Finance and Accounting for Managerial Competitiveness

Organizational strategies are important in today's highly competitive environments. Businesses, as well as public sector organizations, need a unifying logic, which emerges out of dialogue among its members and also guides their actions. An organization's 'control system' has potential to become a key to this. Controlling for Competitiveness describes how management control is crucial in mobilizing, using, and communicating the knowledge and skills of managers and employees. Controllers should design situation-specific control systems, assuring that actions will be based on appropriate information and incentives. Enterprise systems facilitate coordination and information exchange, thus enabling the development of a consistent and congruent strategy throughout the organization. The involvement of all levels of management - as well as most employees - in this process creates motivation and commitment to the organization's strategy. It also prepares for executing strategy through a creative use of metrics, decision tools, and clarified responsibilities. The book underlines the need to understand management control as part of the organization's control mix (control package). It provides numerous examples of how systems and people interact in shaping a strategic focus in private as well as publicly-owned organizations. In addition to the authors' research experiences, the book is based on recent interviews with 16 leading complex organizations in the private and public sector.

With an emphasis on global advantage, the text offers a comprehensive examination of regional and international issues to provide a complete, accurate and up-to-date explanation of the strategic management process. New coverage on environmental concerns and emerging technologies as well as examples and cases from Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific serve to engage students while updated international content demonstrates how strategic management is used in the global economy. The text takes a 'resource-based' approach, which requires the examining of a firm's unique bundling of its internal resources. This text is appropriate for upper-level undergrad, usually third year; post grad in Masters courses.

Current management accounting techniques have not been widely accepted as a means to develop a competitive advantage. The information obtained from the literature reviewed and the results from an empirical study that involved a sample of forty respondents from Equity Bank found that the modern management accounting practices provide very important skills and techniques in building competitiveness. The practices play an important role in the planning, developing, implementing and evaluating strategic competitive policies that result in a competitive advantage. The study outlines the importance of management accounting practices in providing strategies that lead to the creation of a competitive advantage in an organisation. However, the conclusions are drawn on a conceptual level and a future empirical investigation is needed to ubstantiate these claims further. The study also sets a foundation for more focused research into the importance of modern management accounting practices in developing a competitive advantage especially in the banking sector.

This four-volume-set (CCIS 208, 209, 210, 211) constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Symposium on Applied Economics, Business and Development, ISAEBD 2011, held in Dalian, China, in August 2011. The papers address issues related to Applied Economics, Business and Development and cover various research areas including Economics, Management, Education and its Applications.

Digital Technology and Changing Roles in Managerial and Financial Accounting explores the profound impact of digital technology on the accounting profession.

In recent years policy makers and scientists have become increasingly interested in the economics of science, and in particular in the relationship between accounting and science. This book, originally published as a special issue of the journal Science in Context , provides a truly interdisciplinary approach to this subject. The contributors explore, in a number of different ways, the constitutive role that practices of economic calculation play in the conduct of science and the forms of economic life within which science is embedded. Challenging conventional views, they suggest that if scientific and accounting practices are to be properly understood, they must be studied in relation to a complex background of specialist communities, funding institutions and demands for public accountability. This book will be invaluable for scholars and policy makers working in the field.

The Handbook of International Financial Management brings together a wide range of topical expertise on issues of immediate relevance to finance directors, bankers, advisers and consultants with the support of a powerful editorial board representing international financial institutions. The book is divided into 6 parts. The first looks at the world scene in which international finance is operated, the second at capital structures and financing, part 3, insurance and compensation trading. Part 4 covers investment appraisal and corporate financial policies, followed by an assessment of risks involved in part 5. The final section deals with international tax planning.