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The Health and Social Care Information Centre undertook the development and piloting of a new adult safeguarding outcome measure (a face-to-face survey) for local authorities (LAs) that could be added to the adult social care outcomes framework (ASCOF). The ASCOF is a national collection of social care outcomes performance indicators collected from the perspective of people receiving partial or total funding from a LA for care services. The projected costs of introducing the survey as a new statutory measure in England were assessed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An outcome measure (a face-to-face interview based survey consisting of seven questions) was piloted during 2014 in 40 LAs with 20 adults at risk (or other informant) in each site who had been the subject of a safeguarding investigation (n=382). LAs were asked to estimate the cost to their LA of conducting the survey for two years, interviewing at least 15 per cent of their completed safeguarding cases each year.

Extrapolating cost findings to the full 152 LAs in England would give an estimated total cost of implementing the survey of approximately £3 million in Year 1 and £2.1 million in Year 2. Set-up costs for the survey can therefore be estimated at around £900,000. Wide variations were identified in the costs per interview between LAs and reasons for this are discussed.

The benefits of this unique survey are it enables LAs to measure how they are undertaking their adult safeguarding work from the perspective of adults at risk and others with a close interest. It also enables LAs to meet their new obligations under the Care Act 2014 Guidance to “understand what adults at risk think of adult safeguarding”.

To evaluate past and recent research on the costs of training human resources in Australia and to compare the merits of different research methods used to measure these costs. The discussion is situated in a general context of low employer contribution to training provision in Australia and acute policy debates on public training provision.

The article presents the aggregate results of two recent quantitative surveys of training costs in Australian organizations. Both surveys adopt an economic definition of the costs and concentrate on firm‐specific skills acquired up until new recruits reach average productivity.

Survey results suggest that the informal costs of training human resources outstrip direct training expenditure and average training costs are much larger than commonly assumed in the policy debate in Australia.

Ideally, the surveys reported upon should be extended to include continuing training costs and a measure of the degree of employer‐provided general training.

Official surveys largely underestimate the cost of employer‐provided training in Australia, contributing to (mistaken?) perceptions of private sector disengagement. Existing measures of the costs should adopt a more comprehensive approach, including the use of economic concepts.

This research stresses, both to HR practitioners and policy makers, the value of measuring opportunity costs in training processes, and contributes to its quantification.

Although cost savings are found by many researchers to be a major reason for sourcing from China, the actual cost savings may not be as great as expected. This paper aims at studying and comparing the true cost of sourcing from China and companies' perceptions of the total cost of their China sourcing projects.

This research comprises six case studies and a mailed survey to 201 UK manufacturers with the experience of global sourcing from China. Comparisons of the findings from the cases and the survey are made.

The findings provide a comprehensive analysis of the total costs of outsourcing from China. Additional costs (additional to the quoted price), found from in‐depth case studies, averaged 50 per cent of the quoted price. The perception of additional costs, found from a survey, averaged 25 per cent of the quoted price. Taken together, these findings suggest that companies generally do not comprehensively measure the costs of global sourcing, and significantly underestimate the true costs incurred.

This has implications for decision making and ultimately profitability, and the paper suggests that more attention is paid to measuring the actual total acquisition costs. It confirms the benefit of a comprehensive cost framework, as a checklist that will prompt companies to think about all the possible sources of cost when sourcing globally. This should both guide their decision making, and also act to identify possible cost reduction activities.

This research is the first effort to establish the total cost of sourcing from China and to compare this with companies' perceptions of the cost of such sourcing. It is valuable in providing increased understanding of the sources and magnitudes of the costs of sourcing from China.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an initial survey on the implementation of costs of quality (CoQ) programmes in the UK telecommunications industry and to discuss the findings in the context of sustainable competitiveness.

A postal survey was employed in order to investigate the breadth of use of CoQ programmes in the sector. A questionnaire was developed and distributed across a sample of companies with a UK SIC code of “6400 Telecommunications”.

The survey results revealed little interest in implementing such programmes in the sector. The most frequently cited reasons were: having a costing system that is already capable of monitoring quality costs; and not yet introduced to the concept of CoQ.

The results presented are limited by two factors: the low response rate; and the range of data gathered. Since the majority of the respondents were service providers, the results could be indicative of this type of company only.

The survey findings indicate that training and education in quality management should employ a more focused approach to the introduction of the concept of CoQ tracking.

To the knowledge of the authors the study presented is the first investigation performed to determine the breadth of use of CoQ programmes across the UK telecommunications sector. In addition, a new aspect of researching the capabilities of information systems in processing CoQ data has been identified.

Distribution has been a major element of retailers′ marketing strategy in recent years as companies strive to control costs but at the same time seek competitive advantage through improving service to stores and gaining greater control of stock in the supply chain. In an interview survey of distribution directors from major multiple groups, all companies were reviewing their distribution strategy and many had made major changes to their distribution system. Centralisation of stock in strategically located RDCs and the use of third party contractors were main features of retail companies′ strategy. Contractors were much more aggressive in marketing their services to retailers than hitherto. This is partly related to the competitive and turbulent nature of the industry. In a survey of marketing directors/managers of distribution companies, it was clear that firms were trying to raise their profile in the market as they “went public” and/or because they were moving into new industry sectors away from their “core” specialist areas.

