Identifying a Common Body of Knowledge for Management Accounting.

A hallmark of any profession is the presence of a common body of knowledge (CBK) whose parts can be defined and defended. The CBK determines the professional requirements of the beginning management accountant, the content of professional examinations, and the curricula that provide that knowledge. Using Flanagan's Critical Incident Technique, interviews were held with 41 management accountants from 11 Fortune 100 firms. The results of the interviews helped form a questionnaire to establish the content of a CBK for management accounting. Based upon responses to questionnaires, a CBK was identified and validated. This CBK consists of 13 management accounting objectives and 168 specific knowledge items. We compared the results of our study with those of similar studies to help validate the CBK.