The call for greater integration between management accounting and marketing is a relatively new phenomenon. In recent years some authors have begun to address the issue of the interface between management accounting and marketing with reference to both the management accounting literature and the marketing literature (Glaves et al. 2007, Wilson and Gilligan 2005, Roslender and Hart 2003, Roslender and Hart 2002). The implicit recognition of the importance of the specialized information provided by management accounting systems (MAS) is closely linked to the nature and purposes of such systems. The purpose of MAS is to provide information that can assist the decision-making processes of key figures within the organization (Abernethy and Bouwens 2000, Arnold and Hope 1983). For this reason, the MAS must be able to provide information tailored to the specific information needs of each user if it wishes to fulfill its primary role (Atkinson et al. 2007). This involves an endless process of adapting and changing the MAS based on changes in market conditions and related information needs (Hopwood 1987). In light of these considerations, it is relatively easy to understand why, in recent years, the interface between management accounting and marketing has attracted the attention of scholars. Marketing is the response to the significant changes that markets have faced since the 1970s. Its development has led to new information needs and new key figures in the organizational structures of many organizations. The transition from a "production-oriented" approach to a "marketing-oriented" one (Kotler 2006) is evidence of new critical variables, previously not really taken into consideration. The considerable attention paid to the relationships with the individual clusters of...... middle of paper ......of a shift of critical information from an “internal orientation” to an “external orientation”. Kaplan and Jhonson already underlined the inadequacy of traditional cost accounting systems in 1987; they argued that cost accounting systems were too focused on providing internally oriented and, in particular, “production-oriented” information, underlining the call for a change towards broader, longer-term information. The consideration of marketing costs and their relevance is clear when the Authors suggest contemplating their impact to determine more realistic production costs. But, even in this case, the MAS forecast for the marketing area is not explicitly taken into consideration, because this was not the authors' objective. Their intent was to highlight some limitations of traditional cost accounting systems driven by changing market environments.