Adhocracy and Strategic Management Accounting

• In Event: Breakfast and Rountable
  In Paper Session: Table 4

Abstract

Business leaders and management teams must contend with, and compete in, an increasingly mercurial and fast moving business environment. Decisions, related to both tactical choices made on a day-to-day basis, as well as longer-term strategic planning, are dependent on the ability of the organization to react to changes in marketplace in timely manner. Adhocracy, a managerial model and leadership headset introduced in 1970s is increasingly revisited as possible solution to the following problem. Organizations, and the decisions making process must have some sort of structure, review process, and hierarchy to help ensure that the best decisions are being made, but that hierarchy cannot restrict or hinder the speed with which decisions are completed and approved. A more modular like decision making structure, oriented toward the reality of the market, appears to represent a proactive and appropriate path forward. Linking to this, strategic management accounting, representing an inclusion of management accounting professionals in the decision making process, is a logical extension and addition to this theory. Decisions require timely and accurate data, and in a world that increasingly evaluates businesses based on a wide range of performance metrics the elevation and inclusion of the accounting professionals tasked with the creation, integrity, and dissemination of such data is a straight forward step.

Author

• Sean Stein Smith, Rutgers University