Understanding cost differences in the public sector—a cost drivers approach

Estimation of cost causality has always been an important part of the accountant’s work. This includes the identification, classification and estimation of factors causing a change in the total cost of a related cost object. In the recent literature these factors are called cost drivers. Different approaches and conceptual frameworks for understanding cost causality are found in the economics, strategy and accounting literature. This paper examines different cost driver approaches in a public sector setting. The study is based on data from primary and secondary schools in the four largest cities in Norway. The findings show that a strategic management accounting approach provides a framework for selecting a broader set of explanatory variables than the traditional cost estimation literature. This set includes product attributes, institutional factors and government policy as cost drivers in the public sector.     

Management accounting in Europe: a view from Canada

On the basis of a reading ofManagement Accounting: European Perspectivesedited by Al Bhimani (1996) there appears to be no historical pan-European perspective on management accounting. However, following the advent of the relevance lost and strategic cost management movements, and especially activity-based costing, there does seem to be emerging a certain homogeneity in European management accounting practices. This commentary questions the intellectual and practical basis for these movements and activity-based costing. It also identifies some of the particular achievements of European management accounting researchers which are not covered in the book.     

供应链成本管理:发展过程与理论结构

文章分析了供应链管理和供应链成本管理的发展过程和基本动因,认为供应链成本管理体现了成本控制在时间和空间上的拓展,其基本结构包括作业优化和关系协调两个维度,其内容则涵盖了直接材料成本、作业成本和交易成本,体现了供应链成员之间合作竞争的跨组织控制思想。     

航天军工单位项目成本和价格管理优化的思考

通过调研航天军工单位近年来科研项目计价和成本管理存在的问题,提出应进一步研究政策、完善制度,同时采用多元化的成本补偿方式和多种分类计价模式,注重战略管理,实现价值链分析与作业成本管理的融合。另外,采用能够对项目成本、进度进行综合控制的挣值法进行科研项目成本控制和绩效度量。     

基于作业的商业银行操作风险管理框架:实践者的视角

对无处不在的操作风险进行准确有效的界定、衡量和控制一直是商业银行没能很好解决的问题,原因之一是没能建立一个强有力的风险管理框架。本文从流程管理的角度提出了基于作业的操作风险管理框架(ABORM)。该框架将流程中的“作业”作为银行的基本业务单位,以作业为基础来寻找、确认操作风险驱动因素,进而构建(关键作业,风险动因)组合群。操作风险的衡量和控制都是在这些组合的基础上实现。基于作业的操作风险管理框架能够解决或回答操作风险管理中实践者关心的主要问题,具有较好的有效性和可操作性。     

Business risk perspectives on information systems outsourcing

Information systems (IS) outsourcing research has continued to evolve over the past decade to reflect changes in its practice and a deeper understanding of its business impact. Typically, the drivers of outsourcing decisions are both internal and external to the outsourcing organization and have been the basis for such studies. Since IS essentially represents an organization's implementation of its business processes, this paper approaches IS outsourcing by explicitly integrating issues related to business process outsourcing. The resulting business risk management framework provides a basis for effective IS outsourcing. The framework is further discussed within the context of outsourcing in e-business. By adopting a risk management perspective, this paper provides a strategic direction to further the field of IS outsourcing research.     

Assessing the interaction effect of cost control systems and information technology integration on manufacturing plant financial performance

The interface between management control and information technology is an under-developed research area with a knowledge gap concerning its implications for financial performance. This study contributes to bridging this gap by investigating the interaction effect of cost control systems and information technology integration on manufacturing plant financial performance. We surveyed a sample of 518 managers of U.S. manufacturing plants, approximately evenly distributed between those using activity-based costing and volume-based costing. Using hierarchical regression analyses, results indicate that while information technology integration and cost control systems do not provide significant independent effects on plant financial performance, they do interact to positively impact manufacturing plant financial performance. Thus, our findings suggest that manufacturing plants will reap the greatest financial performance benefits from investments in activity-based cost control systems when combined with information technology integration.     

Voluntary Auditing: A Synthesis of the Literature

Voluntary auditing has received increased attention from researchers in recent decades. Empirical studies that have examined demand for voluntary audits have suggested that regulatory intervention may not always be necessary, though some argue that regulators protect society from market failure by demanding statutory audits [Barton, J., & Waymire, G. (2004). Investor protection under unregulated financial reporting. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 38, 65–116]. To date, there has been no review of the literature on determinants of voluntary audits. I provide a research framework to categorize the attributes that affect demand for voluntary audits and identify areas that need further examination. While the given compact body of literature has served different purposes, two major reasons for voluntary auditing are apparent: the importance of audited financial statements to lenders and the intention to further deregulate audits for smaller companies to relieve cost burdens. However, I contribute to the auditing literature by identifying the main attributes associated with the demand for voluntary audit. In doing so, I develop a framework consisting of firm attributes, separation of ownership and control attributes, agency relationship attributes, management attributes, and signalling attributes.     

