Management Accounting (3rd Edition)

Author: Rajiv D. Banker
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2001-08-01
Features: This book is edited by four renowned management accountants: Atkinson, Banker, Kaplan, and Young, and it has the following characteristics:
(1) Novel content. A significant portion of the content consists of new theories, concepts, and methods developed after the 1980s to adapt to the needs of high technology, the information age, global competition, and centralized corporate power, such as activity-based costing, target costing, cost drivers, incentive systems, life-cycle cost accounting, quality costs, benchmarking, management accounting and control systems, and more.
(2) Comprehensive coverage. It includes topics covered in similar works while also offering breakthroughs. For example, it explores the use of financial controls to manage business operations, integrating human behavior considerations into the design of management accounting and control systems, and strategy.
(3) Emphasis on practicality. While emphasizing theory, it highlights practicality. First, the "In Practice" sections in each chapter create a strong, pragmatic atmosphere. Second, many topics are highly operational. Third, the case studies in the exercises are typical management accounting practices.
(4) High authority. First, all the authors are "big-name professors," with Robert S. Kaplan (Harvard Business School) being considered a master-level scholar. Second, some content is invented, discovered, or created by the authors themselves, with an authentic touch. For example, activity-based costing, activity-based management, and the balanced scorecard are all joint masterpieces of Robert S. Kaplan and others.