...implementation of SMA or SMA techniques are reviewed. As well as assessing the extent of adoption of SMA and the reasons underlying an apparent low adoption rate, the role of accountants in adopting and implementing SMA is considered. Finally, the success or otherwise of SMA is discussed. Findings – SMA or SMA techniques have not been adopted widely, nor is the term SMA widely understood or used. However, aspects of SMA have had an impact, influencing the thinking and language of business, and the way in which we undertake various business processes. These issues cut across the wider domain of management, and are not just the province of management accountants. Research limitations/implications – There is limited value in conducting future surveys of the adoption and implementation of SMA or SMA techniques. Rather, the focus should be on how SMA-inspired techniques and processes diffuse into general practice within organizations. Originality/value – Twenty-five years after the term strategic management accounting was first introduced in the literature, this paper brings together disparate literature and provides a broad assessment of the “state-of-the-art” of strategic management accounting to inform researchers and practitioners. Keywords Strategic management, Accounting, Activity based...
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...Isa becoming more and more popular [3-7] ABC aims to provide accurate costing information to managers to allocate activity costs to products and services by applying cost drivers [8]. Academics who advocate ABC, such as, Cooper and Kaplan [9], and Swenson [10] argue that it provides more accurate cost data needed to make appropriate strategic decisions about product mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of business process performance. These claims have led many firms to adopt ABC systems [8]. The benefits of ABC and its positive impact on firm’s performance motivated a numerous studies which examined various aspects of ABC. Among such studies are McGowan [11] who assessed the integrity of ABC success, Innes and Mitchell [4, 12] and Yanren [13] who conducted research on factors affecting ABC adoption, and Shield [3], Shields and McEwen [14], Gosselin [15] and Baired et al.[16, 17]who concentrated on factors influencing ABC success especially at the implementation stage. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests most of firms are experiencing problems in implementing ABC and, in some extreme cases, ABC implementation is not successful [3], which later resulted in abandoning the ABC systems altogether [15]. Questions arise as to why ABC implementation is successful in certain companies and fails in others. Based on the contingency theory, researchers have argued that the reasons for different degrees of ABC success could be due to the different contextual...
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...Isa becoming more and more popular [3-7] ABC aims to provide accurate costing information to managers to allocate activity costs to products and services by applying cost drivers [8]. Academics who advocate ABC, such as, Cooper and Kaplan [9], and Swenson [10] argue that it provides more accurate cost data needed to make appropriate strategic decisions about product mix, sourcing, pricing, process improvement, and evaluation of business process performance. These claims have led many firms to adopt ABC systems [8]. The benefits of ABC and its positive impact on firm’s performance motivated a numerous studies which examined various aspects of ABC. Among such studies are McGowan [11] who assessed the integrity of ABC success, Innes and Mitchell [4, 12] and Yanren [13] who conducted research on factors affecting ABC adoption, and Shield [3], Shields and McEwen [14], Gosselin [15] and Baired et al.[16, 17]who concentrated on factors influencing ABC success especially at the implementation stage. However, there is mounting evidence that suggests most of firms are experiencing problems in implementing ABC and, in some extreme cases, ABC implementation is not successful [3], which later resulted in abandoning the ABC systems altogether [15]. Questions arise as to why ABC implementation is successful in certain companies and fails in others. Based on the contingency theory, researchers have argued that the reasons for different degrees of ABC success could be due to the different contextual...
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...and sales activities, so as to maintain and develop sales of SNP's ABC machinery range to UK major accounts and specifiers, in accordance with agreed business plans. Key responsibilities and accountabilities: 1. Maintain and develop a computerised customer and prospect database. 2. Plan and carry out direct marketing activities (principally direct mail) to agreed budgets, sales volumes, values, product mix and timescales. 3. Develop ideas and create offers for direct mail and marketing to major accounts by main market sector and SNP's ABC products. 4. Respond to and follow up sales enquiries by post, telephone, and personal visits. 5. Maintain and develop existing and new customers through planned individual account support, and liaison with internal order-processing staff. 6. Monitor and report on activities and provide relevant management information. 7. Carry out market research, competitor and customer surveys. 8. Maintain and report on equipment and software suitability for direct marketing and sales reporting purposes. 9. Liaise and attend meetings with other company functions necessary to perform duties and aid business and organisational development. 10. Manage the external marketing agency activities of telemarketing and research. 11. Attend training and to develop relevant knowledge and skills. Scale and territory indicators: Core product range of four ABC machines price range £50 to £250. Target sectors: All major multiple-site...