Cost Management in Sri Lanka: A Case Study on Volume,Activity and Time as Cost Drivers

Despite its theoretical superiority, the activity-based costing (ABC) model has had only moderate success in replacing the traditional volume-based absorption costing models in complex organizations worldwide. Even in organizations that have launched ABC projects, the implementations often do not sustain. In response to this general lack of enthusiasm worldwide for ABC, accountants developed the time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) model as an alternative cost allocation model. This paper presents a comparison of the TDABC model with ABC, and considers if this alternative cost allocation model (1) is easier to implement from an international perspective and (2) provides comparable cost information for decision making. We use a case study in a country outside the model's country of origin to understand the similarities and differences in absorption costing systems that use ‘volume,’ ‘activities,’ and ‘time’ as the drivers of indirect cost allocations. We also use the case study to ascertain if any country‐specific factors impede ABC implementation. We conclude the following: the TDABC model has similar implementation complexities to ABC if modelling conditions are strictly adhered to; these complexities are independent of country‐specific factors; and in its simplest form, the model generates the same decision information errors of traditional costing.     

Environmental management accounting in local government: Functional and institutional imperatives

The challenge of using environmental management accounting (EMA) tools such as full‐cost accounting to improve waste and recycling management has been acknowledged for over a decade. However, research on assessing and understanding local government use of EMA, especially broader levels of EMA, is lacking. This study investigates the link between the nature and drivers of EMA practice for waste and recycling services based on a survey conducted with local governments in New South Wales, Australia. The study finds that although social and organisational factors are related to the uptake of EMA, local governments are subject to stronger functional demands than institutional pressures in their use of more expansive EMA such as indirect and external costs and impacts. This implies that the use of EMA in local government is viewed more as an adaptive activity to cope with functional challenges and achieve efficiency, than as an institutional imperative to achieve social acceptance.     

Technology,Productivity and Public Policy*

The poor productivity performance of the UK and the EU when compared with the US has been a major driver of policy reforms over the past decade. This paper considers what the evidence suggests about why we have lagged behind the US, considering among other factors the importance of globalisation and outsourcing, the role for public policy intervention and what the key drivers of growth are likely to be for the future.     

Extending corporate accountability: A survey and framework for analysis

This paper has three objectives: to review the state of the art with regard to the literature on corporate internal audit activities; to report on a research study of recent developments in the scope and organization of the internal audit function in major companies in U.S.A.; and to propose an analytical framework which may be used in future research to describe the scope, procedures and responsibilities of the corporate internal audit function. Although there appears to be some confusion in the extant literature regarding the definition and scope of certain internal audit efforts, this research provides new evidence that major U.S. companies are engaging in unprecedented experiments into the use of auditing as a tool for enforcing management and social accountability. This is a movement away from the traditional financial audit which is frequently assumed to fully circumscribe the internal audit function. The implications for implementing heightened standards of corporate accountability should be of interest to audit committees of boards of directors, corporate management, investors, consumers, and future researchers.     

Examine ERP post-implementation stages of use and value: Empirical evidence from Portuguese SMEs

There is a great interest among researchers and practitioners in accounting information systems (AIS) value. This is particularly important in cases of systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP). This paper empirically measures and analyses the determinants of ERP use and value in a single framework, as well as provides empirical evidence from Portuguese small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon theories on the process and contexts of information technology (IT) we postulate nine hypotheses. Used the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework to hypothesize how compatibility, complexity, efficiency, best-practices, training, and competitive pressure explain ERP use. Based on the resource-based view (RBV) theory we hypothesize how ERP use, collaboration and analytics explain ERP value, and its potential contribution for the nature of management control and accounting information systems on Portuguese SMEs. Through structural equation modeling, a data set of 134 web-surveyed firms is used to test the hypotheses. Our empirical analysis leads to six main findings: 1) compatibility, complexity, best-practices, and efficiency are more important determinants for ERP use as well as training and competitive pressure, suggesting that technological, organizational and environmental characteristics are the main drivers of ERP use among Portuguese SMEs. 2) Similarly, collaboration and analytics are more important for ERP value upon use, suggesting that system capability characteristics are the main drivers of ERP value. 3) ERP value benefits from system enhancements to firms' business processes in the post-implementation phases. 4) For Portuguese SMEs the mostly valued metric attained through ERP is management control. 5) Impelled by legislation, Portuguese SMEs are using ERP as the accounting system for management, financial and tax accounting. 6) Portuguese SMEs invest more than 70% of their annual IT budget to ERP use. Together, these findings offer insights into how Portuguese SMEs use and extract value from ERP, and how enhancements positively impact the system's value. Unlike the typical focus on ERP adoption described in the literature, this research focuses on the post-implementation phase, linking actual use with value creation, adding an empirical study to the AIS literature.     

