Cost Management and Its Interplay with Business Strategy and Context

The book has something for everyone interested in cost management systems. It provides in-depth descriptions of five well know and named companies as they strove to improve their competitive positions over a period of 10 years and what part recent developments in cost management (e.g. ABC, COQ, Theory of constraints, Target costing) played in those processes. It develops and tests a theory which specifies under what broad circumstance companies have tended to adopt a different cost management orientation and concludes with some insights into the way the use of such cost management tools evolves. The book is, therefore, of interest to managers and accountants reflecting upon the state of the strategic orientation of their own organisations, how links with their cost management practices, and how their own systems can be 'benchmarked' against the systems described for the five companies selected. All five of which were chosen because of their reputation for being leading edge in at least some aspect of financial control. The book is of value to both university and professional accounting students studying management accounting. For academic teachers and researchers, the book attempts to provide a theoretical basis for design of cost management systems.