The Importance of Management Accounting in Supply Chain Management – Theoretical Framework and Implementation Opportunities

Abstract

Environmental, social and corporate responsibility are concepts that have received significant attention over the past three decades by researchers and practitioners. The globalized, digitized and changing business environment encourages both the private and public sector to focus on supply chains (SC) and supply chain management (SCM) in the context of sustainable and responsible business. The role of accounting, especially management accounting (MA), in considering this problem is unavoidable. Costing, planning, control techniques and tools have mostly paid attention to supply chain management but have proven to be incomplete. The need to extend cost accounting through the value chain beyond the observed organization and connect it with the organization's suppliers and customers indicates that traditional management accounting must evolve. The subject of the paper are new techniques of modern management accounting in the service of SCM, their theoretical postulates as well as possibilities for practical application. Special attention is paid to the possibility to develop MA techniques and tools that will be useful to non-accountants who most often, in practice, deal with SCM issues. The aim of the paper is to point out the connection between MA and SC through consideration of internal and external supply chain activities, but also research on the connection of SC with costs, performance, lean production and global effectiveness and flexibility of the organization. The intention of the work is to point out the possibilities of practical implementation with a special emphasis on good practices of improving SC and SCM through MA techniques.