obtain maximum benefits. Therefore, the management of enterprises will implement the decentralized management mode in a wider scope, which puts forward a new topic for strategic management. With the development and perfection of strategic management theory, "strategic management accounting" is gradually closely related to enterprise strategic management. It uses flexible and diverse methods to collect, process and sort out all kinds of information related to strategic management, and accordingly helps enterprise management to establish strategic objectives, make strategic planning and evaluate management performance. The main contents of strategic management accounting research include: the evaluation of market share; Prepare a strategic budget; Study the change of competitive position, etc.

(C) innovation of management accounting research methods. Management accounting research will develop in a diversified direction. This is manifested in the following aspects: first, a comprehensive study of topics, industries, theories and methods. Change the situation of single research in the past; Second, the comprehensive research of multidisciplinary and multi-industry departments will make its research results more practical; Thirdly, the penetration of multiple disciplines and the combination of various research theories and methods make the research results more adaptable.

(D) Expand the focus of management accounting research. The development of knowledge economy not only challenges the traditional economic model, but also challenges the management accounting under the traditional economic model, which has a far-reaching impact on management accounting. The existing management accounting theory and method system must be reformed accordingly to adapt to the economic development. The main research content of management accounting under the traditional economic model can be summarized as the prediction, decision-making and control of business activities, that is, the guidance and monitoring of the "whole process" of business activities of a responsibility center. In the era of knowledge economy, the object of enterprise management has changed from the management of physical assets to the management of information technology assets and information technology activities, which shows that the investment orientation is mainly intellectual investment, the personnel composition is mainly high-intelligence employees, and the assets composition is mainly intangible assets materialized by talents and knowledge. From this point of view, the focus of traditional management accounting research has been extended-the complexity and risk of measuring knowledge resources require the corresponding development of management accounting methods, that is, efforts should be made to pay equal attention to quantitative factors and quality factors, monetary measurement and non-monetary measurement, quantitative calculation and comprehensive judgment, and pay attention to the scientific and artistic methods.

Management accounting focuses on serving the internal management of enterprises, which depends on the organizational structure or system of enterprises and the market environment faced by enterprises. In this way, the changes of the enterprise itself and the external environment it faces will certainly promote the development of management accounting. What is presented to us now is a market economy characterized by internationalization, financialization and knowledge. The competition in 2 1 century will be global. Management accounting originally exists to help managers make better decisions and management, and the changes of enterprises and their operating environment will inevitably promote the development of management accounting.

(Text/Yang)