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...University of Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia and School of Accounting, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and Management accounting innovations 505 Zahirul Hoque School of Accounting, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Abstract Purpose – The purpose of paper is to present a review of the literature on management accounting innovations (MAIs). Specifically, it explores recent developments in research on MAIs and offers suggestions for future research. The review differs from existing reviews by its specific focus on MAIs and the recent time period covered. In this paper, MAIs refer to the adoption of “newer” or modern forms of management accounting systems such as activity-based costing (ABC), activity-based management, time-driven ABC, target costing, and balanced scorecards. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a review of findings from journal articles published in 22 notable accounting journals. Findings – The review finds that research on MAIs has intensified during the period 2000-2008, with the main focus on exploring the extent to which a host of organizational and environmental factors influence the implementation and use of MAIs in organizations. In addition, research on MAIs indicates the dominant use of sociological theories and increasing use of empirical/field studies. Research limitations/implications – A literature review using a given set of accounting journals and search words used to identify relevant articles may overlook...
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...Customer Satisfaction Surveys A White Paper by Paul Hague and Nick Hague of B2B International E-mail Web Blog info@b2binternational.com www.b2binternational.com www.b2binternational.com/b2b-blog/ WHY CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS SO IMPORTANT It seems self evident that companies should try to satisfy their customers. Satisfied customers usually return and buy more, they tell other people about their experiences, and they may well pay a premium for the privilege of doing business with a supplier they trust. Statistics are bandied around that suggest that the cost of keeping a customer is only one tenth of winning a new one. Therefore, when we win a customer, we should hang on to them. Why is it that we can think of more examples of companies failing to satisfy us rather than when we have been satisfied? There could be a number of reasons for this. When we buy a product or service, we expect it to be right. We don’t jump up and down with glee saying “isn’t it wonderful, it actually worked”. That is what we paid our money for. Add to this our world of ever exacting standards. We now have products available to us that would astound our great grandparents and yet we quickly become used to them. The bar is getting higher and higher. At the same time our lives are ever more complicated with higher stress levels. Delighting customers and achieving high customer satisfaction scores in this environment is ever more difficult. And even if your customers are completely satisfied with...
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...Africa) Activity based costing (ABC) in the public sector: benefits and challenges Abstract Peter Drucker (1986), in “Management: Tasks, responsibilities, and practices” states that business enterprises and public-service institutions, are organs of society which do not exist for their own sake, but to fulfil a specific social purpose and to satisfy need of society, community, or individual. To achieve the above objectives, managers of these institutions must plan, control and make decisions about the resources entrusted to their care. A key element of efficient organizational decision making is to use reliable information, both operational and managerial accounting data for analysis and decision support. This can be achieved by using activity-based costing (ABC) method. The underlying premise of ABC is that resources are consumed by activities to produce outputs or products and services (US General Services Administration, 2006). It focuses on the allocation of indirect costs to products and services, which was traditionally done on arbitrary basis. ABC is useful in two situations: areas with large and growing indirect and support costs (Krumwiede, 1998a; Becker, Bergener and Räckers, 2010), and areas with a large variety in products, customers and processes (Cooper, 1988a, 1988b; Groot, 1999). The unique characteristic of public sector organizations as overhead-intensive service entities, therefore, is amenable to the use of ABC methodology (Becker, Bergener, and...
