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EVERY reader who ever served in the forces of the Crown will know that charge those footsloggers were convinced was the Sergeant's delight: Dumb Insolence. This was brought against a man who failed to reply when spoken to. (We must admit that if you did answer, he might find another charge or at least bellow at you “SHUT UP!”.)

Expansion of large international hotel chains into the Polish hospitality market has radically changed hotel management practices in Poland. The article investigates the impact of these changes on hotels’ economic performance. This impact is assessed by monitoring changes in the break‐even point, the percentage share of variable costs in sales, margins of safety, operating leverage, and other indicators reflecting economic effects of applied management methods. The research results indicate that cost reduction resulting from the introduction of new management methods must in the future be replaced by measures aimed at stimulating revenue growth.

Presents an optimal strategy for managing crocodile farms. The strategy is illustrated with the case study of Caiman Crocodilus Yacare of the farm Coocrijapan. However, the strategy can be easily transferred to other farms, once sufficient data on their own crocodile stock is gathered. The main advantage of the ideas developed is that they deal with just one parameter: the break‐even point of the process. The underlying assumption of having a single parameter is that there is no seasonal change in prices; that is, the unitary price of food (say, per kilogram) and the unitary price of crocodile hide (say, per square centimetre) remain approximately constant in some currency. This may or may not be true in the local currency of the country that hosts the farm. With this assumption, dimensionless quantities for profit and return are found.

This paper deals with a particular type of leasing contracts according to which an equipment is leased for free with the condition for the lessee to purchase a predetermined minimum quantity of consumables during each leasing period. Maintenance actions are performed by the lessor and borne by him. Imperfect preventive maintenance is carried out every t time units throughout the leasing period. Minimal repairs are performed following equipment failures. At the end of the leasing period, an overhaul which restores the equipment to “as good as new” state is performed. The equipment is leased many times during its life cycle. The purpose of this paper is to determine the values of the decision variables for the lessor, which are the preventive maintenance (PM) period and the minimum quantity of consumables to be sold to ensure profit.

A mathematical model is developed to express the expected maintenance cost per time unit incurred by the lessor as well as his expected profit over the equipment life cycle. The optimal PM period minimizing the maintenance cost is determined first. Then, given the corresponding minimum maintenance cost, the minimum quantity of consumables (the lessor's break-even point) to be purchased by the lessee is computed. A numerical example and a sensitivity study are presented, and the obtained results are discussed.

The outcome of this work is supposed to help the lessors determining two key values to be included in each leasing contract, namely: (1) the periodicity according to which they will commit to perform preventive maintenance actions such that their average total cost of maintenance is minimized, (2) the minimum quantity of consumables that the lessee must commit to purchasing during the leasing period. This quantity must be between the break-even point and the maximum quantity associated with the capacity of the equipment.

Practically, the objective of this work is first to determine the optimal strategy to be adopted by the lessor in terms of effort relating to PM and second to determine the minimum quantity of consumables that the lessee must purchase during the leasing period such as profit is insured for the lessor.

This type of leasing (for free) has not been addressed in the literature particularly when considering maintenance strategies.

This exercise is one in a series intended to help students learn how to perform financial calculations in marketing contexts.

Helmut Schmidt, product manager for Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG, the world's foremost manufacturer of harmonicas, accordions, melodicas, and ukuleles, was sitting at his desk reviewing his first assignment from the company's senior executive team. Schmidt had been asked to calculate the break-even point for the company's flagship product, the Marine Band harmonica, under a number of different scenarios.

After completing the exercise, students should be able to:

• Calculate unit contribution and margin

• Calculate break-even units and market share

Calculate unit contribution and margin

Calculate break-even units and market share

The article presents the “cost‐volume profit analysis (CVP)” for the hotel industry.

Etymologically, the word “loss” means to be deprived, temporarily or permanently, of use of faculty or an advantage. Therefore, when businesses and entrepreneurs suffer large amount of losses, they can be attributed to a non-effective and non-efficient way of handling assets. Consequently, high levels of bad management can be the cause for food losses (FL) across the agri-food supply chain, food waste (FW) depends on consumers' behavior in organizing food basket. Food loss and food waste (FWL) negatively affect environment and global economy. The purpose of this paper is to propose a holistic 4Es (Ethical_Equity_Ecological_Economic) approach aimed at better managing and treating FLW along the agri-food chain from upstream to downstream stages by addressing entrepreneurs and consumers' approach.

