Opening the "black box" of strategy: the role of management accounting systems

This paper aims to explore the relationship between management accounting systems and strategy. In particular, it is focused on the contribution that management accounting systems, and the information they provide, can give to the crafting of strategy. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on the strategizing process by showing how it can be favoured by the implementation and interactive use of management accounting tools. The analysis is carried out through an interventionist case study of a medium-sized Italian company that has recently implemented a customer profitability analysis system. Thanks to this tool, in fact, the company was involved in a deep strategic dialogue that led to the review of its commercial strategy in action. This paper contributes to the current research on strategy and management accounting systems by studying the role that the latter can play with regard to the former, rather than adopting a contingent approach. At the same time, it also has practical implications since it provides empirical evidence on the positive effects that the implementation of a new management accounting tool can have on strategy sharing and crafting.