6 January 2017
In the face of increasing uncertainty, it’s time management accounting and reporting systems were rethought to ensure figures help to raise the right questions about what cannot be measured, according to a new report.
Authored by Professor Paolo Quattrone and colleagues for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), it argues reporting practices must move from simple ‘answer machines’ to become ‘maieutic’ machines capable of interrogating unknowns to improve decision making.
Based on in-depth research among global organisations from 2012 to 2014, ‘Dealing with the unknown: Leading in uncertain times by rethinking the design of management accounting and reporting systems’ also sets out key recommendations to help organisations build on the inherent ambiguity of numbers to create and mediate fruitful tensions between stakeholders.