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The construction industry can be characterised as a sector of the economy that uses planning, design, construction, maintenance and repair, and operation to transform various resources into physical facilities in both developed and developing countries. Residential and non-residential structures, as well as heavy construction, are among the types of public and private facilities built, and these physical facilities play an important and visible part in the development process. Major participants in the construction industry include the design team (architects, engineers and quantity surveyors), management consultants, general contractors, heavy construction contractors, special trade contractors or subcontractors, and construction workers, as well as the owners, managers and users of the built facility. Building financing and insurance businesses, land developers, real estate agents and material and machinery suppliers and distributors, to name a few, are all involved in construction, yet they are categorised as independent but connected industries. Cost is a major factor that affects and determine the choice and engagement of these processes and stakeholders, and the same has been a measure of project success from the time immemorial.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the interactions between accounting and marketing activities in a Taiwanese telecommunication firm by demonstrating the dramatic impact that improved costing methods had on the firm’s customer portfolio management activities and consequently on the firm’s bottom line.

The paper presents a case study of a firm in the highly competitive telecommunications industry in Taiwan. The case study was constructed by interviewing key individuals within the organization over an extended period and supplementing those reports with an analysis of internal company documents.

The firm dramatically increased profitability through the integration of activity-based costing into their customer portfolio framework requiring marketing and accounting functions to work closely together. In this rapidly evolving market, cost allocation and customer portfolio management are indispensable. Identifying accurate costs and keeping key customers is a critical issue for the case company. While theoretically the approach is simple, in practice considerable hurdles needed to be overcome.

While considerable literature suggests that customer profitability drives the management of an organization’s customer portfolio, critical to the success of such an endeavor is the accurate calculation and allocation of costs to individual customers. As an interdisciplinary study, this paper provides insights for both accounting and marketing highlighting their reliance on each other in a sound firm. The results of this paper will serve as a supplement to past customer portfolio management research as well as a reference for any firm seeking to enhance their approach to portfolio management.

Last decades scholars in the field of human resource management (HRM) have intensely examined the contribution of HRM to organizational performance. Despite their efforts, at least one major research shortcoming can be identified. In general, they have devoted far too little attention to an aspect of HRM potentially beneficial for organizational performance: worker participation, and especially its indirect or representative forms. In contrast, for academics embedded in the industrial relations tradition, worker participation is a prominent theme, even though less emphasized in its relationship with company objectives. One might defend traditional scholars' reservations by arguing that participations main goal concerns workplace democratization and not organizational prosperity. However, several writers state that industrial democracy involving worker participation can channel conflicts of interest between employees and employers and stimulate desired employee attitudes and behavior, consequently enhancing organizational performance (e.g., Gollan, 2006; Ramsay, 1991; Taras & Kaufman, 1999). And, indeed, several studies have shown positive effects of both direct participation (e.g., European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 1997) and indirect participation (e.g., Addison et al., 2000, 2003; Frick & Möller, 2003) on organizational performance.

Nevertheless, to date, the absence of an integrated model explaining the connection between worker participation and organizational performance leads to the following question that still is in need of an answer: how do direct and indirect forms of participation – separate as well as in combination – affect organizational performance? This chapter aims to contribute to the filling of the aforementioned knowledge gaps. In so doing, we focus on direct and indirect, nonunion participation on the firm level, using a Western European and especially Dutch frame of reference.

This chapter focuses on how changes in management control systems in a manufacturing company could be affected by the interplay of institutional forces and power mobilization over an extended period of time (1946–1975).

The chapter is grounded in the ‘hybrid’ theoretical framework developed by Yazdifar, Zaman, Tsamenyi, and Askarany (2008) which ties old institutional economics, new institutional sociology and power mobilization frameworks to provide a holistic view of a process of change. Historical analysis contributes to an understanding of the institutional context. The research has been developed by a longitudinal case study by using archival data.

The chapter provides us with an insight into management accounting change during an extended period of time dominated by political instability, economic turbulence, social tensions and change in the company’s presidency. The study suggests that changes were dependent on a complex set of relationships and preconditions, that the specificity of the company’s accounting controls was tied to isomorphism forms and power relationships internal to the company, while pressures from the external environment did not impact significantly on control systems architecture and functioning of the company.

The use of qualitative approach (as longitudinal case studies) is often criticized because its results are not generalizable and replicable.

The chapter clarifies the theoretical underpinnings of the institutional frameworks and power relationships and suggests areas for institutional and interdisciplinary research into management change.