• Value creation
• Management accounting
• New Product Development
• PARSIFAL project
• Air transportation industry
• Pragmatic Constructivism

It is from the virtuous and dynamic combination of value creation and competitive advantage that business organisations can aspire to thrive in the long-term. As a particular manifestation of the wider innovation event, new product development is a pivotal source of competitive advantage and value creation. The process through which an idea is transformed into a product ready to be delivered on to the market is therefore one possible course to sustained profitability. Such a process can find its humus in several contexts. The European Union is the fertile ground on which the new product development phenomenon explored in this thesis originated from.

Interventionist in nature, this PhD investigation presents a case of management accounting practice and management accounting research in the fuzzy front-end phase of new product development. It was born in the frame of the PARSIFAL project, an engineer-led research project funded by the European Union under the programme Horizon 2020 whose aim was to pave the way for the improvement of the civil air transportation of the future by designing an innovative box-wing aircraft called "PrandtlPlane" and evaluating the possibility and the impacts of its introduction into service.

The study develops on two complementary levels and, accordingly, the output of this thesis is twofold. On the one hand, this study presents a work of applied research in the air transportation industry. It analyses the value creation potential of the PrandtlPlane concept displaying the construction, development and application of management accounting practices in an extremely uncertain environment of very early phases of new product development. By means of a value creation assessment methodology developed in this thesis and effective in such an environment, the PrandtlPlane is examined and assessed from the standpoint of manufacturers, airports and airlines. Findings show the higher value creation potential of the PrandtlPlane concept relative to its competitor aircraft, recognising therefore the PrandtlPlane as a new potential source of value creation for the key industrial players operating in the air transportation industry.

On the other hand, using the three-year intervention in the PARSIFAL project as case study, this manuscript presents a post-intervention analysis and theorisation of the management accounting phenomenon in the setting of an "academic-based new product development research project". Using the theoretical lens of pragmatic constructivism and drawing on the philosophy of language games, this post-intervention effort examines the interventionist process the researcher went through in the field of the PARSIFAL project with the aim of exploring, understanding and theorising about management accounting in the organisational framework of an academic-based new product development research project. Findings offer insights into the two symbiotic aspects constituting the management accounting phenomenon and, in general, all business organisations. On the technical side, findings offer insights into management accounting practice design and construction. On the social side, findings offer insights into the social processes underlying and enabling that construction in the multidisciplinary context of practice of an academic-based NPD research project.