Search results

The paper provides an overview of research published in the innovation and operations management (IOM) literature on 15 methods for cost management in new product development, and it provides a comparison to an earlier review of the management accounting (MA) literature (Wouters & Morales, 2014).

This structured literature search covers papers published in 23 journals in IOM in the period 1990–2014.

The search yielded a sample of 208 unique papers with 275 results (one paper could refer to multiple cost management methods). The top 3 methods are modular design, component commonality, and product platforms, with 115 results (42%) together. In the MA literature, these three methods accounted for 29%, but target costing was the most researched cost management method by far (26%). Simulation is the most frequently used research method in the IOM literature, whereas this was averagely used in the MA literature; qualitative studies were the most frequently used research method in the MA literature, whereas this was averagely used in the IOM literature. We found a lot of papers presenting practical approaches or decision models as a further development of a particular cost management method, which is a clear difference from the MA literature.

This review focused on the same cost management methods, and future research could also consider other cost management methods which are likely to be more important in the IOM literature compared to the MA literature. Future research could also investigate innovative cost management practices in more detail through longitudinal case studies.

This review of research on methods for cost management published outside the MA literature provides an overview for MA researchers. It highlights key differences between both literatures in their research of the same cost management methods.

This study aims to explore the calculations and valuations that unfold in everyday practices within social care settings. Specifically, the paper concerns the role of accounting in dealing with multiple calculable and non-calculable spaces within the case management process. The study sheds light on the multiplicity produced in constructing the client as an object through the calculations and valuations embedded in the costing and caring practices in social work.

This is a qualitative case study in a Swedish social care organisation, with a specific focus on the calculations and valuations within the case management process. The data have been gathered from 20 interviews with social workers, team leaders, managers and a management accountant, along with more than 36 h of on-site observations and internal organisational documents, including policy documents, guidelines and procedural lists.

The case management process involves interconnected practices in constructing the client as an object. While monetary calculations and those associated with worth are embedded in costing and caring practices, they interact and proliferate in various ways. Three elements are found: transforming service units into centres of calculation, constructing the accounts of calculation and establishing the cost-value calculations. Calculations and valuations are actuated in these elements in describing the need, matching the case with the unit and caseworker and deciding on the measure. The objectification of the client entails the construction of accounts, for example, ongoing qualifications, categorisations and groupings of units, juridical frameworks, case types, needs and measures. As an object multiple, the client becomes different objects at different stages, challenging the establishment accounts, and thus producing a range of calculations and valuations. Such diversity in calculations concomitantly produces more calculations to represent the present and absent multiple facets of the client, resulting in a multiplicity of costing and caring.

The study might flag up for practitioners the possible risks and unintended consequences of depending too much on fixed guidelines and (performance) indicators since social work involves object multiples, which are always in diversity and changeable in situ. Considering the multiple dimensions within the specific contexts could thus be helpful to mitigate such risks in the evaluation of social care processes and the design of (performance) metrics.

This study contributes to the literature on accountingisation by extending the concept as a part of ongoing organisational practices, materialised within the calculations of money and worth in everyday social care. Besides demonstrating their reconsolidation, this study shows a multiplicity of costing and caring practices depending on the way the client is constructed, resulting in the proliferation of accounting(s) and ultimately accountingisation of social work.

To provide an overview of research published in the management accounting literature on methods for cost management in new product development, such as a target costing, life cycle costing, component commonality, and modular design.

The structured literature search covered papers about 15 different cost management methods published in 40 journals in the period 1990–2013.

The search yielded a sample of 113 different papers. Many contained information about more than one method, and this yielded 149 references to specific methods. The number of references varied strongly per cost management method and per journal. Target costing has received by far the most attention in the publications in our sample; modular design, component commonality, and life cycle costing were ranked second and joint third. Most references were published in Management Science; Management Accounting Research; and Accounting, Organizations and Society. The results were strongly influenced by Management Science and Decision Science, because cost management methods with an engineering background were published above average in these two journals (design for manufacturing, component commonality, modular design, and product platforms) while other topics were published below average in these two journals.

The scope of this review is accounting research. Future work could review the research on cost management methods in new product development published outside accounting.

The paper centers on methods for cost management, which complements reviews that focused on theoretical constructs of management accounting information and its use.

The purpose is to assess the impact of clinical costing approaches on the quality of cost information in seven countries (Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal).

Costing practices in seven countries were analysed via questionnaires, interviews and relevant published material.

Although clinical costing is intended to support a similar range of purposes, countries display considerable diversity in their approaches to costing in terms of the level of detail contained in regulatory guidance and the percentage of providers subject to such guidance for tariff setting. Guidance in all countries involves a mix of costing methods.

The authors propose a two-dimensional Materiality and Quality Score (2D MAQS) of costing systems that can support the complex trade-offs in managing the quality of cost information at both policy and provider level, and between financial and clinical concerns.

