Greeting from the Chair of the
Board of Directors
Welcome, and thank you for joining the APMAA community! This
year, the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA)
holds its 14th Annual Conference (APMAA 2018) at Waseda
University, Japan from October 29th (Monday) –
November 1st (Thursday). With the theme of “The
Forefront of Management Accounting: Research and Practices,”
APMAA 2018 attracted 130 research papers (114 parallel
session papers, 4 special session papers and 12 doctoral
colloquium papers). It is my pleasure to report that we
received many quality papers.
APMAA was founded in 2004 and, today, has grown into one of
the world’s leading associations of scholars and specialists
in the field of management accounting. We hold annual
conferences every year in Asian countries and provide our
members and friends the opportunity to present their
research in a warm and friendly atmosphere. The main goal of
our conferences is to bring together researchers and
practitioners to exchange theories, ideas, techniques and
experiences relating to all aspects of management and
business accounting.
At APMAA 2018, we will hold a special forum entitled
“Management Accounting Research and Education in Asia Top
Accounting Schools.” At the session, panelists will present
the status and future developments in research and doctoral
education at leading universities in Asia. The doctoral
seminar this year is “How to go through an Accounting
Doctoral Program: Tips from Supervisors.” Seminar panelists
are incumbent supervisors who are tackling issues and
problems that doctoral students face. In addition, we will
hold the CFO Symposium by inviting top management of leading
companies in Japan. I am confident that the 2018 annual
conference will provide you a very good opportunity to
interact face-to-face with colleagues from all over the
world.
In the next three years APMAA will hold its annual
conferences in Doha (2019), Kuala Lumpur (2020) and Jakarta
(2021).
To improve future conference quality, we
are
developing guidelines for
authors and reviewers, in addition to the
“Guidelines for Moderators, Discussants and Presenters.”
The program development process in APMAA includes a variety
of time-consuming tasks such as first reviewing, requesting
rewrites, reviewing revised papers and notifying people of
“Accept” Decisions, requesting camera-ready copies and
registrations, finishing the assignment of discussants and
session moderators. During the conference this year, we will
hold the 2019, 2020 and 2021 conference organizers’ meeting
and the conference paper reviewers’ meeting. Deliberations
at these meetings will provide some solutions to APMAA for
tackling sustainable growth.
In the past year, the conference organizing team members and
APMAA directors have poured their passion and tremendous
energy to lead APMAA 2018 to a success. On behalf of APMAA,
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the
dedication of each of them in making this conference unique
and attractive. My special thanks go to Professor Masao
Tsuji, 2018 Conference Chair, Professor Tomoki Oshika and
Professor Masaaki Aoki, Co-Chairs of APMAA 2018, and
Professor Shoichro Hosomi, Chair of the 2018 Doctoral
Colloquium. I also know well that all of you spent great
amount of time and energy to make this conference a complete
success. Thank you all.
APMAA 2018 received donations and much support from a
variety of organizations. The donations and support are
highly important and valuable to us. I express sincere
thanks to each of the sponsoring organizations.
There is no doubt that the 14th annual conference will be
one of the most fascinating and impressive meetings in
APMAA’s history because of your participation. You are the
key players of APMAA 2018. Thank you again for your
commitment and participation. I am sure all of us will enjoy
this conference and find the 2018 Program exciting and
meaningful.
October 29, 2018
Susumu Ueno,Chair of the APMAA Board of Directors
http://apmaa.org/APMAA/
http://s-ueno.sakura.ne.jp/APMAA_asia/
http://www.dab.hi-ho.ne.jp/s-ueno/APMAA_asia/
Greeting from the APMAA 2018
Conference Chair
On behalf of the APMAA 2018 conference committee, We are
honored that the 2018 APMAA conference is held at Waseda
University in Tokyo. We welcome participants from all over
the world. In order to make this conference materially
significant, under the guidance of Prof. Ueno, the Chair of
the Board of Directors, our team here at Waseda University
has cooperated with Prof. Aoki, the Chair of the Parallel
Sessions, Prof. Hosomi the Chair of the Doctoral Colloquium,
and Prof. Nakashima the Coordinator of the CEO/CFO Session.
It is wonderful that under the theme of “The Forefront of
Management Accounting: Research and Practices” we received
130papers: 114 for the Parallel Sessions, 4 for the Special
Sessions and 12 for the Doctoral Colloquium. It is worth
noting that about half of the submitted papers are from
outside of Asia. Also, I am very glad to hear from the
reviewers that the quality of the papers has gotten higher.
I hope that all of the papers will reach widespread
acceptance in management accounting research.
As you may agree, we believe that Waseda University is the
birthplace of modern management accounting in Japan.
Professor Yasubei Hasegawa of Waseda University published
Research on Budgetary Control in 1930 and Study on
Standard Costs in 1931. These monumental works were born
shortly after the publication of two world-famous books: one
was Budgetary Control by James O. McKinsey published
in 1922, and the other was Standard Costs: Installation,
Operation and Use by G. Charter Harrison published in
1930. Since then
the times have passed and the members of the current Waseda
team are second or third generation disciples after Dr.
Hasegawa raised his first generation of disciples. We regard
ourselves as following in his footsteps.
It has been argued that management accounting theories have
had a relatively limited impact on practice as the
practice-research gap exists in management accounting. How
can we close the practice-research gap so as to apply the
research outcomes to actual management situations
effectively? I think management accounting must always be
inextricably tied to the actual organizational environment
for which it is intended to work. This idea suggests that
lots more research should be made to better understand the
complexity of practice in an imperfect world. There exist
many areas for researchers to explore among the related
disciplines. I think that it is important for management
accountants to focus more on creating organizational values.
Nowadays, as a major role of management accounting, the
ability to manage organizational value is expected to be
strengthened. I believe that management accounting is
essential for developing sound corporate and business
strategy. Generally, without a sound financial strategy,
business strategies are not well implemented. In short,
business strategy and financial strategy are tightly
interlinked. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) fulfills the
role of merging corporate strategy and financial strategy.
In other words, the CFO is expected to be a bridge between
the strategic and business focus of the business division
and the financial requirements of corporations and
investors. It goes without saying that the CEO is also
responsible for the company's ordinary financial decisions
and financial reporting. I conclude that the CFO is expected
to take the lead in developing a value-creating corporate
strategy for an organization while working with the CEO and
the heads of the business units to build a value-management
capability throughout the organization.
On the other hand, observing the recent cases of fraudulent
financial reporting in the so-called prestigious companies,
I realize that the roles of a controller and an internal
auditor need to be reshaped. We should not fault them for
thinking foremost about financial reporting and regulatory
compliance. These are their traditional jobs, but their
modern functions need to tie traditional activities more
closely to the organization’s strategic objectives and
risks. That is why the committee set up the CFO / controller
session on the second day of the conference. It is very
fortunate that we have prominent speakers as top
professionals in these fields mentioned above. We will learn
about these topics at the session.
Let us proceed together on the road to make APMAA a
principal world-wide organization in management accounting.
Please join us by making sure that it is not just a dream.
Masao
Tsuji
Chair of APMAA 2018 Conference
