Cost Complexity in Management

ACCT-322 Management Accounting

Task

At a recent meeting, a manager expressed the view that the term ‘cost’ seems to have so many meanings and nuances that managers faced with reporting and/or managing costs and/or budgets, and/or making financial decisions are invariably challenged to make sense of matters.

Required:

Critique and comment on the manager’s statement. In so doing provide illustrations and examples to illustrate your critique and commentary. You may use numerical illustrations and examples if you so wish. You should use no more than 2,000 words for your commentary. You may use fewer words if you wish to.

Note: included within the marks for this Requirement there is an additional allocation of 10 marks reflecting academic judgement applied by the marker/assessor, based on the marker/assessor’s perception of logic, rationale, thrust, and communication. The composition is on a scale of 10: where 10 = superb; 9 = excellent; 8 = very good; 7 = good throughout the answer; 6 = good in parts of the answer; 5 = some merit/goes in the right direction; 4 = some merit but needs improvement; 3 = lacking in conviction; 2 = inadequate in many places; 1 = inadequate in too many places.

How your work is assessed Within this assessment you may be assessed on the following aspects, as applicable and appropriate to this assessment, and should thus consider these aspects when fulfilling the requirements of each section:

The accuracy of any calculations required.
The strengths and quality of your overall analysis and evaluation;
Appropriate use of relevant theoretical models, concepts and frameworks;
The rationale and evidence that you provide in support of your arguments;
The credibility and viability of the evidenced conclusions/recommendations/plans of action you put forward;
Structure and coherence of your considerations and reports;
Appropriate and relevant use of, as and where relevant and appropriate, real world examples, academic materials and referenced sources. Any references should use a consistent referencing system e.g. Harvard, APA or Vancouver.
Academic judgement regarding the blend of scope, thrust and communication of ideas, contentions, evidence, knowledge, arguments, conclusions.