Strategic Cost Analysis [antikvár]

Introduction 'if I î This book represents a new emphasis in managerial accounting. It is based on the premise that managerial accounting must explicitly consider strategic issues and concerns. We believe that the incorporation of strategic concerns into cost analysis represents a very natural, overdue extension of managerial accounting which itself only became popular about 30 years ago (Anthony 1956; Horngren 1962). Historically, managerial accounting replaced cost accounting as a framework for decision making by demonstrating that the cost accounting framework lacked decision relevance. The cost accounting framework of the 1940s failed to take into account the decision analytic framework that had become popular in the 1950s. In the past decade, there has been a dramatic extension of decision analysis to take explicit account of strategic issues. During the past 15 years, several books (Henderson 1979; Porter 1980) and dozens of articles (e.g., Buzzell et al. 1975; Hambrick 1981; Snow and Hrebiniak 1975) have been published in the field of strategic management. In addition, two new journals {Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Business Strategy) have been introduced in the strategy area during the past 10 years. Also, traditional management journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Academy of Management Review have, during the past decade, started to regularly publish articles on strategic analysis. It is now time for management thinking about cost analysis to move forward again and to incorporate this newly enriched decision analysis paradigm. Strategic accounting will supplant managerial accounting as a framework for supporting decision making by demonstrating that managerial accounting lacks strategic relevance. The major purpose of this book is to encourage managerial accountants and accounting educators to begin actively presenting cost analysis in the broader strategic context. The timing of this book couldn't have been better. During the past year, several academics as well as practitioners have highlighted the serious shortcomings of the prevailing costing systems in American corporations and have asserted that management accounting is part of the problem in American industry today rather than part of the solution: IX