develop your understanding of the purpose and use of Management Accounting Systems (MAS) and its usefulness in aiding managers make informed decisions. You are to critically evaluate the literature (using journal articles) to analyse the practical use of MAS by contemporary companies, in terms of their relevance to the real-life companies' decision-making by managers and achievement of business goals.

You are required to conduct a literature search and critically review a specific MAS in this assignment.

Part A

Choose ONE of the MAS studied in this unit from the list below, and answer the questions that follow:

Budgeting System

OR

Standard Costing System

Questions:

1. Briefly discuss the features of your chosen MAS. (3 marks)

2. Discuss the potential benefits of your chosen MAS. (3 marks)

3. List 4 specific examples of the type of information your chosen MAS can provide to assist managers make decisions. (2 marks)

4. Identify 1 specific Australian organisation that your chosen MAS is suited for and explain why. (3 marks)

Part B

Choose one peer reviewed journal article (from any country) on the: Use of your chosen MAS in a real-life organisation (i.e. a case-based empirical study). The article should be published between 2000 - 2020. Choose your article only after you have accessed and reviewed several relevant articles, and then choose the best article that will answer the questions below.

Questions:

1. Based on your chosen journal article, briefly summarise how the MAS was designed and implemented in the real-life organisation. (4 marks)

2. Based on your chosen journal article, did the MAS in the study satisfy the features discussed in Part A (Q1 and Q2)? Why or why not? Include examples in your answer from your journal article. (4 marks)

3. Based on your chosen journal article, how useful was the accounting information to the internal users in the organisation? Discuss with examples from your journal article. (4 marks)

4. Based on your literature findings, state two key lessons that would inform contemporary organisations about the practical use of your chosen MAS. (4 marks)

Additional information:

Accounting Journals:

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal;

Journal of Management Accounting Research

Journal of Applied Management Accounting Research