SUPERIOR PROGRESS AND CHALLENGES IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING TEACHING IN COLOMBIA: FROM A MSMES AND HIGHER EDUCATION PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to present the level of development which the Management Accounting in Colombia is. To do so, two studies were conducted: one from the business perspective and another from the academy perspective. In the business perspective 270 managers of enterprises MSMEs located in Cali - Colombia were interviewed and in the academy perspective eight accounting programs were chosen, which fulfilled the following conditions: they were in the list of the 36 universities with the best ECAES of 2008 and were accredited at the time of the investigation. The results allowed to conclude that Management Accounting is not as important as the Financial Accounting in Colombia once managers use for decision making purposes the information reflected in traditional financial reports whereas the management tools are little used and known by those managers. Similarly, the non-financial indicators used for decision-making are limited to the observations and interpretation of non-financial indexes that measures clients' satisfaction. On the other hand, in the academic perspective it was noted that Management Accounting offered in accounting programs covers Traditional Cost Accounting and Budgeting Analysis and elaboration.