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The purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive strategic model to manage profitability. Strategic management accounting concepts and tools are adopted to explore and manage the main profitability drivers (cost, assets, and revenue).

A deductive approach is used to identify the variables of the profitability model. Phase one of this study rely on reviewing prior literature in the field in order to identify the key profitability drivers that uses in managing profitability (costs, assets and revenue).Phase two of the research focuses on testing the perceptions of the managers of Egyptian “Information and communications technology” sector, the relative merits of such a model.

The most important finding in the current study, which has not been investigated in previous studies, is that the proposed comprehensive profitability model which contains cost, the assets and revenue techniques was a better predictor of profitability than the alternative models, which contain a combination of two variables.

As the first study of its kind, this model contributes to the theoretical literature in the field. It is also a practical contribution in managing profitability of the Egyptian “Information and communications technology” sector.

The United States (US) sugar program protects domestic sugar farmers from unrestricted imports of heavily-subsidized global sugar. Sugar-using firms (SUFs) criticize that program for causing US sugar prices to be higher than world sugar prices. This study examines the financial performance of publicly traded SUFs to determine if they are performing at an economic disadvantage in terms of accounting profitability, risk and economic profitability compared to other industries.

Firm-level financial accounting and market data from 2010 to 2019 were utilized to construct financial metrics for publicly traded SUFs, agribusinesses and general US firms. These financial metrics were analyzed to determine how SUFs compare to their agribusiness peer group and general US companies. The comprehensive financial analysis in this study covers: (1) accounting profit rates, (2) drivers of profitability, (3) economic profit rates, (4) trend analysis and (5) peer comparisons. Quantile regression analysis and Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney statistics are employed for statistical comparisons.

Regarding various profitability and risk measures, SUFs outperform their agribusiness peers and the general benchmark of all US firms in terms of accounting profit rates, risk levels and economic profit rates. Furthermore, compared to other US industries using the 17 French and Fama classifications, SUFs have the highest return on investment and economic profit rate―measured by the Economic Value Added® margin―and the second-lowest opportunity cost of capital, measured by the weighted average cost of capital.

This study finds nothing to suggest that the US sugar program hinders the financial success of SUFs, contrary to recent claims by sugar-using firms. Notably in this analysis is the evaluation of economic profit rates and a series of robustness techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of organizational culture as a company migrates through a four-stage model for designing a performance measurement system (PMS) focused on customer profitability.

This is a single-site phenomenological case study, at Growth Spurt Marine Accessories (Growth Spurt), a manufacturing organization headquartered in the USA. Data were collected over a two-year period through interviews with accounting staff, internal company documents and recording observational notes.

The paper identifies three major factors that prevented Growth Spurt from transitioning its customer profitability analysis (CPA) reporting package through Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model of PMS design: executives exerting their power and spending political capital to prevent implementation without providing rationale, executives believing that the allocation methods were too subjective and executives relying on their own intuition in analyzing customer profitability rather than relying on data. These factors suggest that organizational culture plays an important role in migrating a customer-focused profitability PMS through Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model of PMS system design.

The findings suggest that a PMS focused on customer profitability that does not advance beyond Stage II (financial reporting-driven) may still suit the needs of an organization. Additionally, managers should advocate for a multidisciplinary PMS design and implementation team to minimize potentially adverse effects of organizational culture.

This paper is unique because it applies Kaplan and Cooper’s four-stage model for PMS design to CPA and it uses a phenomenological case approach to explore impediments to a comprehensive CPA implementation.

The purposes of this paper are to propose a different profitability metric (i.e. anchor category profits) at the category level based on the concept of anchor categories and to illustrate how such a metric can be calculated in field settings to offer a balanced view of profit structure from both the accounting and marketing perspectives.

First, the concept of anchor categories is developed drawing on anchor effects theory and automatic cognitive processing theory. Based on anchor categories, this paper proposes a formula for calculating anchor category profits. Using the data collected with a survey instrument, this paper calculates accounting profits and anchor category profits for two grocery stores.

The intra-store analysis of accounting profits and anchor category profits reveals that the two profit measures project different profit contribution patterns by product categories for each store. The inter-store analysis provides quite different, yet useful information about profit structures for the two grocery stores. Although the two stores are similar in terms of accounting profits, their anchor category profits show different pictures regarding profit contribution patters by product categories between the two stores, revealing that different categories attract customers to different stores.

Comparing accounting profits and anchor category profits allows retail managers to identify traffic generator categories and cash generator categories, which helps retail managers develop more effective category management to increase storewide profits.

This paper increases understanding of the relationship between product categories and store choice behavior by offering a theoretical rationale to explain why some product categories influence consumers’ store choice. This paper also proposes anchor category profits as a more implementation-friendly category-level profitability metric that combines accounting principles with consumers’ shopping trip planning behavior.

The study aims to explain the relationship between accounting and finance through measuring the effect of rational working capital management on profitability.

Employing the methodology of semi-structured interviews with sixteen financial managers.