The authors explore the trade-offs between different dimensions of the quality (accuracy, decision relevance and standardization) and the cost of collecting and analysing cost information for disparate purposes.

Despite arguments that traditional product costing and variance analysis operate contrary to the strategic goals of advanced manufacturing practices such as just in time (JIT), total quality management (TQM), and Six Sigma, little empirical evidence exists that cost accounting practices (CAP) are changing in the era of continuous improvement and waste reduction. This research supplies some of the first evidence of what CAP are employed to support the information needs of a world-class manufacturing environment. Using survey data obtained from executives of 121 U.S. manufacturing firms, the study examines the relationship between the use of JIT, TQM, and Six Sigma with various forms of traditional and non-traditional CAP. Analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) indicate that most traditional CAP continue to be used in all manufacturing environments, but a significant portion of world-class manufacturers supplement their internal management accounting system with non-traditional management accounting techniques.

This paper examines the historical background of accountingization, colonization and hybridization in the health services by exploring the relationship between hospital accounting and clinical medicine in Britain between the late 1960s and the early 2000s.

The paper draws on an analysis of professional journals, government reports and other documentary sources relating to accounting and medical developments. It is informed by Abbott's sociology of professions and Eyal's sociology of expertise.

The paper shows that not only accountants but also elements within the medical profession sought to make the practice of medicine more visible, calculable and standardized, and that accounting and medical attempts to make medicine calculable interacted in a mutually reinforcing manner. Consequently, it argues that a movement towards clinical forms of quantification within the medical profession made it more open to economic calculation, which underpinned hospital accounting reforms and the accountingization, colonization or hybridization of health services.

The paper demonstrates that a fuller understanding of the relationship between accounting and public sector professions can be developed if we examine their mutual interactions rather than restricting ourselves to analyzing accounting's effects on public sector professions. The paper moreover illustrates instances of intraprofessional conflict and inter-professional cooperation, and draws on the sociology of expertise to suggests that while hospital accounting reforms have curbed the power of medical professionals, they have also enhanced the power of clinical expertise.

This paper aims to use empirical data to classify and contextualize the various practices of quality costing.

The paper uses 23 “best practices” of quality costing extracted from the literature to survey quality managers of 88 publicly listed Jordanian manufacturing firms. Exploratory factor analysis is then used to create an empirical taxonomic framework.

Factor analysis of the data identifies a six‐factor structure of the practices of quality costing (PQC). Inspection of the component items shows the factors to be conceptually meaningful with none of them containing conflicting items. All factors are reliable and valid and have statistically sound structures.

The classification provided can help managers to better visualize, understand and implement the concept of quality costing. It provides a framework within which practices can be structured and evaluated; managers can identify areas in their firms that are missing and may warrant improvement. The findings should be treated cautiously: the operational definition of PQC derives from an inconsistent literature. Furthermore, the findings are based on self reported data, collected through a questionnaire in Jordan and there is potential source bias or general method variance.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge through operationalizing the overall concept of quality costing by means of the PQC scale. The six factors identified represent latent constructs within PQC and the component items operationalize such constructs. Furthermore, the procedure provides an illustration of pragmatic application of exploratory factor analysis to empirical managerial data, which can be used in other contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the origins of strategic management accounting and to assess the extent of adoption and “success” of strategic management accounting (SMA).

Empirical papers which have directly researched SMA and prior review papers of the adoption and implementation of SMA or SMA techniques are reviewed. As well as assessing the extent of adoption of SMA and the reasons underlying an apparent low adoption rate, the role of accountants in adopting and implementing SMA is considered. Finally, the success or otherwise of SMA is discussed.

SMA or SMA techniques have not been adopted widely, nor is the term SMA widely understood or used. However, aspects of SMA have had an impact, influencing the thinking and language of business, and the way in which we undertake various business processes. These issues cut across the wider domain of management, and are not just the province of management accountants.

There is limited value in conducting future surveys of the adoption and implementation of SMA or SMA techniques. Rather, the focus should be on how SMA‐inspired techniques and processes diffuse into general practice within organizations.

Twenty‐five years after the term strategic management accounting was first introduced in the literature, this paper brings together disparate literature and provides a broad assessment of the “state‐of‐the‐art” of strategic management accounting to inform researchers and practitioners.

Recent developments in performance measurement and reporting systems in the UK National Health Service (NHS) have created new challenges in costing health care services. In particular, the introduction of the “National Reference Costing Exercise” (NRCE) has substantively changed the way in which health care cost information is reported and used. While the outputs of the NRCE are intended to support hospital management and control by facilitating cost benchmarking, the usefulness of NRCE data depends on the comparability of cost information across hospitals. This paper draws on questionnaire results to explore the challenges in standardising health care cost information, as perceived by those closest to the costing exercise. The results reveal several problems in costing practice, all of which contribute to high variability in the costs reported by hospitals. Until these problems are recognised and addressed, they present a barrier to the effective use of comparative cost data for the management of English hospitals.