The Impact of Management Accounting on the Improvement of Human Resources Management. An Italian Case Study in the IT Sector

Since economy is facing a new era, slightly and increasingly shifting form the industrial period to the service one, also the scientific world is changing to face the new information and managerial requirements. Human resources (HR) and intangible factors represent ones of the most important factors, but it is quite difficult to evaluate if the company is employing them in the best way to guarantee the company to generate value in the short, but also in the middle and long terms. It traditional industrial companies are more focused on the measurable productivity and effectiveness of the work of the HR, traditional tools and framework could face some difficulties in the application in this changed context. This paper after summarizing the recent traditional theoretical frameworks, their evolution and the connected changes in the management accounting and management control systems, analyzes a case study of a successful Italian Small and Middle Entity (SME) operating in the Information Technology sector (IT) recently introducing formal instruments for helping the company in guaranteeing both short term economic results and long term performance and innovation by the means of effective and useful R&D investments. The paper finds that even ‘old traditional tools’ of management accounting and managerial accounting can be extremely useful, if adapted, to optimize and rationalize the use of human resources. They can in fact provide useful information for the distribution of the working load, for the process analysis and to define the productivity of the worked hour. Management accounting can supply information useful to address the activity of the Sales area, helping it in its pricing activity, but also in identifying which human resources are underemployed and, as a consequence, available for working in new tasks. It also supplies some useful insights to better manage and quantify resources and costs connected to R&D projects.