Danish Management Accounting Frameworks - a SWOT Analysis and an Activity Based Costing Comparison

The theoretical management accounting tradition in Denmark has a long history of focusing on development of data registration frameworks as a basis for aggregation and use of financial and non-financial data for different strategic, tactical and operational decisions and control purposes. The present paper terms this tradition "basic registration frameworks" (BRFs) and accounts for the roots and characteristics of two of these frameworks in terms of their purpose, content and method using the "unbundling model" developed by Bjørnenak and Olson (1999). This allows for an analysis of the two and in addition a SWOT-like assessment of this tradition vis-à-vis the management accounting research community and practice. An alternative approach in designing management accounting systems is represented by Activity Based Costing (ABC). An unbundling of the nowadays multifaceted ABC brings forward similarities to and differences from the Danish frameworks and provides a platform for discussing how the different approaches can benefit from one another. In this respect, the present paper concludes that the mindset in constructing management accounting systems will be improved in seeing the alternative frameworks as different levels of data aggregation ranging from disaggregated "purpose neutral" to "multiple task specific calculations", and that this mindset is needed when constructing management accounting systems in an ERP environment.