Despite rapid technological advancements, a fundamental question persists: How can management accounting and management accountants remain relevant to organizational leadership? As the world grows increasingly complex, the ability to understand contingencies, system characteristics, and the scale of different scenarios becomes ever more critical.
Changes in the economic and technological environment, customers’ preferences, regulation, and available resources, for example, have challenged industrial organizations during the past years. More and more research-based knowledge would be needed in order to make organizations function, gain competitive advantage, and prosper, regardless if we are talking about large companies or small or medium sized enterprises (SMEs), the high-tech industry or the basic industry, or services, the business-to-business context, or that of the consumer sector. At the same time, the value of academic knowledge has been undermined even by powerful people outside the academia, making it necessary that academics contemplate their options to influence the world outside – and make the world a better place.
In the MSAR2026, we will set an agenda for management accounting and control research to understand, extent and redefine its value. Similarly, the practitioners working in management accountant and controller positions, financial services etc., or managerial positions – whether it’s the higher echelons or managers near to operations – need to maintain their important influence in organizational strategies, practices, decisions and ultimately their outcomes.
Management accounting remains extremely relevant in manufacturing and service operations and businesses also now and in the future, with its essentials and new features. While renewing (management) accounting in manufacturing and service operations and businesses, we would need to take into consideration new requirements related to the global matters, digitalization, well-being, sustainability and other timely issues.
As way of working, MSAR2026 encourages submissions from academics and practitioners at different stages of their careers. Furthermore, submissions can be either full papers or extended abstracts, to be discussed and further developed at the conference. There are also some thematic special sessions under preparation for the conference, which we will announce later.
Indeed, we invite contributions that explore the evolving role of management accounting and control in this dynamic environment. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following thematic areas:
1. Revisiting the Foundations of Management Accounting and Control
- Re-examining the premise that cost and management accounting always operate within a qualitative business context.
- Emphasizing the inherently interdisciplinary nature of MA and MC, and the necessity of integrating insights from other fields.
- Reflecting on the role of humans in accounting systems and the enduring importance of professional judgment.
2. Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence, and the “Post-Analytics” Era
- Exploring the implications of AI performing the analytical heavy lifting in decision-making processes.
- Addressing the need for continuous zoom-out perspectives to navigate interdisciplinary decision contexts.
- Investigating how ongoing digital transformation challenges foundational concepts such as uncertainty and instability.
- Rethinking research methodologies in light of AI, including the use of synthetic data, field experiments, and ethnographic approaches to digitalized operations.
3. Human Judgment and Accountability in the Age of AI
- Considering new ontological perspectives on the digital world and the evolving place of MA and MC within it.
- Questioning the validity and reliability of AI-generated outputs, even when trained on high-quality data.
- Highlighting the necessity of human oversight and professional assessment in interpreting AI-generated accounts.
- Comparing traditional accounting numbers with AI-generated outputs from both research and practitioner perspectives.
- Developing qualitative and field-based methods further to understand how professionals interact with AI in practice.
4. Sustainability, Ethics, and the Role of Management Accounting
- Integrating sustainability, ESG, biodiversity, and circularity into the core of management accounting practices.
- Reflecting on the ethical dimensions of changes in the operational environment (such as digital transformation, politics and regulation, environmental concerns) in accounting.
- Reassessing the role of humans in MA in light of environmental and social challenges.
- Interpreting “revisiting the foundations of MA” as a call to redefine the human role in accounting within new technological and ecological contexts.
5. Transformation and Innovation in MA&MC Systems and Practices
- Exploring interdisciplinary approaches to system development and information use.
- Embracing value-driven development and innovation at multiple organizational levels.
- Investigating how new technologies and organizational forms (e.g., multi-locational work, platform economies) reshape accounting practices.
- Analyzing the transformative impact of AI on MA systems, including design, relevance, and validity – as well as on more informal practices, local actions and perhaps less/more centralized power structures.
6. Emerging Business Models and Performance Paradigms
- Understanding the implications of the service economy, platform-based business models, and B2B value creation.
- Examining value chains, sourcing, and cost drivers in complex manufacturing and service networks.
- Investigating new approaches to performance management, productivity, and employee wellbeing.
We encourage submissions from early career researchers. Also working paper submissions are highly welcome to be discussed in the conference.