Cechy współczesnych badań i teorii w dziedzinie rachunkowości zarządczej

This article examines the characteristics and research problems that are currently most prominent in management accounting as a subdiscipline of social sciences. The author defines the objective of management accounting research, identifies the role and forms of empirical studies, and presents the nature and types of management accounting theories. The article, based on domestic and foreign literature studies carried out by the author, pro- vides arguments supporting the following theses: 1) at the present stage of development, management accounting research is much more oriented to accounting practice than it was before; 2) the practical orientation of management accounting should not lead to domination of publications descriptive in character, i.e. only describing the existing management accounting practices; 3) normative theories of management accounting should underlie management accounting systems design so as to take into account the broad and changing context of their functioning. The text is organized into four main parts: - management accounting as an applied science; - the role of management accounting; - management accounting theories in the light of the nature and types of theory; - towards improvement of management accounting theory.