The findings pointed out the relationship between accounting and finance is complementary, since it supports the accountant by the critical skills and information, like project evaluation, managing the company funding resources and working capital management. These skills put the accountant up to the financial manager stage. The working capital investment and financing policies have the most significant impact on profitability. These policies related to risk and return theory; since the conservative policy will reduce both the risk and return and the aggressive one will have the opposite impact.

It recommends accountants to be in professional stage and increase the profitability of the company to grab both accounting and finance information and skills.

The specific purpose of this article is to describe customer profitability analysis and evaluate its compatibility with quality management systems. Besides, its more general objective consists in shedding further light on the links between management accounting and quality management, which is still an emerging topic.

The first part of the document presents a theoretical description of the disciplines and tools that are relevant to the study. Afterward, an explanation of the way in which customer profitability analysis is operationalized in practice is provided. Subsequently, a framework for the incorporation of customer profitability analysis into a quality management system is introduced. The final section includes some recommendations for future research.

Through the analysis of the benefits of the incorporation of customer profitability analysis into an ISO 9000 model, the study provides further support to the premise that the joint consideration of management accounting techniques and quality management tools is beneficial to organizations.

The article combines two disciplines closely related in practice but seldom concurrently addressed in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to address financial decision support for marketers and provide suggestions for improvement potentials.

The context is the Norwegian furniture and fishing industries. The samples consisted of 118 respondents, 69 from the fishing industry and 49 from the furniture industry, with an average response rate of 33 per cent. Respondents reported on six groups of marketing costs, gave an overall evaluation of their existing and potential management accounting systems and of the systems' existing and potential decision support in nine marketing decision areas.

Marketing costs represented 8.9 per cent of total revenues in the fishing industry and 16.2 per cent in the furniture industry. The difference can be attributed to items that resulted in revenue reductions and promotional costs. Both industries showed significant potential for improvements in management accounting systems. Priorities regarding the nine decision support areas differed between the two industries. Additionally, priorities in the fishing industry seemed to differ regarding time horizons (short‐ versus long‐term).

While the discussion was based on a survey representing 55 per cent of the total turnover for the fishing industry and 40 per cent for the furniture industry, the findings cannot be considered valid in other contexts. Thus other studies are welcomed.

The findings suggest a need to be fairly familiar with business contexts when preparing a management accounting system. Therefore marketers should become involved and make substantial contributions when any system is developed. At a minimum, marketers should ensure that necessary decision‐relevant information is made easily available.

Few studies have focused on the cost and profitability aspects of marketing.

Customer Profitability Analysis (CPA) is a technique for assessing the real profitability of customers and markets and is currently the subject of growing interest. The Marketing Accounting Research Centre at the Cranfield School of Management recently conducted a study involving four diverse companies, the purpose of which was to review the concepts and approaches that could be used to implement a system of customer profitability accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of profitability of 28 Sharia-compliant corporations in Jordan over the three-year period of 2013-2015.

The two-stage least square (2SLS) regression analysis with fixed effects was conducted using two measures of profitability, namely: return on assets and return on equity. The empirical data were collected from 28 Sharia-compliant corporations in Jordan over the study period. A variety of internal and external factors was used to determine profitability.

In general, this analysis of the determinants of profitability for Sharia-compliant corporations confirmed previous findings. Regression findings revealed that previous year profitability, debt ratio, organizational structure, the size of the audit firm and voluntary disclosure to be important determinants of profitability of Sharia-compliant corporations in Jordan from 2013 to 2015. The independent variables of firm size, ownership ratio greater than 5%, liquidity ratio, percentage of non-Jordanian ownership or the age of the firm were not found to significantly influence the profitability of the corporations studied.

The authors determined that the independent variables selected, with few exceptions, behaved according to expectations. Moreover, the current literature on the influence of management on performance, and thus, profitability, does not consider the philosophy under which business is conducted (a limitation with respect to the type of business conducted). For example, Sharia-compliant and non-Sharia-compliant firms operate under different sets of principles and rules. This variance in business philosophies may have an important bearing on management style, an aspect that has been neglected in the organizational management literature. The panel data from a three-year period was insufficient to validate the consistency of the results; future researchers may increase the length of the study periods to confirm results and increase the robustness of the data collection method.

The findings from the study have implications that may be functional for businesses, investors and policymakers in their focus on the Sharia-compliant business sector in Jordan. The factors influencing profitability may inform the setting of regulatory policy designed to stabilize and sustain the performance of Sharia-compliant corporations more broadly.

This study contributes to the growing body of literature on Islamic finance, and can be considered one of a very few that have examined the internal and external determinants of the profitability of Sharia-compliant corporations in a developing country such as Jordan, using panel data.

This paper aims to shed light on the consequences of customer accounting (CA) information usage for strategic purposes on organizational performance.

This is an empirical study with data from 106 Jordanian services organizations. Quantitative data were obtained to investigate the relationship between CA information items and organizational performance in the context of Jordan.

The results show that the level of CA information usage (customer profitability, lifetime customer profitability analysis and valuation of customers as assets) impacts on organizational performance. CA information usage leads to better organizational performance. Also, the findings demonstrate a different effect of CA information items on diverse dimensions of organizational performance.

The findings will help academics and managers to achieve higher organizational performance.