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...options for growth. Each can then be assessed using for example a 5 Forces analysis to rank them for attractiveness. But there are also other issues to consider particularly ‘risk’. Risk vs Uncertainty Risk implies that the probability of outcomes can be usefully quantified...there is a 10% chance of rain today Uncertainty implies that whether the outcome is possible is unknown and thus the risk cannot be quantified.....the policies of the next government are uncertain Country|Price(s) ||||| Mexico|0.89|0.7|1.07|1.08|1.11| Indonesia|0.63|0.58|0.73||| Germany|1.53|1.46|||| Switzerland|2.88||||| Russia|0.6||||| Lebanon|0.88||||| UK|1.4|1.85|1.79|1.5|1.3| China|0.64||||| Singapore|1.4||||| India|0.91|0.92|||| Spain|1.5||||| Thailand|0.81|0.8|||| Ghana|2.5||||| Romania|1.19||||| Philippines|0.91||||| Average|1.24||||| Magnum Price Survey 2015 Bayesian (Statistics) Thinking A 10% chance of a profit of 1m is worth 100,000. Which would you go for: (1) a 45% chance of winning 1000 with (2) a 75% chance of winning 600. The investment needed for(1) is 250 and for (2) 150. (1) 1000x0.45-250=200 (2) 600x.75-150=300 A Merger Example If A&B merge potential cost savings p.a. are 100m on combined turnovers of 2000m. Can you evaluate the acquisition? 50% chance of success of savings =50m, the maximum premium you should pay Product|...
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...development of the industry Time 17th 18th 19th 20th 21th What happened? • Pamphlets • First daily • The “golden • Newspapers • Decline of newspapers age” of have the industry newspapers emerged all over the country • News sheets • Sunday papers • First Ads • The format of papers changed • Decline of the industry • Online newspapers become more popular • Posters What the future may hold? Source Data: provided ABC What the future may hold? • It is estimated that newspaper market declined in 2007-2008 with 21% (Source OECD, 2010) What the future may hold? It is apparent that newspapers will no longer be in the format we are all used to seeing, as a hard copy; Hard copies will be replaced by online versions as a way for the industry to cope with the new technologies. What are the opportunities for a mediumsized player? Time spend on newspaper reading in the UK(2008) No time at all 32,3% Less than 0,5 hour 23,0% 0,5 hour to 1 hour 26,3 % More than 1 hour 18,3% Source: European Social Survey, 2008 (age 15+) What are the opportunities for a mediumsized player? • There is little to no room for a medium side player to join this kind of business because: - the target market is small - people prefer modern media instead of newspapers - the market is already occupied by big brand newspapers References Keynote market research reports: 1. Newspapers...
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...Bristol WP No. 04/06 October 2004 Address for correspondence: Magdy Abdel-Kader Department of Accounting, Finance and Management University of Essex Colchester Essex CO4 3SQ UK E-mail: mabdel@essex.ac.uk 1 An Empirical Investigation of the Evolution of Management Accounting Practices Magdy Abdel-Kadera and Robert Lutherb a: Department of Accounting, Finance and Management, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ (Correspondence address) b: Bristol Business School, U.W.E., Bristol, BS16 1QY The authors are grateful for the constructive comments of participants at the EIASM conference on New Directions in Management Accounting: Innovations in Practice and Research, December 2002, Brussels. Financial support from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants is acknowledged with gratitude. 2 An Empirical Investigation of the Evolution of Management Accounting Practices Abstract This paper investigates and reports on the status of management accounting practices in UK industry. The analysis operationalises the IFAC statement on Management Accounting Concepts and its description of the evolution of management accounting. The results, based on responses from 123 practising management accountants, suggest that the management accounting employed in many UK industrial companies is not particularly sophisticated. Budgeting, product profitability and financial performance measurement remain the central pillars and some of the newer management...
