MACMILLAN The Changing Role of the Management Accountants: Becoming a Business Partner

This book presents a comprehensive and holistic study on being a financial practitioner today. Using a practice theory approach, the book analyzes the work life stories of four financial practitioners who have been working between 13 and 25 years during the period of 1973 to 2015 and explains how their work identities are constituted in the practices throughout the years. It clarifies the public image of the management accountants and provides a better understanding of today’s management accountants―who they are and how they are formed―while theorizing on how to develop the next generation. Review “This text is a most welcome addition to the management accounting research and practice community’s dialogue. Today large numbers of management accountants occupy business partnering, leadership and advisory roles. Through an illuminating theoretical analysis, this book penetrates this phenomenon, presenting engaging individual case studies that trace the lifetime pathways of management accountants in these roles.” (Lee D. Parker, RMIT Distinguished Professor, RMIT University, Australia; Research Professor in Accounting, The University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK; Editor, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal) “Over the last years, the business partner role has evolved into the dominant role script and aspirational identity for the management accounting occupation. In order to support management accountants on this professional journey, contemporary organizations need to understand the challenges they face. The present book provides relevant and novel insights into how management accountants can become business partners. It also provides the reader with interesting ideas on how CFOs or senior accountants, HR and operational managers can support management accountants in this ‘self-orienting process.’ Drawing on an autobiographical approach, the book highlights that the journey towards becoming a business partner is highly context-dependent and introduces a Business Partner Developing Model that can be used to describe and understand individual situations and respective career strategies for management accountants. I recommend this book for both junior and senior management accountants as well as students and researchers interested in the occupation.” (Lukas Goretzki, Associate Professor in Management Accounting & Control, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden; Co-Editor, Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management) From the Back Cover This book presents a comprehensive and holistic study on being a financial practitioner today. Using a practice theory approach, the book analyzes the work life stories of four financial practitioners who have been working between 13 and 25 years during the period of 1973 to 2015 and explains how their work identities are constituted in the practices throughout the years. It clarifies the public image of the management accountants and provides a better understanding of today’s management accountants―who they are and how they are formed―while theorizing on how to develop the next generation. About the Author Panida Chotiyanon is a finance lecturer at Thammasat University, Thailand. She is a former CFO and a veteran finance practitioner with expertise in management accounting and control practice in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, steel, and fast-moving consumer goods industries. Her research interests include management accountants, management accounting practice, corporate finance careers, and practice theory. Vassili Joannidès de Lautour is an Associate Professor of Management Control at Grenoble École de Management, France and Queensland University of Technology, Australia. His research interests concern the religious foundations of contemporary accounting technologies and practices. Vassili is also an associate editor of the Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change and a board member of numerous other journals.