The conceptual framework of the IMA focused on managerial costing. This starting point leads to view that cost information is divisible. One can look at the costs for the management of resources and for this the causal relationship is paramount and the use of truth correspondence is justified.
But how can we imagine information on costs without worrying about the influence of this information on the behavior of the actors concerned?
How does this information fit into thinking and decisions about the relationship to the environment?
We can of course imagine, and new technologies push us there, to develop 3 cost systems. But can we imagine that these systems are independent?
A salesperson relying on his cost system finds that his offer does not pass. What will he do? Ask that we act on resources so that it can present a competitive price. What resources need to be acted upon? Its model says nothing about it, it is necessary to refer to model No. 1 (resources management). But the latter is helpless because it knows nothing about the value that the customer expects!
To hope for a solution, it is necessary that those responsible for the two cost systems consult each other in the hope that their choice does not conflict with the third system, which is used to guide behavior.
All surveys since Church in the 1910s show that the first use of costs is dialogue with the environment (negotiation of the price of the offer), so it is this objective that must structure the design of cost systems. As the offer cannot exist without meeting the value expected by customers, it is fundamental that the cost system informs about the cost of production of the different value attributes of the offer. Unfortunately, these attributes are rarely discretionary. Many of them are joint costs (branding, shared components for example) It follows that any attempt to determine a true cost is doomed to failure “If large and vertically integrated or multidivisional enterprises are to remain successful in the future they will need to examine whether their management accounting system can provide relevant signals on their competitive position in the market place”( H.T Johnson and R.S.Kaplan, Relevance Lost ; p206)..
It therefore seems illusory to propose a conceptual framework focused solely on the management of internal resources. The management of resources is inseparable from the management of the value sought and as such it is much more a matter of truth consensus than of truth correspondence.
Pierre ... I appreciate your comments. My two observations are:
.. 1 .. I might be disagreeing with you, but it is acceptable to calculate two or more types of costs. (e.g., "process view" lean accounting value stream cost; and "assignment and tracing activity-based costing [ABC] .
.. 2 .. My simple definition for the purpose of management accounting is this: "To provide insights to generate needed questions". Regrettably, traditional costing (e.g., "butter spreading of indirect expenses ... overhead) fails to do this well.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.