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...the Eye of the Beholder Abstract The literature on Activity Based Costing (ABC) tends to define the ‘success’ of an ABC system in relation to the decision-making and strategy formulating opportunities it provides based on the ‘logic’ or technical attributes of ABC (Shields, 1995; Malmi, 1997). This paper argues that there is a logic of ABC and tries to identify and illustrate how people relate to, misunderstand and still ‘appropriate’ this logic and start “talking accounting”. This paper shows that the ABC system implemented in this organisation did indeed provide information for decision-making and did to some extent support the logic of ABC. The paper also shows how this knowledge was emergent, the logic was articulated, but not fully understood and it was only when the system was implemented that many attributes of the system were recognised and, in some cases misunderstood. The paper argues that the ‘success’ of this particular ABC system was dependent on the organisational context, and the changing context as well as the logic. This is reflected in the change in attitudes, awareness and understanding of costs in the department where it was implemented. Key words: Activity Based Costing, financial services, and organisational change. 2 Introduction This paper examines the introduction of an Activity Based Costing (ABC) system in a UK Clearing Bank. The development and implementation of the ABC system is traced...
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...(1999) as cited in Millward & Lewis (2005) identified the difference of new product development in US and UK. The report stated that US companies tend to be more focused, choosing fewer products to develop. They urgent to release new product faster. Thus, the development times are shorter. The US companies release more than 50 per cent of their intended new products, while UK companies only release15 per cent. The failure rates for new products sometimes high. But they can improve through the process. Every organization has different performances of new product development because of socio-cultural and organizational factors (Peters et al., 1999). Every company was unique. They have different requirements of the process of new product development. The company should adjust the general of new product development framework to meet their own requirements. 2.2 Product Development Process in Small Medium...
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...DISSERTATION PROPOSAL The Impact of Foreign Share Ownership on Financial Performance in Australia Word Count: 2,696 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 5 2.1 2.2 3. 4. Corporate Governance in Australia ............................................................................. 5 Ownership Structure and Financial Performance........................................................ 6 Hypothesis .......................................................................................................................... 8 Methodology....................................................................................................................... 8 4.1 4.2 Model Design .............................................................................................................. 9 Sample ....................................................................................................................... 10 5. 6. References ........................................................................................................................ 11 Appendix .......................................................................................................................... 14 6.1 6.2 Structure .................
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...What is a report? A report ‘reports’ on something in a concise, formal way using clearly defined sections presented in a standard format, which tell the reader what you did, why and how you did it and what you found. It is the formal writing up of a practical experiment, project or research investigation. A report is written in a way which presumes that the reader knows nothing about your experiment or research. It is usually written more concisely than an essay, with headings and sub-headings and perhaps bullet-point recommendations, etc. A research report must be written in sufficient detail so that someone reading it would be able to replicate your research exactly. It usually contains arguments and critical evaluation to support a proposed course of action, or to evaluate a business issue. BEFORE YOU START WRITING… • Firstly, check with your lecturer and the module handbook for precise instructions, i.e. the prescribed report structure, word count, deadline. All UHBS reports are module and assignment specific, so this guide only gives a very general idea of structure and content. • Be very detail minded. All UHBS reports will require accurate referencing, good clear English, professional presentation, i.e. clear structure, coherent, free of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors. • If you are compiling a group report, assign roles. One person in the group could be assigned the role of ‘editor’ to finally ensure the report is put together...
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...Question 1: Briefly describe the main features of the Australian labour market focusing on the issues of government regulations, role of the unions and immigration. Attempt to model the labour market in Australia using the economic model of demand and supply. In particular, demonstrate how you can incorporate in this model the issues of market segmentation according to the difference in workers’ skills as well as the impact of government regulations and immigration. Australia has a total population of approximately 23 million people, a labour force participation rate of 65.1% and an unemployment rate of 5.6% (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2013). The Australian labour market is subject to both government regulation and immigration, which in combination with Unions and differences in worker’s skills (or human capital) create issues of labour market segmentation (Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations 2013). Australian labour markets are highly regulated in terms of minimum wage laws (Garnaut, Ganguly & Kang 2003). This creates an unequal distribution of employment to those possessing high levels of human capital, when contrasted to employment of those with low human capital (Garnaut, Ganguly & Kang 2003). This is because minimum wage laws put a potentially binding wage floor on wages paid. Thus, when the labour supply increases for low skilled work; due to immigration or the incentive of minimum wage, the outcome can result in a labour surplus. This is due to...
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