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This study aims to examine the impact of implementing target costing and continuous improvement techniques in industrial companies operating in southern Palestine on achieving sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The study mainly assesses the level of application of these techniques by Palestinian industrial companies (PICs). Furthermore, it evaluates the extent to which the integration of these two methods can impact SCA, by producing cost-effective and innovative products that meet customer demands and needs, while simultaneously achieving continuous development of the company and an SCA.

A descriptive analytical approach was used to study the target costing and continuous improvement techniques employed by industrial companies in southern Palestine. A questionnaire was administered to 415 companies in the southern West Bank to collect data on the application of target cost and continuous improvement and their impact on SCA, measured through market share, differentiation and cost reduction. Control variables, such as company age, size (measured by the number of employees) and industrial sector classification were also included in the study model.

The findings of the study revealed that the PICs apply target costing and continuous improvement at a high level. Furthermore, all dimensions of achieving SCA were found to be achieved at a high level, with market share being the most prominent. The study also found that the integration of the target costing and continuous improvement had a positive impact on achieving SCA in the PICs. However, the study found no impact on company size, age or industrial sector on achieving a competitive advantage in terms of market share or other results.

The current study was limited to the application of strategic management methods to companies within the industrial sector only. This may constitute a limitation because it neglected other sectors. Likely, another limitation was the difficulty of obtaining the quantitative numbers needed for some quantitative variables that pertain to that type of industrial companies, which are mostly family companies that could not be regulated by the local companies' law to disclose their financial statement.

If industrial companies have ambitions to reduce production costs from the planning and design stage to set the target selling price. It is based on the understanding and awareness of customers' desires while maintaining the quality of products according to the best methods of improvement and innovation; therefore, this can be achieved by using the target costing and the continuous improvement techniques through reviewing the current study and its results.

The current study sought to link two methods, simultaneously and complementary, with each other of the strategic methods of managerial accounting, which helps the companies to offer their best to attract customers, develop the product or service and maintain their continuity in a changing labor market that enables it to achieve sustainable and competitive advantage.

This study is unique in that it explores the impact of the integration of target costing or continuous improvement techniques (Kaizen) on achieving SCA in Palestine industrial companies. While previous studies have examined either target costing or continuous improvement techniques separately, this study enhances the integration of these two methods to achieve SCA.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the success of activity-based costing (ABC) implementation by confirmatory factor analysis of ISO 9000 certified companies in Thailand.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from key participants, accountant managers in ISO 9000 certified companies.

The study confirmed the six constructs for the sample of 102 key participants. The results indicated that ABC implementation success in the context of ISO 9000 certified companies in Thailand consists of upper-management support, ABC system training, non-accounting ownership, links to quality initiative, adequate resources, and links to performance evaluation.

The findings have significant implications for ISO 9000 certified companies which intend to adopt or implement ABC. Past findings on ABC implementation success have a small-sample size so they are of limited usefulness. This research has a larger sample size and more carefully chosen participants and so the generalizations are more acceptable.

This paper aims to overcome the inability of both comparing loss costs and accounting for production resource losses of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)-related approaches.

The authors conducted a literature review about the studies focusing on approaches combining OEE with monetary units and/or resource issues. The authors developed an approach based on Overall Equipment Cost Loss (OECL), introducing a component for the production resource consumption of a machine. A real case study about a smart multicenter three-spindle machine is used to test the applicability of the approach.

The paper proposes Resource Overall Equipment Cost Loss (ROECL), i.e. a new KPI expressed in monetary units that represents the total cost of losses (including production resource ones) caused by inefficiencies and deviations of the machine or equipment from its optimal operating status occurring over a specific time period. ROECL enables to quantify the variation of the product cost occurring when a machine or equipment changes its health status and to determine the actual product cost for a given production order. In the analysed case study, the most critical production orders showed an actual production cost about 60% higher than the minimal cost possible under the most efficient operating conditions.

The proposed approach may support both production and cost accounting managers during the identification of areas requiring attention and representing opportunities for improvement in terms of availability, performance, quality, and resource losses.

The purpose of this study is to describe the use and benefit of TMAPs and CMAPs in Libyan oil companies.

The data were collected by distributing 210 mailed questionnaires to senior financial staff, such as financial managers, heads of cost department, financial accountants, department of management accounting employees, managerial accountants and Auditors. IFAC-based model was used in analyzing evolution stages in Libyan management accounting practices.

This study finds that Libyan oil companies use CMAPs more than TMAPs, the latter being commonly used in Libyan manufacturing companies. This study also finds that CMAPs are more beneficial than TMAPs.

This study provides more understanding of the use and the benefit of TMAPs and CMAPs and fills research gap regarding the matter, as well as provides new findings that can be used for further research regarding the use and benefit of TMAPs and CMAPs for Libyan oil companies.

The results contribute to a better understanding concerning the use and benefit of TMAPs and CMAPs in Libyan oil companies.

This paper aims to identify purchasing-related costs through the prism of transaction costs and costs of purchasing management activity.

The authors conducted a survey among 150 medium and large manufacturing companies in the chemical, automotive and electromechanical industries operating in Central and Eastern European countries. The collected data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis.

The studied companies carry out an integrated purchasing-related cost system. The authors found a statistical significance of the covariances between the pretransaction, transaction and post-transaction costs. In addition, costs that are of particular importance in long-term purchasing transactions were identified. Moreover, the authors identified the costs of quality and support actions as the most significant.

This research details the discussion of costs with consideration for the insights of managers of medium-sized and large companies.

The paper contributes to the knowledge of purchasing-related costs through the lens of the total cost of ownership that influences the purchasing management and the decisions within the buyer-supplier relationship.

