Strategic Management Accounting – a Messiah for Management Accounting?

When management accounting was introduced as an advanced version of cost accounting after second world war its early advocates had claimed that it would make accounting more useful in assisting managers in their decision making function. As the discipline has failed to live up to the promise now strategic management accounting has been presented as a messiah for the discipline of accounting. New promises have been made that while the traditional management accounting failed to make use of strategic thinking and other qualitative aspects of management the new discipline is likely to make accounting more relevant and important for managers. The empirical evidence on successful diffusion of strategic management accounting is still not overwhelming. It is therefore yet to be seen if strategic management accounting can live up to its promise in future or not.