The main purpose of this paper is to explore the conceptual structure of strategic management accounting(SMA) research over the past 40 years to reveal and synthesize research trends in the field. To achieve thisgoal, we applied a bibliometric approach to analyze 326 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from Scopus andWeb of Science databases. We conducted a co-word analysis using the VOSviewer software. The bibliomet-ric analysis reveals the main outlets that published articles on SMA, and the most prolific authors and citedarticles. Our findings reveal four main research streams in this field as follows: (i) SMA as a source of com-petitive advantage, (ii) strategic performance measurement systems, (iii) the SMA adoption and contextof use, and (iv) the role of SMA in the strategic management process. For each research stream, we sys-tematize some research themes. Additionally, our findings highlight potential emerging topics, such as therole of SMA in the integration of sustainability within companies strategy; and new settings of study, whichrepresent opportunities for further research. Thus, this paper intends to support researchers in positioningtheir future research efforts.
