Management accounting and performance measures in Japanese banks

Traditional management accounting (MA) has certain limitations, and this highlights the need to examine the nature of costmanagement practices. The implications of nonfinancial success factors are emerging in highly competitive financial industries. These receive more emphasis in service organisations that achieve the benefits of performance measurement. Although much is written on the need for accurate performance measures, comparatively little is known about the role of MA in measuring nonfinancial performance (NFP). With a view to the implications of MA systems and the measurement of the performance of critical success factors in financial industries, this paper studies the role of MA in NFP in Japanese financial institutions.