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After fifteen years of use by U.S. Federal government agencies, purchase cards are still caught in a debate between the drive to improve governmental efficiency and the need to prudently manage and control spending of taxpayer resources. This paper gives decision makers facts by which to evaluate the purchase card experience to date by providing a brief history of legislative actions related to purchase cards, analyzing patterns of purchase card spending by Federal government agencies, estimating the potential size of the purchase card program, and identifying the costs and benefits of shifting low-value transactions to the purchase card. The paper concludes with recommendations for government action.

Internal control mechanisms are fundamental to organizational governance; particularly, to the agency relationship associated with decentralization of decision rights. Management accounting and organizational literatures provide conflicting predictions on the association between decentralization and internal controls, with some research arguing that internal controls be tightened to mitigate the risks associated with greater decentralization of decision rights while other work avers that tighter internal controls defeat the purposes of decentralization. In this chapter, we argue that managers choose these two organizational design variables jointly. Capitalizing on a unique database of control practices in the purchasing and payment process within the procurement function, this chapter examines the relationship between control tightness – a critical characteristic of internal controls – and decentralization. Using a simultaneous equation model, the study finds that decentralization and internal control design are endogenously determined. Tight control is negatively associated with the level of decentralization, while decentralization has a positive effect on the tightness of control. These results reconcile the apparently contradictory results relating these two variables. The chapter also finds that decentralization and tight control mechanisms operate both independently and synergistically to improve performance.

The motive to manage impressions has been broken down into protective and acquisitive orientations. A protective orientation exists when an individual is concerned primarily with encountering disapproval, rather than approval, from the relevant audience. An acquisitive orientation exists when an individual is concerned primarily with obtaining approval from the audience. This study tests the proposition that organizational managers have primarily an acquisitive orientation. The affective sentiments of 95 international middle‐ and upper‐level business managers toward their organization, its leaders, and its business control mechanisms were compared with their perceptions of the acquisitiveness and protectiveness of their work environment. The results indicate that affective sentiments of managers are correlated with the acquisitiveness, but not the protectiveness, of the work environment, supporting the notion that managers have primarily an acquisitive orientation.

Aims to review accounting practice with regard to the calculation and attribution of technology costs (i.e. depreciation) to products, to evaluate the impact of expected depreciation charges on FCIM system investment, and to propose an alternative depreciation method that is congruent with FCIM resource consumption patterns and better enables rational managerial analysis of the FCIM system investment decision.

Reviews and extends existing models to propose a new model of cost accounting for rational FCIM investment analysis.

The proposed model better enables rational analysis of FCIM system investment options, resulting in a more accurate prediction of income and product line profitability attributable to FCIM system investment.

The logic embodied in this paper should be employed to further the development of more refined models of technology cost attribution. Simulations of machine use and maintenance by engineers, analogous to that presented in this paper, could provide a useful estimate of FCIM system exhaustion.

As manufacturers continue to increase their level of automation, the issue of how to allocate machinery costs to products becomes increasingly important to product profitability. If machine costs are allocated to products on a basis that is incongruent with the realities of machine use, then income and product profitability will be distorted. Adding complexity to the dilemma of identifying an appropriate method of allocating machine costs to products is the changing nature of machinery itself. Depreciation concepts were formulated in days when a machine typically automated a single operation on a product. Today’s collections of computer numerically controlled machines can perform a wide variety of operations on products. Different products utilize different machine capabilities which, depending on the function used, put greater or less wear and tear on the equipment. This paper presents a mini-case that requires management accountants to consider alternative machine cost allocation methods. The implementation of an activity-based method allows managers to better match machine cost consumption to products. Better matching of machine costs to products enables better strategic decisions about pricing, mix, customer retention, capacity utilization, and equipment acquisition.

This paper analyzes citations from the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using Google Scholar in April and May, 2013.

This study assesses the success of the first 20 volumes of Advances in Management Accounting using citation analysis. Four citation metrics are used. The four citation metrics are: (1) total citations since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (2) citations per author since year of publication until April and May, 2013, (3) citations per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013, and (4) citations per author per year since year of publication until April and May, 2013.

The top 20 authors for each citation metric, the top 20 faculties for each citation metric, and the top 20 doctoral programs for each citation metric are determined. Furthermore, the top 20 articles are determined using two citation metrics and the H-index for Advances in Management Accounting is computed.

Potential doctoral students, current doctoral students, “new” Ph.D.s with an interest in management accounting, current management accounting faculty, department chairs, deans, other administrators, journal editors, and journal publishers will find these results informative.