This study traces the development of the management accountant (MA) role at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SIA). In 2012, the agency began a reformation by implementing the Lean management system in hopes of increasing customer trust. The results of this study show that the authority of the MA rests on decentralization and the proximity of MAs to managers, as previous research has shown, and more specifically on a definitional and a moral prerogative that may or may not be awarded to MAs enabling them to act as de facto managers. The study shows how the role of the SIA’s operative level MAs changed into a helpdesk function with the role of assisting other groups to help themselves, in this case operative-level teams that had begun performing management accounting tasks. Thus, this study bears witness not to the expansion and hybridization of existing MA roles, but to the reduction in authority and dehybridization of the MA role, from business partner to a pedagogical role on a consultative basis.

INTRODUCTION

Changes in the role of the management accountant (MA) have been attributed to globalization, shifts in technology, accounting scandals, and corporate trends (Burns & Baldvinsdottir, 2007), but the bulk of research has been oriented toward the role of reform and specific management accounting techniques in the development of the MA’s image and role (Burns & Baldvinsdottir, 2007; Byrne & Pierce, 2007; Granlund & Lukka, 1998; Järvenpää, ۲۰۰۷; Lapsley & Oldfield, 2000). For example, the introduction of activity-based accounting (Friedman & Lyne, 1997) and enterprise resource planning systems (Granlund & Malmi, 2002; Hyvönen, 2003; Rom & Rohde, 2006; Scapens & Jazayeri, 2003) were shown to influence the image and role of the MA. In the public sector, changes in the role of the MA have been primarily attributed to New Public Management (NPM) reforms and the ensuing attempts to create internal markets, elaborate performance measurement structures, and professionalized management. Consequently, the MA’s role has been shown to have developed from focusing on operational issues to a wider scope of responsibility that includes participation in decision-making (Lapsley & Oldfield, 2000; Moll & Humphrey, 2007; Nilsson, Olve, & Parment, 2011; Paulsson, 2012). Lately, in what some define as the “post-NPM” era (Christensen, 2014), newer private sector management concepts have been adopted by public sector organizations in an effort to curb the excesses and unintended consequences of earlier NPM reforms (Diefenbach, 2009). Among these concepts, Lean (Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990) in particular appears to be gaining popularity (Radnor & Boaden, 2008; Radnor & Walley, 2008). Lean differs from traditional NPM practices in some important respects. It is focused on external effectiveness and value for customers, rather than internal efficiency and value for money (Maskell, 2009). Moreover, it generally implies a focus on flows that bring business units closer together, and the reorganization of employees in charge of production into Lean teams with relatively higher degrees of autonomy (Procter & Radnor, 2014). Thus, the implementation of Lean in the public sector involves considerable changes to an organization and should presumably entail important implications for the development of the MA’s role. In effect, as Fullerton, Kennedy, and Widener (2013) show, organizations tend to simplify their internal accounting systems as the implementation of Lean progresses. Moreover, as Burns, Ezzamel, and Scapens (1999), Lapsley and Oldfield (2000), Kurunmäki (2004), Jacobs (2005), and Burns and Baldvinsdottir (2007) write, the management accounting function may be appropriated by other actors in the organization. From such a vantage point, the introduction of teams with relatively higher degrees of autonomy may then induce competition over the management accounting function from yet another group. However, there is little empirical evidence on the integration of management accounting and control practices with a Lean strategy (Fullerton et al., 2013), and to date there are no studies on the role of the MA in a Lean setting, aside from the proposition, based on a hypothetical case study, that MAs are best suited to become team leaders or key team members in such a setting (Scheidt, Thibadoux, & Rosener, 2009).