The relationship between product diversity, usage of advanced manufacturing technologies and activity-based costing adoption

This paper examines the associations between product diversity, usage of advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) and activity-based costing (ABC) adoption. Theory strongly suggests that product diversity is a major determinant of the demand for ABC systems. To date, the results of empirical research on the relationship between product diversity and ABC adoption have generally been inconclusive, however, suggesting that there either may be no strong relationship, or that methodological issues may have prevented researchers from consistently finding it. Using a dataset of survey responses from 191 Dutch, medium-sized manufacturing firms, this paper re-examines the relationship between product diversity and ABC adoption. Improving upon the measurement of product diversity and distinguishing between ABC adoption and use, it examines whether the relationship is curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) and/or moderated by usage of AMT. The paper contributes to the literature by showing that, consistent with the underlying theory, product diversity, on average, is positively related to both ABC adoption and ABC use, but also that these relationships are indeed inverted U-shaped and that the relationship with ABC use is negatively moderated by usage of AMT.     

The end stage of a financial service product

This paper considers product elimination in the financial services sector. Specifically it identifies the factors that cause an organisation to question the viability of a product — a key element of effective end-stage product management. A questionnaire was mailed to 196 individuals with experience of product elimination in retail banks, building societies and retail insurance organisations. Fifty-six usable questionnaires were returned. It was found that there were 32 key drivers of product elimination. These were grouped into eight interrelated areas: product led; strategic led; customer led; cost led; information technology led; operational led; personnel led; and externally led. It was also found that there were three functional conditions characterising the nature of the drivers: an elimination driver seldom appears without warning; the organisation generates the majority of reasons for product removal; the causes of elimination tend to reflect the overall operating context of the business. It is concluded that focusing on past elimination may not be helpful in predicting future requirements. Effective product elimination requires that organisations are able to identify drivers and be willing to act upon them. Many drivers are within the organisations' control and it is often the action (or inaction) of the organisation that creates the need for elimination.     

作业成本法在高校教育成本核算中的应用研究——基于某高校成本核算的实例分析

本文根据我国高等学校进行教育成本核算与管理的必要性,在阐明高等学校教育成本概念基础上,根据高校费用开支核算现状及其特点,应用作业成本法对某高校的教育成本进行了核算与论证。     

Management accounting and integrated information systems: A literature review

In order to further advance research within management accounting and integrated information systems (IIS), an understanding of what research has already been done and what research is needed is of particular importance. The purpose of this paper is to uncover, classify and interpret current research within management accounting and IIS. This is done partly to identify research gaps and propose directions for future research and partly to guide researchers and practitioners investigating and making decisions on how to better synthesise the two areas. Based on the strengths of existing frameworks covering elements of management accounting and IIS a new and more comprehensive theoretical framework is developed. This is used as a basis for classifying and presentation of the reviewed literature in structured form. The outcome of the review is an identification of research gaps and a proposal of research opportunities within different research paradigms and with the use of different methods.     

How multi-sourcing can influence management control: Case study evidence from the electronic products supply chain

This study investigates how multi-sourcing can influence the use of management controls in the presence of varying buyer-supplier power dependencies. Multi-sourcing is an interorganizational design choice that can help buyers collect valuable information to facilitate cost and performance comparisons across multiple sources of supply. We leverage prior research to develop a conceptual framework that highlights how multi-sourcing can enable buyers to use cost management and performance management controls differently depending on the nature of buyer-supplier power dependencies. We then use case studies of three electronic product manufacturers to illustrate the framework, yielding empirically testable propositions regarding when multi-sourcing may enable cost management controls, performance management controls, and both types of control. The evidence demonstrates the importance of simultaneously considering multiple interorganizational design choices when studying management controls in supply chains. We also highlight how multi-sourcing may help supply chains promote non-financial goals, including those related to environmental and social activities.     

Managed Costs and the Capture of Information

As a result of a pilot study, it was concluded that valuable insight into the industrial application of management accounting principles would be gained by an in depth development of case studies. These would assist in understanding the compilation of knowledge within industrial practice; in return they might condition the future presentation of this knowledge and serve as a pointer to further research and its dissemination. Strong support for the development of case studies has been expressed recently by a number of prominent researchers who emphasise that, for certain purposes, suitably designed studies of this nature are a major means of making progress. The authors have compiled a set of thirteen studies principally dealing with industrial practice relating to cost behaviour analysis and transfer pricing, but covering a number of related issues. The paper outlines the methodology adopted and concentrates on three key areas of analysis: capture and creation of information, managed costs, and information monopolies. Results are illustrated through excerpts taken directly from the studies.     

Good decisions,bad decisions: the interaction of process and outcome in evaluations of decision quality

Process‐based considerations are generally accepted by experts and analysts as being the fundamental drivers of decision quality. However, little work has been done to account for the role of a risk management decision’s outcome as a key driver of the public judgments about decision quality. To this end, the objective of the research reported here was straightforward to determine – via an experiment – the relative importance of decision‐making process and the associated outcome in lay evaluations of decision quality. Our results demonstrate that people seem to have a difficult time unpacking decision‐making processes, even ones they strongly prefer, from their associated outcomes when evaluating decision quality. From a practical standpoint, our results cast doubt on the generally accepted belief that participatory and deliberative decision‐making processes (e.g., for risk management) will – on their own – contribute to positive evaluations of decision quality.