The book is designed to provide a conceptual framework for management accounting. Riahi-Belkaoui asserts that the management accounting professional needs a grounding in various disciplines and justifies the adaptation of their techniques to managerial problem solving.

The book is designed to provide a conceptual framework for management accounting. The student as well as the practitioner in management accounting should be aware not only of the new multidisciplinary scope of the field but also of the conceptual foundations which justify this extended scope. Unlike most management accounting books which do not introduce or integrate all these foundations and are generally restricted to an exposition of cost accounting techniques, this book both asserts that the management accounting professional needs a grounding in various disciplines and justifies the adaptation of their techniques to managerial problem solving.

Five conceptual foundations envisioned for management accounting are presented: accounting foundations, decisional foundations, organizational foundations, behavioral foundations, and strategic foundations. A recurrent theme in each of these chapters is that a failure to grasp any of these conceptual foundations of management accounting may result in deficiencies in the management accounting system and inadequacies in the provision of the diverse services required by both the small and the complex organizations of today.