Accounting for Decision Making and Control

• Main Author: Zimmerman, Jerold L. 1947- (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, MA McGraw -Hill/Irwin 2003; ©2003
• Edition: Fourth Edition
• Subjects: Managerial accounting
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Item Description: Various multi-media instructional materials are available to supplement the text.
• Physical Description: xx, 764 pages illustrations 26 cm
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• ISBN: 0072501790; 9780072501797; 0071199152

This book differs from other managerial accounting texts in several ways. The most important difference is that it offers a conceptual framework for the study of managerial accounting. This book relies on opportunity cost and organizational architecture theory as the underlying framework to organize the analysis. Oppor- tunity cost is the conceptual foundation underlying decision making. While accounting-based costs are not opportunity costs, in some circumstances account- ing costs provide a starting point to estimate opportunity costs. The theory of or- ganizations provides the conceptual foundation to understand how accounting is employed as part of the organization's control mechanism. These two concepts, opportunity costs and organization theory, provide the framework and illustrate the trade-offs created when accounting systems serve both functions: decision making and control.