Implementing lean accounting principles to design and improve accounting processes – a case study from a Shared Service Centre

Abstract

Developments which changed the economic environment, and the measures firms adopted to deal with them, have contributed since the late 1980s to the dynamic development and wide use of the Lean Management concept (LM). The LM concept is increasingly used not only in particular fields of activity, but also in appropriate areas of the value chain (primary as well as support processes). A review of the literature and cases studies shows practical benefits that a company may derive from making its primary functions lean. Theoretical assumptions and the empirical data also indicate that in order to produce positive and sustainable effects, the lean concept must be used consistently and systematically over a long period across the company's management system, rather than applied to the primary processes alone. The authors of this article decided to analyse how lean management tools and methods can be employed to redesign and improve accounting processes and to identify the benefits that customers and companies can have by using lean accounting processes. Therefore, the article indirectly aims to fill the research gap in this area. The article is based on a case study involving a shared-service centre (accounting services) run by an international concern, X. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]