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Measuring quality costs has been emphasized as an important part of quality improvement since the early 1950s. A chapter on quality costs seems to be almost compulsory in every book pertaining to total quality management, business process improvement, and similar topics. There is no doubt that measuring quality costs is useful in order to direct improvement efforts; the problem is that the concept is not as valid today as it used to be. While customer requirements and production systems have changed considerably during the last decades, quality cost measurement is advocated in nearly the same way as it was 40 years ago. This work presents a new customer and process focused poor quality cost model that enables the provider of a product or service to focus on elements that really matter to his customers. The input to the model is customer requirements and the output is expected poor quality costs estimated through the Taguchi loss function. Quality function deployment is used to translate the voice of the customer to key process parameters, that is process parameters having a direct influence on the fulfilment of customer requirements. The quality function deployment matrix is also used to estimate intangible costs. Traditional cost categories have been altered, and the expected loss for each cost category is estimated based on actual process performance and stepwise quadratic loss functions with multiple intervals. The intended use of the model is as a top management decision‐making tool able to link quality improvement to customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Suggests that businesses need a method specifically designed to assess the value of knowledge‐based system (KBS) investments. Explains the inadequacies of current valuation methods when they are applied to KBS investment decisions. Proposes a graphical valuation method which adapts the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to overcome these inadequacies and help business executives make informed KBS investment decisions. Presents an example of the method’s application to a KBS at a large multinational sales and manufacturing company.

Discusses intangible marketing assets and the difficulties of the valuation of these. Considers the problem of definition of intangible marketing assets and tries to clarify this. States the Accounting Principles Board (USA) as possessing the characteristic ‘identifiability’ and by the Accounting Standards Committee (UK and Ireland) as ‘separability’ and by others as controllability. However, within this article quantifies intangible marketing assets as ‘all non‐separable assets which yield a full advantage in the output markets of competitive organization’. Further looks at the historic costing and modernist accounting thought. Concludes by stating that the exclusion of marketing intangible assets from the accounting valuation process does, however, pose consequential dangers, which are itemized and discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new economic psychology theories that can explain fraud, misconduct and non-compliance that may arise from the implementation and enforcement of accounting standards codification (ASC) 805/350, international financial reporting standards (IFRS) 3R and IAS-38.

The approach is entirely theoretical. The paper analyzes existing theories about real options and enforcement of regulations/statutes, and introduces new psychological biases that can arise.

The real options approach suggested for handling the enforcement of goodwill/intangibles regulations is not effective.

The research is limited to international accounting standards board (IASB)/IFRS and financial accounting standards board (FASB) accounting standards.

The critiques and theories developed in the paper can be used in the analysis of selection of disputes for litigation, anti-corruption programs and regulation of transactions that are susceptible to fraud.

Food allergy has potential to affect direct, indirect and intangible economic costs experienced by food allergic individuals and their families, resulting in negative impacts on welfare and well‐being. The purpose of this paper is to develop an instrument to assess these economic costs of food allergy at household level and to conduct an exploratory analysis of potential economic impact.

A case‐controlled postal pilot survey was conducted using a self‐completion instrument. Cases had either clinically or self‐diagnosed food allergy. Controls were obtained from households in which none of the members had food allergies.

The instrument appeared sensitive to the economic cost differences between households with and without food allergic members. Direct costs of health care were significantly higher for cases than for controls. Similar differences were identified for indirect cost of lost earnings, and costs due to inability to perform domestic tasks because of ill health. Intangible costs (self‐reported health status and well‐being), indicated significantly lower subjective well‐being for cases.

Larger sample sizes will be needed to reliably assess the size of impact, cross‐cultural variation in costs, and whether costs vary according to severity of food allergy or between diagnosed versus self‐reported food allergy. The costs effectiveness of diagnostic methods or interventions may also be assessed using this instrument. If economic costs of food allergy are significant in the population further consideration from a public health policy perspective will be required.

To date, economic impact of food allergy on individuals and households has not been quantified. The paper addresses this.

The measurement of the costs of crime is an increasingly important topic in established industrial economies. Such costs imply a substantial loss in both tangible and intangible productivity, opportunity cost, resource use and quality of life. Here, we summarise the results of the latest research in the UK, and show that researchers are using increasingly accurate costs and indices analyses to allow the calculation of the costs of criminal activity.

In the context of possible future directions in the accounting regulatory arena, this paper considers what policy makers can learn from the experiences of Australian managers and investors in relation to capitalization of intangible assets. Focuses on features of the Australian institutional setting, the motivations behind Australian managers’ decisions to capitalize intangible assets, and capital market efficiency implications. Australian GAAP leaves corporate managers wide discretion to capitalize intangible assets irrespective of whether the assets are acquired or generated internally. One central element of this accounting discretion is the historically liberal attitude of Australian accounting regulators to deviations from the historic cost basis of measurement. Concerns about the availability, and abuses, of reliable measures in relation to intangible assets and revalued assets prompted the USA to proscribe these practices generally. Evidence from the Australian setting suggests these concerns could be overstated. Evidence to date suggests Australian equity markets are no less efficient than the USA markets. Existing evidence suggests uncertainty about intangible investment outcomes is a central property of intangible investment which could quasi‐regulate accounting capitalization practice in a discretionary accounting setting. Supports future regulatory deliberations and research focus on the economics of intangible investments, and information search behaviours of investors, as one way to move forward in the regulatory sphere.

The purpose of this paper is to provide examples and technical details for conducting a value network analysis that addresses the conversion and utilisation of intangible assets.

Value network analysis was first developed in 1993 and was adapted in 1997 for intangible asset management. It has been tested in applications from shop floor work groups to business webs and economic regions. It draws from a theory based in living systems, knowledge management, complexity theory, system dynamics, and intangible asset management.

The paper provides a high level of detail on the analysis method and insights from its practical application across a range of business issues. Tips are provided for how to integrate the methodology with other business analysis approaches.

The paper does not provide a comparative analysis with other methods because most other value network models are process views, social network analysis or clustering techniques.

Sufficient detail is provided so researchers and practitioners will be able to apply the method in their own investigations. Further resources are noted, as well as access points to the global user community and open source tools.

This paper is the first detailed publication of the value network analysis method, which has been acclaimed by experts in intangibles, network analysis, knowledge management, and process analysis. It fills a gap between theory and practice for managers, executives, analysts, and researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationship between organizational capital and the subsets of organizational capital (intellectual capital (IC)) cost and cost stickiness.

This study is causal correlational research. The data related to the company’s financial statements were collected using the Rahavard Novin Software and www.rdis.ir. In this study, panel data were run with the use of Eviews 8, in order to test the hypotheses. The ordinary least-squares method is used in this study to estimate the parameters of the model.

The results obtained from the study show that there is a significant relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness. However, there is no significant difference between high and low rank in terms of organizational capital and cost stickiness. In addition, there is a significant difference between IC and cost stickiness. Moreover, there is no significant difference between the components of IC and cost stickiness. Also, IC has an effect on the intensity of the relationship between organizational capital and cost stickiness.

This study explores the relationship between organizational capital and the subsets of IC and cost stickiness. Independent variables used in this study include organizational capital, IC and its components in the Pulic model, i.e. the efficiency of capital employed, the efficiency of human capital and the efficiency of structural capital.