The Changing Role of the Management Accountant in the UK - an Institutional Logics Perspective

Abstract

This study explores the changing role of the management accountant in the UK in the post-financial crisis period. There is little consensus arising from the existing academic research in this area in so far as various terminology has been used to describe the role of the management accountant, including the terms bean counter, business partner, number cruncher, hybrid accountant, business advocate and polymath. Implicit to the role change terminology discussion is the continuing debate around the impact of changes in IT, digitalisation and increasing automation on the role of the management accountant.
The approach adopted for this study is qualitative, drawing upon the institutional logics framework. The focus for this study is the individual actors rather than structures. The study is based upon interviews that took place with 17 CIMA accountants in 2021 and 2022. Secondary data evaluates changes in the CIMA professional accounting syllabi since the late 1980s onwards.
Findings indicate that the pace of change has been exponential rather than incremental in terms of the impact of changing technology. The relationship between IT and accounting is getting closer. Technology-related skills seem to be changing much more rapidly than core accounting and finance skills. The secondary data shows that IT skills have steadily been permutated through the CIMA professional accounting syllabus.
Bean counting tasks have not gone away but they are increasingly being automated. Business partnering is the way ahead, although a layering of roles seems to be the best way to describe the change. This study offers valuable and original insight into the changing role of the management accountant in the UK, finding that technology is the key driver of change.

Date of Award	1 May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Neil Marriott (Supervisor) & Martin Broad (Supervisor)