Transformations  in
Business & Economics

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS AND LEAN MANAGEMENT: A SERVICE COMPANY PERSPECTIVE
Tomasz Wnuk-Pel

ABSTRACT. The nature of changes in management accounting systems (MAS) as a reaction to lean management (LM) have not been explained sufficiently; thus, the main purpose of the research was to provide the empirical understanding of management accounting (MA) practices used by the extended value chain organization to support its lean strategy. The research revealed that MAS largely support the lean strategies; however, lot of MAS tasks in the organization are realized outside the Accounting Department. Yet, this does not cause any problems: all the groups of interviewees (managers, lean leaders, accountants) claimed that there was no discrepancy between current MAS and LM, but MAS should be altered that it would better adjust to the support of continuous improvement initiatives. The research helped to identify that MAS in the organization is loosely coupled. Such functioning of MAS is consistent with Lukka (2007) who proves that loosely coupled MAS responds better to the challenges posed by MA and facilitates the functioning of an organization in a change/stability situation   .

KEYWORDS: management accounting system, case study, lean management, lean accounting, Poland.

JEL classification: M41, M00.