The work focuses on the definition and designing of three possible tools: (1) the implementation of a FL_break-even point model; (2) the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) procedures including a scheme for FL critical points and (3) a consumer's tax FW declaration model. Beginning with these tools, the work tries to define a holistic model by involving all the actors performing in a strictly inter- linked system.

Approaching the FLW issue in a holistic way can ensure the involvement of engaged and productive people at work, lead to strategies and policies aimed at enriching consumers' awareness and entrepreneurs' management approach, and can address the handling of FLW toward Ethical, Equity, Ecological_and Economic (that means effective and efficient) paths.

Monitoring and decreasing FLW by implementing the proposed tools from upstream to downstream of the food supply chain can certainly improve the reliability of firm production and investment decisions, and at the same time, behavior of people who feel to be part of an interrelated system. This can help to lighten FLW negative impacts on consumers' income and on pollution as well as indirectly on poverty.

This paper wants to make an innovative attempt to approach the FLW issue in a global and holistic way, while focusing on behavior and awareness of firms/entrepreneurs and consumers/citizens. In addition, the tools and approach defined pave the way for subsequent empirical works to follow.

The aim of this paper is to create a framework in which the behaviour of unit costs in public sector outsourcing situations can be analysed.

Explorative case study concentrating on theory building.

Public sector organisations have not concentrated on analysing or modelling the unit cost behaviour in outsourcing situations. The lack of systematic cost management tools seems to lead to poorly managed and non‐profitable outsourcing projects or ignorance of the possibilities of outsourcing.

By utilising the results of the study, decision making regarding outsourcing in public sector could be based both on forecast cost development and on political judgement instead of relying only on political judgement without understanding cost behaviour.

The paper introduces a new framework to be used as a tool in practice and to be validated in further studies.

Management Accounting and Financial Modelling.

Undergraduate and post-graduated levels.

Aiman, the Area Manager of GEZ Berhad, realised the importance for petrol station operators to have an understanding of fundamental management accounting concepts such as cost behaviour and cost–volume–profit (CVP) analysis. He also believed that the petrol station operators should be proficient in using Microsoft Excel functionality and able to construct “intelligent” financial model with extended sensitivity analysis. Being a manager responsible for training the petrol station operators, Aiman would like to introduce the CVP concepts and spreadsheet model-building process to the petrol station operators, to aid them in planning and decision making. To construct the Excel spreadsheet model, Aiman sought the assistance of Rizal, a university lecturer in accounting, who in turn gathered the relevant operational and financial data from Baron Service Station, a typical petrol station under GEZ stable. The model should be flexible enough to allow the petrol station operator to anticipate, for example: What will happen to overall profitability of the petrol station if the fuel prices go up? What is the minimum volume of fuel that needed to be sold to break even? How much extra profit can be generated if credit card sale is reduced? and Is it viable to install an automated teller machines (ATM) kiosk and incurring administrative charges from bank to lure more customers to visit the petrol station? As the petrol station sells multiple products (petrol, diesel and convenience goods), the owner is also interested to know which product lines are the most and least profitable. Thus, the model should be able to generate segmented income statement with appropriate allocation of the common fixed costs to the each of the products.

The case discussion is intended to achieve the following learning outcomes: students are able to prepare a financial model which include a segmented contribution income statement based on the information on product mix; students are able to calculate the break-even point and distinguish between fixed and variable costs; students are able to differentiate between traceable fixed costs and common fixed costs; students are able to build a financial model that is sufficiently flexible to allow various what if analysis to be performed; and students are able to use what if analysis tools in Excel such as Goal Seek and Data Tables.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between working capital financing and firm performance for a sample of 437 non-financial Indian companies. In addition, this study examines the impact of financial constraints on working capital financing–performance relationship.

The study is based on secondary financial data of 437 non-financial Indian companies obtained from Capitaline database, pertaining to a period of 10 years (2007–2016). This study employs two-step generalized method of moments techniques to arrive at results.

Results of the study confirm the inverted U-shape relationship between working capital financing and firm performance. In addition, the authors also found that the firms that are likely to be less financially constrained can finance greater proportion of working capital using short-term debt.

This study contributes to the scant existing literature by testing the impact of financial constraints on the relationship between working capital financing and firm performance, representing a typical emerging market in India.