The involvement of politicians in the introduction and use of financial management techniques in the public sector deserves more attention. This paper analyses the influence of members of Parliament (MPs) on the development of financial management regulations for Dutch central government executive agencies.

This paper uses desk research and analyses formal evaluation reports, as well as minutes of meetings of Parliament to analyse the influence of MPs on the changes in financial management regulations.

MPs' influence on the change of prescriptions seems to have been small. The authors observe that modifications were most often already formulated in general evaluation reports by the Ministry of Finance, in advance of parliamentary debates. The analysis also reveals that the criteria to be met by the executive agencies became more detailed in the initial years of the agency model and became more global in recent years.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the influence of politicians on financial management regulations.

The paper shows that the influence of MPs on the prescriptions is quite small in daily practice and therefore, their role in the legislative process, as far as financial management techniques are concerned, is limited.

The results show that politicians are both in charge of, as well as subject to NPM-inspired financial management regulations, whereas their influence on the rules is small. The authors advise to further analyse this, as well as to explore how their role can be enlarged.

The interplay between politicians and financial management techniques in general, and the influence of MPs on the legislative process in specific, is an underresearched area. This paper aims to contribute to this literature and shows that the influence of MPs on the development of financial management regulations is limited. Several changes were made in these prescriptions in a period of more than 25 years, whereas discussions in the Parliament hardly played a role in these modifications.

The purpose of the study is to describe the implications of strategic lead times (SLTs) for return on investment (ROI).

This study was part of an interactive research project and is based on the logic of theory application leading to theory building. It uses a multiple case study with five holistic single cases. Empirical data (ED) have mainly been collected from interviews and focus groups.

The length of and uncertainty in SLTs have implications for companies' financial performance. These implications vary in strength and can be either direct or indirect. These findings are incorporated into a framework on SLTs' implications for ROI.

The presented array of SLTs' implications for ROI could be further investigated, focussing on their strength. Additionally, it would be interesting to substantiate the findings in the context of environmental and social sustainability (i.e. the triple bottom line).

The findings offer practitioners a rich description and understanding of SLTs' actual implications for financial performance in terms of ROI. This knowledge can support practitioners in analysing supply chain designs based on financial performance.

Using a combination of a relative financial performance measure (ROI) and a set of SLTs (systems perspective), this study focuses on SLTs' actual implications for ROI. The findings provide evidence that different sections of a supply chain can have different implications for revenue, cost and investment (i.e. the three absolute measures related to ROI).

This study aims to focus on the optimal green R&D of a capital-constrained supply chain under different channel power structures as well as the impact of capital constraint, financing cost, channel power structure and cost-reducing efficiency on green R&D and supply chain profitability.

A two-echelon supply chain is considered. The upstream firm engages in green R&D but has capital constraints that can be overcome by external financing. Green R&D is beneficial to reduce production costs and increase consumer demand. Based on whether or not the upstream firm is capital constrained and dominates the supply chain, four models are developed.

Capital constraints significantly lower green R&D and supply chain profitability. Transferring leadership from the upstream to the downstream firms leads to higher green R&D levels and downstream firm profitability, whereas the upstream firm's profitability is increased (decreased) if green R&D investment efficiency is high (low) enough. Greater financing costs reduce green R&D and downstream firm profitability; however, the upstream firm's profitability under the model in which it functions as the follower increases if the initial capital is sufficient. More importantly, empirical analysis based on practice data is used to verify the theoretical results reported above.

This study reveals how upstream firms in supply chains decide green R&D decisions in situations with capital constraints, providing managers and governments with an understanding of the impact of capital constraint, channel power structure, financing cost and cost-reducing efficiency on supply chain green R&D and profitability.

The major contributions are the exploration of supply chain green R&D by taking into consideration channel power structures and cost-reducing efficiency and the validation of theoretical results using practice data.

This study aimed to develop the integration of the multiperiod production-distribution model in a closed-loop supply chain involving carbon emission and traceability. The developed model was for agricultural food (agri-food) products, considering the reverse flow of food waste from the disposal center (composting center) to producers.

The results indicate that integrating the production and distribution model considering food waste recycling provides low carbon emissions in lower total costs. The sensitivity analysis also found that there are trade-offs between production and distribution rate and food waste levels on carbon emission and traceability.

This study focuses on the mathematical modeling of a multiperiod production-distribution formulation for a closed-loop supply chain.

The model of the agri-food closed-loop supply chain in this study that considers food recycling and carbon emissions would help stakeholders involved in the agri-food supply chain to reduce food waste and carbon emissions.

This paper investigate how fit uncertainty impacts product return costs in online retailing and how digital product fitting, a pre-sales fitting practice, can reduce fit uncertainty.

The paper analyzes the current performance of a retailer's e-commerce and return operations by estimating costs generated by product returns, including product handling costs, tied-up capital, inventory holding costs, transportation costs, and order-picking costs. The estimated costs were built on 2,229 return transactions from a Scandinavian fashion footwear retailer. A digital product fitting technology was tested with the retailer’s products and resulted in estimations on how such technology could affect product returns.

The cost of a return is approximately 17% of the prime cost. The major cost elements are product handling costs and transportation costs, which together amount to 72% of the total costs. If well calibrated, the fitting technology can cut fit-related return costs by up to 80%. The findings show how customers reacted to the fitting technology: it was unable to verify fit every time, but it serves as a useful and effective support tool for customers when placing orders.

Virtual fit verification using digital product fitting is key to retailers to reduce fit-related returns. Digital product fitting using three-dimensional scanning is more appropriate for some products, but it is unsuitable for products that are difficult to measure and scan.

The paper contributes an empirical estimate of retail supply chain costs associated with fit uncertainty, as well as theoretical understanding of the role of pre-sales fit verification in avoiding product returns.