Management accounting implementation in SMEs: a structured literature review

This paper aims to provide a state of the art of the current scientific literature on management accounting implementation phase in SMEs, whose economic impact in terms of GDP production and employment is recognized at worldwide level. Per- forming a structured literature review on the top journals’ publications related to four different scientific fields covering the period 2005-2021, we found 88 papers focus- ing on the topic. Findings reveal that the theoretical contribution on management accounting implementation in SMEs has registered a decreasing trend of publica- tions and presents a very fragmented picture of approaches and scientific perspec- tives. In such conditions, over the last fifteen years the structural gap between theory and practice in the implementation of management accounting in SMEs appears to be widened rather than narrowed, leaving the smaller companies without effective academic support and propositions to face the new evolutionary challenges for the management control.