Search results

This study examines the impact of three cost accounting system (CAS) designs – traditional costing, activity-based costing, and time-based accounting – on manufacturing performance as measured in terms of demand fulfillment rate, cycle time, and net operating income – within a flexible, pull-production environment. A simulation approach allows for the direct comparison of these CAS designs under various scenarios. The introduction of supply and demand stochasticity, along with differing levels of product mix complexity modeled in environments with differing levels of manufacturing overhead burden, adds practical significance to the results. The fact that no single CAS outperformed along all performance measures has considerable implications for management accounting practice vis-à-vis manufacturing strategy, in particular for competitors in time-based industries. Also, this is the first known study to operationalize and test the theoretical time-based accounting methodology, further validating the efficacy of simulation methodologies in cost management contingency research.

This chapter takes a critical perspective on the conventional wisdom that more advanced cost allocation methods have the potential to provide a more accurate picture of “true” cost, inevitably leading to optimal product mix and pricing decisions, and ultimately to greater profitability.

Two concrete examples of the growing divergence between cost accounting theory and practice – the failures of activity-based costing and the reciprocal method of service department cost allocation to take root in practice – are examined through the lens of post-structuralist literary theory.

The findings suggest that economic truth has been devoured in an accounting simulation. The accounting model no longer reflects any profound economic reality; it precedes reality.

Much of the mainstream management accounting literature remains theoretically grounded in the belief that ‘true’ cost exists, as an object, which is revealed through our cost accounting systems. This chapter raises serious questions about this foundation, and therefore the practical applicability of a great deal of research.

Society has granted the accounting profession a great deal of responsibility and autonomy, largely on the confidence that it has historically provided an objective and truthful model of economic reality. The findings in this chapter suggest that the basis for the accounting profession’s preferential charter in society ought to be critically examined.

At a time where research has advanced toward an ever-narrower focus on self-referential tautologies and ever more complex modeling techniques, this chapter provides a new and stimulating, albeit provocative, perspective to yet unresolved issues in management accounting research and practice.

To study the use of budgeting in the uncertain and unpredictable context of seasonal logistics in the Arctic. Specifically addresses the question of why and how budgeting turns out to be the main management control tool in an extremely unstable environment.

Built on a case study of a Russian oil-producing company operating in The High North, this chapter reports on the rationales for use of budgetary slack by different divisions within the company.

Inflexible budgeting better fits into the (natural/geographical) context than into the business process. In this respect, excessive budget detalization and informational update may be not facilitating the operational process but confusing. Decoupling demonstrated by a budgetary slack is the normal condition for stable organizational performance.

Instead of setting up fences between the divisions, budgeting may be considered a converging and an adjusting factor to assess collective performance. Social embeddedness of budgetary slack in contemporary organizations sets the scene for other types of budgeting games based on trust, norms of reciprocity and collective performance.

The new – cultural – dimension introduces decoupling in a new perspective by demonstrating the integrating or coupling meaning of cultural practices.

This chapter compiles and summarizes the various strategies in the literature about emerging markets (EMs). Moreover, competitive strategies, market entry strategies in the international market, developing marketing strategy, and Porter's competitive strategies are also presented and discussed. Competitive strategies, market entry strategies, developing marketing strategy, and Porter's competitive strategies don't directly deal with EMs but they are deemed to be helpful and relevant to the research problem in the study of the transformation of strategic alliances in Eastern and Central Europe. The reason for compiling the various strategies is because one can clearly understand from the literature that researchers do agree in the value of a strategy, but there is no shared view among researchers of what a strategy is, what its benefits are, and how it should be developed, implemented, and evaluated. At the end of the book, the authors have tried to assess how and to what extent those strategies are applicable and helpful for a firm operating in EMs.

Purpose – This paper utilizes the perspective of abundance, rather than scarcity, to understand economies of cities. It also proposes that the earliest urban centers were attractive places of settlement because they represented a greater variety of jobs and objects compared to the rural countryside.

Design/methodology/approach – The evolutionary trajectory of our species indicates that humans sought out abundance in their natural environments as early as a million years ago. People also deliberately replicated conditions of abundance through the manufacture and discard of large quantities of repetitive objects, and through the “waste” of usable goods. The development of urban centers 6,000 years ago provided new opportunities for both production and consumption and an abundance of diverse goods and services. These processes are analogous to contemporary economists’ views of abundance as a desirable principle and Chris Anderson's view of the Long Tail as the explanatory mechanism for the production and consumption of goods when greater distribution becomes possible.

Social implications – Today, cities are growing very rapidly despite objectively deleterious conditions such as crowding, pollution, competition, and disease transmission. By recognizing the “pull” factors of consumption and opportunity, researchers can expend their energies to mitigate the negative effects of cities’ inevitable growth.

Originality/value – Prior archaeological and contemporary analyses of cities have focused on the role of the upper echelons of the political and economic hierarchy; in contrast, this “bottom-up” approach addresses the attractions of cities from the perspective of ordinary inhabitants.