The purpose of the study is to examine the research problem that represents an attempt to approximate the importance of quality costing in managing a modern enterprise using the selected enterprises from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Poland.

The primary goal of the research is a need to acquire knowledge about the use of quality cost accounts in enterprises operating in Poland. The research has been conducted in the SMEs of production and services. From October 2018 to December 2018, survey-based research was carried out in the selected SMEs of production and service in Poland. The targeted participants of the study are from the medium-sized enterprises, employing 50–250 people.

The pilot studies conducted in companies indicate that modern enterprises are focused on quality. Many enterprises declare to be continuously improving quality system and quality costing. However, generally, these are large companies that have implemented ISO standards, often part of international corporations. The survey result of the study shows that medium-sized enterprises still make little use of modern cost accounting variants. Based on the study, only 9.75% (39 enterprises) from a representative group of 400 companies from the sectors of manufacturing, services and production as well as service companies apply quality costing. Some of the other enterprises are only taking measures to implement quality cost accounting.

The research has been conducted in randomly selected SMEs in the form of a questionnaire interview. In order to further analyze the construction of quality cost management (QCM) systems and the use of information from QCM by enterprises, case study method should be used more widely.

The results of the study provide useful help for companies that are quality-oriented and want to implement quality costing. The survey has been conducted in 400 enterprises, and the survey results of considered SMEs reveal the most important aspects of the application of quality costing.

The questionnaire used, the answers provided and the resulting conclusions fill the identified research gap. In the author's opinion, findings of research are relevant and useful, not only for accounting practice but also for theory. They show that although TQM and quality costing have been very popular in the literature since the 1990s, the degree of application of quality costing in practice (except for large, often international companies) is too low. So, the suitability of QCM in managing a modern enterprise from the SMEs should be promoted.

In the course of the survey covered by this paper, cost data were collected by visiting eighteen operational computer‐based systems in Europe and the U.S.A., using a structured cost analysis scheme. The sample included database producers and self‐contained systems that both create, and provide services from, a data base. From the data obtained, unit costs have been derived for most operations, and the factors contributing to variations in the figures are discussed. Analysis of the data has shown that costs are affected more significantly by factors such as system management, salary variations, and productivity of staff, than by technical factors such as depth of indexing, data preparation methods, or computer programming. The total operating budgets of most of the systems have also been analysed to show the overall pattern of cost distribution, including overheads.

Physical distribution costs now account for at least 12% of industry's total sales revenue; there is also a substantial shift in distribution expenditure among the principal cost elements. For example, freight transport now accounts for some 30% of distribution budgets. This is one of the findings which has emerged from the National Survey of Distribution Costs, launched by the Centre for PDM last year and carried out by PW International. In this feature, Brian McKibbin outlines the major trends now emerging from the Survey and assesses the signifance of the preliminary results in providing a yardstick against which individual companies may measure their own PDM cost performance.

This research analyzes the development of logistics outsourcing market in two countries, Estonia and Finland, with different paths as members of the single European market. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the two markets have become more similar or whether their logistics costs and logistics markets have developed differently over time.

The development of the logistics market is addressed through two survey-based variables. Logistics costs are used to measure the size of the logistics market, whereas logistics outsourcing is analyzed to measure the development phase as well as the market potential for logistics service provision.

Estonian logistics outsourcing market was found to be underdeveloped and small compared to the Finnish market. At the same time, the logistics costs of Finnish companies are high and rising, whereas the costs of Estonian firms are declining.

The results imply that the level of outsourcing might explain the visibility of logistics costs, which should be taken into account when making estimates on logistics costs both at the firm as well as on country level.

Logistics sector is an important source of national competitiveness and employment. This research identifies subareas for the two countries on how to develop competitiveness through the logistics market.

This research provides a unique method to estimate the size of logistics outsourcing market in these two countries. It also represents as one of the rare works to provide multiyear comparison between countries in logistics costs.

Although life cycle costing (LCC) is well established in theory and practice, little is known about the conditions of its adoption and its impact on the achievement of cost-management goals. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the adoption and benefits of LCC.

The analyses are based on questionnaires collected from a survey of German firms.

The results demonstrate that the extent of LCC adoption is positively associated with the extent of guarantee and warranty costs, voluntary upfront and follow-up costs for ecological sustainability and the extent of target costing adoption. In contrast, the extent of LCC adoption is negatively associated with the amount of precursors and/or intermediates that are purchased. The results also demonstrate that firms perceive LCC to be beneficial for various aspects of cost management. Firms report that the greatest benefit of LCC is related to the identification of cost drivers.

This investigation provides a starting point for future studies of the conditions of LCC adoption and the benefits of LCC. This study is subject to limitations, particularly with respect to the operationalization of our independent variables, the number of contextual variables and the general limitations of survey research.

The results inform practitioners of the situations in which it is most appropriate to adopt LCC. In addition, this study identifies various cost-management goals that are supported by the use of LCC.

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the conditions of LCC adoption and advances the literature regarding the impact of LCC on the achievement of cost-management goals. Furthermore, this study provides a starting point for future research into the implementation of LCC and the effects of LCC on management accounting practices.