Supervisors: Morten Jakobsen & Markus Brunner
Discussants: Claus Holm & Ann-Kristina Løkke Møller

Abstract
Innovation is a source of competitive advantage for many organisations, as this increases efficiency and adaptability to ever-changing consumer demands. However, organisations are facing difficulties in obtaining and creating information about the economic consequences surrounding their innovative products and aligning their strategy to make management decisions for innovative products, especially in the early phases of product development. Organisations need to rethink management accounting techniques and processes to support new ideas, manage uncertainty, and become more cost efficient by choosing profitable products in the early phases.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how management accounting techniques can support the innovation practice i.e. developing, conceptualising, and materialising ideas, managing processes, supporting management decisions, and aligning strategic goals to realise the potential of new products. In an innovation environment the role of management accounting is more about supporting ideas, and visualising economic consequences of these ideas, and less about control, and making decision makers responsible for their actions. Rigid management accounting techniques are inadequate for an agile world as they tend to focus on control, rather than investigating possibilities that appear during innovative practices. Management accounting techniques can be utilised to improve coordination and collaboration between the R&D team and stakeholders. Additionally, the management accountant can act as a business partner by bridging the strategic goals with operational actions, providing support in creating business-oriented solutions, detailed foundations for decision making, and action-oriented execution and managing these decisions.

Everyone is welcome!