Management and Accounting Practices in the U.S. and Japan: Comparative Survey Findings and Research Implications

In recent years, the success of Japanese firms in the global market has prompted effortsto understand the sources of their competitive advantage. It has been suggested that onesuch source is the Japanese firms' management accounting systems, and a number ofarticles have claimed that important differences do exist between U.S. and Japanese firmsin this area. However, the claims have tended to be supported by anecdotal rather thansystematic, evidence. The objective of this article is to contribute further insights intosimilarities and differences between U.S. and Japanese firms' management accountingpractice. Exhaustive search of published surveys in the U.S. and Japanese literatures(much of which is in Japanese) provided the basis for U.S. - Japan comparisons on sixaspects of management accounting practices. In turn, these comparisons were used forderiving implications for future research. Two major limitations of extant research and,thus, directions for future research are identified. First, future research needs to go beyondthe simple use or non-use of techniques to investigate more detailed aspects of techniqueuse. Second, since management accounting is only one component of a firm's totalmanagement system, attention also needs to be devoted to the organization's context,process, and goals of a firm's management accoutning practices.